• What is the purpose of life? What is your purpose? My purpose?

    It’s a word that is as clichéd as it is important. And one I have wrestled with as much as it has inspired me.

    So often we talk of it as a thing, an ideal we must live up to, a definition we must clarify. And once we find it, then we can get on with living it.

    I don’t think it is a thing. A thing can be found. Like a rock or the village of Ingleton. A purpose as far as I can tell, cannot be found. It is not lying in wait, out of sight, just around the next insightful corner.

    It is an encounter, a posture, a potential, that calls forth what is within you, asking you to give it, to the world outside of you.

    Here’s one story of how I think it plays out…

    Your role in the great play

    Your purpose is to fill your role in the great theatre play of life.

    It is not pre-scripted.

    The great director will not judge your performance. He hasn’t given you lines to deliver like a talking mannequin. There is no correct script you must adhere to.

    But your role is pre-shaped.

    You have been given a name, and a nature. A flavour and a feel. A history and a possible future. You cannot change these contours of the soul.

    And so it is your task to live into your role, unfolding it as you play it. Discovering it as you act it out. Sinking into the original nature of your character as you improvise in the emerging story.

    You must play out the most mysterious of contradictions. Surrendering to the director’s instruction, and creating your own self-generated narratives. You must do both.

    Listen to the whispers

    The one’s that come from beyond you. The ones that are spoken by whatever we call that which is larger than ourselves. This is the director of the play, trying to give us hints and prompts.

    Can you become quiet enough to hear them?

    These directions are not always ones you want to listen to, or follow. They don’t simply lead toward freedom and applause, they lead to the facing of those things that all your addictions are designed to turn you away from. They lead toward the speech that you have the most difficulty uttering.

    And yet it is in those dark encounters that you will truly learn your own nature. The shadowy corners that when faced, lead around the bend, into an awesome and humbling new light.

    Write your own script

    What do you want to say?

    What course does your own heart want to chart?

    It’s up to you. It has not been laid out in some kosmic blueprint. Your chosen movements are not being pulled by some unseen puppet master. You have been given a role in the great improvisation. You have been given the rare gift of spontaneity.

    You must trust the will of your heart. The desire of your own character. How do you want the story to end? And how will you choose to unfold your own plot toward the possibility of that finale?

    The journey is not pre-written. The ending cannot be known before the curtain falls, if it ever does. The point, is not to adhere to what is supposed to happen, but rather to follow the movement of the unfolding story.

    It’s a surprising, twisting and turning discovery. A delightful step, that leads to a challenging leap, that becomes an embarrassing stumble, that recovers into another delightful step.

    And they are your steps to take.

    How will you play?

    You have not been given the lead-role – I’m sorry but you haven’t. You are not the star of the show. But rest assured that is not because you have been passed over for some more impressive performer. It is that there is no lead role. No chosen star.

    This is an ensemble piece. The greatest ever created. A great sprawling epic, played out on the world’s stage, with the most shocking of twists, and the most exquisite of resolutions.

    And no-one knows the ending. Not even the director.

    How will you play?

     

    Ewan Townhead

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  • Human beings have been trading stuff for an awfully long time. Some say for 150,000 years. It’s one of the biggest differentiators between us and the animals. It’s made our lives rich and cooperative.

    Here’s how it works…

    If one guy is great at making stone axes, and another guy is great at making wooden spears, then it helps everyone if they stick to their specialism, and swap stuff. In one sense, it’s simple math.

    Ug takes 1 day to make a stone axe. He’s good at it, because he’s practiced a lot.

    Stig takes 1 day to make a wooden spear. He has a natural way with the tree’s product.

    Ug never found the wooden thing easy, his fingers don’t work that way, so when he makes a wooden spear, it takes him 2 days. Stig is equally inept with stone axes. It just doesn’t bend the way his lovely wood does. It takes him 2 days to make one.

    Both of them need both tools.

    So if they are uncooperative and selfish, they simply make everything for themselves.

    1+2+1+2=6 days total work.

    However, if they stick to their specialisms, and Ug makes two stones axes, and Stig makes 2 wooden spears and they trade, then the calculation creates a different result.

    1+1+1+1=4 days total work.

    That’s two extra days created, one each, which they could use to make cave paintings, or practice their craft, or hunt more food, or hump Jane, or each other.

    Trade has become outrageously specialized in today’s world. We’ve gone way beyond spears and axes.

    What is your specialism?

    What can you do that no one else can do? Or what could you do, given enough hard work, that no-one else can?

    That’s what makes you special.

     

    Ewan Townhead

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  • There are those moments that happen, periods in our lives, when we reach a fork in the road.

    The wheel of life has revolved, and we’re faced with a choice. A momentous choice perhaps. We feel it, like a beckoning from the future, or an intolerance for the present.

    Something wants to change.

    “I don’t want to change. I like things how they are. It’s safe here, familiar.” The voice inside me says.

    The resistance spins its insidious web, telling me how dangerous it is to change. The ego clings to its notion of itself.

    “Maybe this is a distraction, and not really what I want.” the resistance whispers in my own voice.

    But I can tell it’s signifiant. It’s palpable somehow. I just know, I feel it.

    I’ve reached a turning point.

    *

    There are two choices.

    We can choose the change that presents itself, follow the new course, and discover the undiscovered.

    Or we choose normality and keep plodding along the highway of what we already know. The wheel of change keeps on turning, and the choice point is passed over.

    And in one sense, it doesn’t matter what we choose. Because even if we plump for normality, the wheel keeps on turning. And sooner or later it comes full circle and the choice point is presented anew.

    Except this time, the urgency has been increased. The volume level higher. The insistence harder to ignore, the status quo harder to rationalize.

    It will keep turning, returning to this point, until we choose what we’re asked to.

    So in the longest sense of the game, we can’t go wrong.

    But the price is time.

    *

    I feel it. The turning point returned. I’ve been here before. Everything slows down. The buzz of my refrigerator hums louder, as the air in the room grows sharp.

    Life is asking me to level up, to embrace my power, to choose to show myself, to fulfil what I’m capable of. The fork in the road is right there before me.

    “Will you take it this time?”

    “Do I have to?” I whine. “It’s hard, I don’t think I can.”

    No, I don’t have to. And nor do you. We can plough on, doing what we’ve always done. It will come around again. It has before. It will again.

    But do you want to keep praying the price? The price of wasted moments?

    *

    Will you turn toward your higher self, and walk his or her path?

    It’s not some moral standard you must adhere to. There’s no judgemental God or parent who will castigate you if you flunk out.

    It’s up to you.

    Do you want it?

    Or would you rather turn back toward the safety of the couch, or a cigarette. The familiarity of a comfortable existence. Doing the work you’ve already been doing, because you’re good at it. It’s fine how it is.

    The turning point is yours. It’s not something you have to take. You can sit back and wait until the wheel has spun so many times, that the tension is unbearable, and you can’t feel a choice, except to leap. That’s life’s way of ensuring you take the true path eventually.

    You can do that if you want. I can too. I’ve done it plenty of times.

    Or, you can slow down. Right now. And take a breath, deep in the centre of your belly.

    It’s you that lies down that scarier path. Your truer nature embodied and lived a little more, with every small step you take.

    I don’t want to hurry you. But life is waiting for you down there. How long it will take for the wheel to turn around to this point once more? Do you want to wait and see?

    Or do you want to take that first shuffling step, down the road untraveled?

     

    Ewan Townhead

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  • We want to change.

    It’s built into our nature, the very substance of life.

    We want to realize the vision that we see in our mind’s eye. We want to fulfil the potential we feel in our soul.

    We’re told it’s possible, just a decision away.

    We want it fast. As fast as a book downloaded to our kindle. Or a tweet sent out to the world. We want it fast, because the world is fast. Faster than ever before.

    We want to change, and we want it now.

    The imperceptibility of growth

    Between the day of my birth and the age of 17, I grew from around 1 foot 8 inches, to 6 feet 3 inches.

    I did not see this growth happening. I didn’t wake up each morning and notice the .009 of an inch I’d grown over the last 24 hours.

    But whenever I would see my family at Christmas, Grandmothers and Uncles would proclaim “my, haven’t you grown!” Because they saw it.

    Growth happens so slowly we don’t see it.

    It’s only in the retrospective measurement – the drawing of pencil marks on the door-frame, months or years in between – that the heightening becomes evident.

    This principle doesn’t just describe physical growth.

    Making sense of the multitude

    I’m bumbling about my day, trying to do my best with an odd hand of cards.

    Stuff happens. I do some writing. I have a coffee break. I coach a client. I listen to a podcast. I’m working habitually, on instinct. I’m following my agenda. I’m trying to notice when I check out of my experience and drift. I’m focussed on doing my work, building something.

    And then I try and make meaning out of it all.

    I journal. I talk with friends over lattes and cigarettes. I practice and meditate, allowing the feel of myself to express itself in movement and in stillness. I check in with my advisors, both human and divine.

    And I try to spin a narrative that makes sense. One that stretches to include what I didn’t before know. One that reaches out to embrace what is asked. One that makes me feel like a sane and good person.

    I try to keep in step with my ego.

    The story that holds it all together

    When I say ego, I don’t mean what we often mean: an over-inflated sense of self. I just mean a self, period.

    The origin of the word comes from the Latin for self. Freud made the word popular. Except he actually didn’t, because he never used it. He used the German pronoun das ich which just means the I.

    James Strachey, whose English translations of Freud popularized him, changed the I to the ego to make it sound more scientific.

    The self. That strange aspect of ourselves that’s hard to pin down, because like Alan Watts said, “trying to define yourself is like trying to bite your own teeth”. To see the self, you have to use the self to see it.

    Those voices in your head? That’s not schizophrenia, that’s the human condition. We are not one thing. We are a multitude. But to make sense of ourselves, we create a story of who we are.

    I’m Ewan. She’s Jenny. He’s a moron. I’m neurotic. They don’t get it. I’m someone who spends inordinate amounts of time trying to understand the un-understandable, because I feel purposeless unless I do.

    We’re like bails of straw, with a myriad of aspects, feelings, memories, dreams and karma.

    And the ego? A stretchy piece of string that holds the whole bundle together.

    Hopefully.

    The game of growth

    Sometimes the string becomes hard and inflexible through lack of exercise. We say “this is who I am”, and we constrict the changes that want to occur.

    Sometimes we stretch the string itself, without the bail of our multitude pushing the expansion. The story becomes bigger than the reality. And we say “he’s got a big ego”.

    Sometimes we don’t know how to make sense of the expansion of ourselves, and the string becomes tight around us, straw spilling from its grasp. We become overwhelmed and we say “I don’t know who I am anymore.”

    Sometimes we experience all of this in a single moment as we follow the movement, and spin the yarn, and tell a story that makes sense, and helps others make sense of this infinite mystery.

    And that’s the game of growth.

     

    Ewan Townhead

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  • What’s the point?

    I don’t mean, in the self-deprecating fashion that we can be prone to. The one where the internal voice whines “oh, what is the point?”

    I mean, what’s the point – the sharpened statement that conveys the essence of what you do?

    Do you know?

    Do you have it written down? Do you tell people?

    The age of specialism

    I remember those times when someone asked what I do, and I had this vague response that killed any curiosity they’d had a moment before.

    “I’m an entrepreneur.”

    “Interesting. And how long have you lived in Amsterdam?”

    In a crowded marketplace, where more and more people are setting up their stalls, sharpening the point of what you do is what distinguishes you from the throng.

    This is the age of specialism.

    The mass market is full up.

    The ones who succeed are those that get ruthlessly specific about who they serve, and how they serve them.

    So that they can get on with the business of serving them.

    Help people make a decision

    When someone reads your website, they want to make a decision. They want to decide if you’re someone who could help them.

    The word decision means the opposite of incision. To make an incision is to cut into something. To make a decision is to cut away the excess.

    They want to cut away the unclarity.

    “Yes. That sounds exactly what I need right now. I’m interested.”

    “No. Not what I’m looking for at the moment. But thank you.”

    It’s your job to help them make that decision.

    The point of your work, is the tip of the sword. The sharpened point, where the breadth of everything you do, comes down to one small and refined idea.

    A sharpened point is what allows you to sink the blade of your service deeper into their being, opening up possibilities, freeing potential.

    It’s what allows the person you’re relating with, to decide if they want to spend more time with you.

    The magic is in the specificity

    “I help designers be more effective.”

    There are a million people helping designers now. And everyone wants to be more effective. What do you really do?

    “I help designers create beautiful work that moves their clients to tears.”

    The sharper the point of your blade, the deeper it will go into those who want you, and the more powerfully it will turn away those who need another’s help.

    The magic is in the specificity of your words.

    The clarity is not just for them

    It’s for you too.

    If you know – because you’ve worked hard to hone the words – what the point of your work is, then it becomes obvious when you stray from the path.

    If I have left the point of my work dull and blunt, then my penetration into the world will be dulled and blunted.

    Bluntness begets bluntness.

    Sharpness begets sharpness.

    And we live in a time where people want the keen blade of truth, to open up their world in beautiful ways. A time when they want the right person. One they trust.

    Show them the point of your work, so that they can go deeper, if they want to.

     

    Ewan Townhead

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  • “We’ve reached such an incredible level of freedom that for the first time in history we have to manage our own mutation. It’s up to us to decide what it means to be a successful human being. That’s the philosophical task of the age.” – Peter Koestenbaum

    I’ve ruminated on that quote for well over a year now. It comes back periodically to tempt me with its invitation. This morning it came back again.

    What does it mean to be a successful human being?

    I care about success. Genuinely care. I’ve been ambitious for a long time, I have things to do, changes to bring.

    And yet success is something I’ve never felt on gentle terms with. It’s often felt like a black figure hanging over me, berating me for not achieving the level I’m supposed to. The hare of success disappearing over the hill, while I plod along, not measuring up.

    I’ve wrestled with my ambition, baulked at the images of success I was fed. Rebelled, dropped out, found inspiration, dived in.

    So I want to talk about success with you. Because I think Koestenbaum is right. There are few more pressing issues. And in a world where we don’t have to follow the old rules of success, I think it imperative to deconstruct the inherited definitions, and build a new an image that draws forth our ambition as a creative expression, rather than pressurizes it, as a milestone to attain.

    The prescribed rules of success

    My first ‘proper’ job was at a small marketing agency in Liverpool. I’d recently graduated and got the job as a temp, and they’d liked me so offered the position to me permanently.

    I was the receptionist. A job that is not supposed to be filled by a heterosexual male. I’d answer the phones, welcome clients to the office, make coffee, open mail, complete little admin tasks. Mostly I watched video clips, played on internet forums and worked on ideas for my first business.

    They saw I was over qualified and twice offered me a position as a junior account manager. It’s rather a sought after path in the marketing and PR field. I said no. I said I wasn’t interested. They were confused.

    The thought of diving deeper into the world of clever adverts, schmoozing clients and pouring over spreadsheets made my heart go dark. But they couldn’t understand it.

    I’d turned down advancement, to stay on the lowest rung of the ladder.

    According to their world, I’d broken one of their rules of success.

    Rule #1. You must climb higher

    You work your way up the ladder. Your pay cheque gets bigger and bigger. You have more impressive sounding job titles. The really successful people run entire companies.

    But I never wanted that kind of success. I always felt like an outsider in that game, though it took me a long time to come to peace with that feeling.

    Many years later, I dropped out of the corporate game all together. I started playing the online entrepreneur game instead. It was a big relief. I had a lot more room to express myself.

    Success here is building a brand for yourself, generating a big mailing list, doing 6-figure launches, being called a ‘world expert’ on someone’s tele-summit. The milestones look a different, but I realized the rule was the same. Climb higher, at any cost. And it was in this game that I really came face to face with the second rule.

    Rule #2. More money = more success

    How much revenue did you do on your product launch, how many thousands? 50? Good job. 100? Wonderful! You’re on the way toward real success now son.

    Money is great. I like money. I like having it, I like creating it. I like being able to invest it in things I want, things that enrich me. Training courses. A month in Bali. A new leather jacket. A box of Lego for my partner’s son.

    I remember early on in the entrepreneur game we did an affiliate deal with a big website. They were the trend setter in our field, the mother ship. We crafted a really clever marketing campaign, and it worked. We brought in over $50k in revenue. It was the most revenue I’d ever done. I got my own biggest pay day. $6k, which felt like an extraordinary amount of money.

    According to the rule, we’d succeeded. But I couldn’t feel the accomplishment. I didn’t hear people telling us how much the program had helped them, how appreciative and inspired they were. Mostly I heard silence, or grumbling about big marketing promises that weren’t delivered on. I felt ashamed. Uncomfortable.

    I’ve done countless product launches since then, some brought in more money, some less. The one’s that felt like a success were those that helped a lot of people. Which sometimes correlated with big revenue, and sometimes didn’t.

    Rule #3. Success is appearing successful

    This is an insidious little bugger of a rule. One I’ve only been starting to catch myself playing by recently.

    I’ve worked very hard to present myself as being successful. I’ll drop in little lines in my writing that demonstrate how successful I am. How much I charge (because money = success remember). How far I’ve come (because successful people always climb higher).

    “Do not doubt it dear reader. Despite my obvious vulnerability, I am very successful. And you are not. Never forget that. And if you want to be successful like me, then pay me a bunch of money for coaching and maybe you’ll win too.”

    That’s not success. That’s insecurity. I’ve done that more than I like. I’m sorry, I was doing what I thought was right.

    As the air fast escapes from the balloon, I realize it’s just another rule that I never consciously agreed to play by.

    The original nature of success

    The root of the word comes from Latin. To succeed means literally to “come after”. It’s a sequential thing. There’s one thing, and then it’s succeeded by another thing.

    There was an open field there once. Now there’s woodland.

    The original meaning is value neutral. It doesn’t mean the succession is good. It doesn’t mean the woodland is better. It just came after the field.

    The definition of the word changed in the late 1500s. It came to mean the accomplishment of a desired end. The neutral mechanic of succession had desire and preference added in. Success came to be defined by whether the outcome matches the desire.

    You start with one kingdom, do some invading and end up with two…success!

    You start with no money, and after it you still have no money…failure!

    You start with no qualifications, and end with a PhD…success!

    You start with people being in connection with mother earth, then technology distracts us from nature and we despoil the environment…failure!

    Certain ends are successful. Others are not.

    It is not the addition of desire and preference that I take issue with. Not at all. The problem is that so often we do not question the preference that gives the defined end.

    We mistake the end for the success itself without questioning whether the movement of succession is what we actually want.

    Success is becoming a celebrity, therefore if I too become a celebrity, I will be successful.

    But the end is not the point. The celebrity is not the point. The point is this…

    From whence does the desire come? And is it yours?

    Toward a new definition of success

    To my great grandparents, success was working the farm effectively, so they and their family had enough food to eat. It was a noble goal for the world they lived in. But that is not my world, or yours.

    In its most pure sense, success is succession. It is one step after another. It is the movement down the path of life. If you’re moving, you’re succeeding.

    The deeper cut however, is to truly choose the substance of the path. To truly tune into the deepest desire you are conscious of, and walk that path, wherever it ends.

    Because if we do not stop to consider that substance, that desire, we end up succeeding at someone else’s quest.

    We climb the rungs of the professional ladder, because our culture tells us that is what successful people do. We look at the artists or entrepreneurs we consider successful, and we try to emulate them. We carefully construct a mask of success, because that’s what we think will fill the hunger of our ambition.

    And then maybe we realize that it is all without substance – an idea of success that floats like a balloon filled with hot air. The tether, so easily cut, revealing the true desire that is not based on an idea, but on the very yearning of the soul.

    The successful path

    As I walk, one step succeeding the last, I become more intimate with the dirt under my feet, and the stars over my head. They whisper to me…

    Be true. So true it scares the life out of you.

    Show yourself, the good and the ill.

    Let the lessons of the universe be taught through the folly of the personal.

    Never forget your heart.

    Go first. Ignore the rules, except the one’s you find in yourself that are true because they feel true in the deepest part of you.

    Let others follow if they want to. Don’t persuade them, their following must be freely chosen.

    Light the way. Hold the torch of your truth as high as you dare.

    Ewan Townhead

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  • In the first part of this article I talked about shame and how we’re carrying so much of it, and that it is the root of sin. Not in some old clichéd Catholic sense, where we come from some original bad stock.

    We’re ashamed because we’re struggling to find the courage to step out and show the world just how fucking good we are.

    This is the greatest sin of our times.

    To turn away from what is asked of you – the true work you know you came here to make. To pretend it isn’t that important, or that you’re not good enough to be it. And we’re struggling to face this great sin, because the very notion of sin is something we’re no longer comfortable with.

    But just as the toothache doesn’t go away because you don’t like dentists, sin doesn’t go away because we don’t like the Church.

    And because we have banished sin, we have also banished the means to work with sin. We have forgotten that there is an ancient tradition that can guide us through this gauntlet of shame, guilt and unworthiness.

    This is the lost technology of spiritual transformation. And it is what this article is all about.

    We’re all sinners

    Not the way we were told when we were children. No, we’re all sinners because this is a time like no other. A time when the old rules really are crumbling to dust. We have more freedom than at any other time in the history of the world.

    We’re free to have sex with people we want to have sex with, without the fear of roasting forever in hell. We’re free to write and speak whatever we want without the threat of being burned at the stake. We’re free to rise above our upbringing without social castes to slam us back into place. We’ve even been freed from the industrial imperative to be efficient, safe and predictable. We’ve been freed to speak the deepest truth we have.

    This is the age of the great level playing field.

    And God is calling for all great people to come and play the new game. The one where we win when we each create our own beautifully unique puzzle piece of life. And together, we create a new picture of society.

    And when we inevitably pretend to not hear that call, we sin.

    “Who the fuck am I to start a global foundation for women leaders? I don’t even feel like a leader myself. It’s just a pipe-dream. Life is more complicated.”

    “I may have a passion for mystic muff diving, but I can’t make a living out of that! That’s crazy! I’ll just keep doing what I’m doing and hope one day I’m rescued.”

    “Just because I dream of writing best-selling books, doesn’t mean I can, or am allowed. That’s for the talented people, who live of mummy and daddy’s millions.”

    It’s easier to numb out. So we do, and God’s call becomes like the buzz of the refrigerator, and we continue for years pretending it’s not there.

    But it’s not that simple is it?

    You block your ears, so you don’t hear the call. And then you don’t hear other stuff either. You don’t hear your friends telling you how talented you are. You don’t hear your lover telling you how beautiful you are.

    So you block your heart too. Because it’s too much. And then you block your balls and your pussy too.

    And then you’re a drone. Doing society’s bidding. Being a good soldier. While you quietly die inside.

    And maybe I’m being dramatic. And maybe it hasn’t got that bad yet. And maybe it never will. But what if it already has, and we haven’t noticed, because we can’t even feel how numb we are.

    And I’m numb too. I’m as big a sinner as you are.

    This is written for both of us. I’m not preaching from a position of privilege. I’m writing this because I’m calling myself out. And maybe you at the same time

    And I’m writing it because there is a way out.

    Repent, and ye shall be set free

    “When they said repent. I wonder what they meant.”
    – Leonard Cohen

    And well you might Leonard, because it’s another confusing term, like sin. But repentance is the way out. And as Robert Frost said, the best way out is through. And repentance takes you through shame, into love, into integrity, into deeper truth.

    But I get ahead of myself. What is repentance?

    Repentance usually means regret. When I repent I feel deeply sorry or remorseful.

    “I’m really sorry Mrs. Jones. I didn’t mean to crush your prize rose bed.”

    But this meaning is only half the story. Once again, we have a translation issue, though this time it’s the issue of Greek into English.

    The Greek world that was translated into ‘repentance’ in English was the world metanoia. Which means something rather different than regret. Let’s play detective for a second, because it’s going to get interesting.

    Metanoia has two elements. Meta means ‘beyond’, or ‘change’. And noia comes from noos which means ‘thought’ or ‘mind’. So it essentially means to ‘go beyond one’s thoughts’. It means to change one’s mind, change one’s way of seeing, to go beyond how you thought it was.

    This is the original meaning of repentance.

    And it is also the very subject of this article. The practice of repentance is the lost technology of spiritual transformation.

    Connect with truth, and step beyond

    Repentance is the decision to turn back toward what is asked, and engage honestly and truly. To repent is to surrender your insecurity and shame, and face what you know you are avoiding.

    Repentance is coming back into right relationship with truth. And it has four steps, which I’m going to lay out for you.

    Confession. Forgiveness. Penance. Restoration.

    Now, we’re going to run into language issues again. I’m going to use words that may have strong connotations for you. But just like Sin, and repentance itself, I’m going to invite you to cast off the meanings you were given, and feel into the primordial meanings, the original meanings, before they were distorted by time.

    Because this model of repentance represents a beautiful mapping of a natural cycle, one that is designed to deepen the bonds of what matters, and what is true. It is a process that transforms shame into guilt, into connection, into intimacy, into new action, into new depth, into new truth.

    This is not a formula. It is a dance of karma, intimacy and dignity.

    The Four Steps of Repentance

    1. Confession

    Confession is sharing the thing you don’t want to share. It’s calling your best friend and admitting that you’re really struggling. It’s telling your lover you’re feeling attraction for someone else.  It’s praying to god because you feel so lost.

    It’s the sharing of burdens, a friendly shoulder upon which to rest, as you confess your difficulty. And it works. It’s what all good therapists do for their clients, what great parents do for their children.

    It is a place to reveal our deepest secrets in safety.

    Brené says that shame can’t survive with words around it. She says shame needs 3 things to survive: secrecy, silence and judgement. And that the moment we share the object of our shame, the virus starts to whither, and the heart begins to open.

    This is sharing.  This is confession.

    This is the first step.

    I was born to do magnificent and important things in the world.

    I know it. But to confess how deeply I feel this destiny is to also uncover the deep shame I carry for not knowing how to live into that greatness. And the deep fear that I may be mistaken, and delusional.

    “You could touch a million souls” the whisper says to me.

    And it’s getting louder.

    “You’re one of the old souls that lived a thousand lives and opened a thousand hearts. You were there, when we stepped out of the Garden. You were there when we spoke on the mountain. You were there after they hanged him. Don’t you remember?”

    Am I crazy? Something tell me I shouldn’t we writing this. But it feels like a relief to get it off my back. To share it with you. To confess to you.

    2. Forgiveness

    I love you, and I forgive you. I know you’re trying your best. I know you’re a good and beautiful person. I know you don’t mean to. I love you. Everything is ok.

    This is empathy. And compassion. It’s universal love.

    Regardless of what you do, I still love you. There is nothing you can do or be that would stop me loving you. You have no choice in the matter.

    They said Jesus will forgive you all your sins, and they said it because Jesus represents the force of this universal love. And in His heart, you are always already forgiven.

    It’s what we need from others, from God. And it’s what we need from ourselves. Self-love, the first love. Because it’s all the same love. It is This Love.

    I know you. I love you. I forgive you.

    This is step 2.

    My sweetheart, I understand.

    You want to stay safe, hidden, in the dark warm folds of familiarity. Of course you do sweet man. They told you this was the way to live your life. That’s what kept you safe in the school playground when the other kids would tease you for your difference. And in another time, when they killed you for your insolence.

    You are my sweetheart and I love you. You have such pure intentions. I’m always here for you ok? I know it’s not going the way you want. The way your father wants. But you don’t have to apologize to me. You’re always already forgiven. You are always already loved.

    But thank you for telling me. I’m here whenever you need me. Always.

    3. Penance

    And. Words are not enough. Not meaning to do it, is not enough. Apology is not enough. Forgiveness, alone, is not enough.

    You must do penance.

    Penance is not punishment, or healing. It is not saying a thousand Hail-Marys.

    Penance is restorative action. It is right-action. Doing what you know in your heart is good and true. It is doing what you need to do, to bring relationship back into the moment, enlightened by a new consciousness, entwined by a new depth.

    It’s clearing up the mess you’ve made.

    Whether this is with yourself, with those around you, or with God, the intent is the same: to repair the fabric of our inter-connected relationship, and allow depth to transform us.

    This is step 3.

    I know my innocence does not excuse me from what is asked. God has called me out.

    “I love you. And my love is so strong, that I won’t stand by and let you be less than you really are.”

    He is turning up the heat. He is asking me to go and speak. He is calling for what I have to say. He is beckoning me to stand amongst those who would listen, and gift from your heart, that which I see and love.

    “You must choose to step out of what you think you know. And commit to the path you do not know. To come back to me. And love through me. With all your naked heart can bare. Do you accept your penance?”

    I do. I am afraid, but my faith is stronger. Yes my dearest Lord, I do.

    4. Restoration

    We are brought to a place of greater intimacy with ourselves. With truth. With God. With goodness itself.

    We have followed the mystic injunction, and allowed the hand of our own hearts, to steer us.

    We have restored the circle.

    We have joined hands once again. But this time the grip is warmer, stronger, and more true.

    And more joyful.

    For this is the siddhic beauty that shame invites us toward. Joy. True, and pure.

    This is the final step, before it begins again.

    Welcome back my love. I missed you. But this time we feel different. My hand rests deeper in your hand. My step moves more elegantly with your step.

    This is the path into alignment. This is the never-ending quest into our own eternal embrace. This is the place you are called to, that I am called to, that we are called to.

    This is what is asked. And you have answered.

    Shall we dance, just one more time?

    Final Thoughts

    They say that great artists steal. If one day I can with all honesty call myself a great writer, I will know I stole well, and with grace and novelty.

    And so, to stroke that potential, I confess to you now that this article, indeed all my articles are taken from the mouths of many others.

    For this particular article, I borrowed generously from a single book. It’s an amazing book by the equally amazing Barbara Brown Taylor, called On Speaking of Sin. And if any of my ideas have spoken to you, I wholeheartedly encourage you to read her work. She is a true preacher of truth.

    And I leave you with the words of another. Words that have haunted me this year. Beautiful words. Godly words perhaps. I leave you with Rumi.

    The breeze at dawn has whispers to tell you.
    Don’t go back to sleep.
    You must ask for what you really want.
    Don’t go back to sleep.
    People are going back and forth across the doorsill where the two world touch.
    The door is round and open.
    Don’t go back to sleep.

    Ewan Townhead

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  • We’ve thrown out sin.

    It’s gone, along with religious guilt, dogma and other old dusty concepts that clash with our modern sense of freedom. It’s gone because it was a moral label from a by-gone past. Or at least, that’s what we think.

    But I’m going to tell you a story that I never expected to tell.

    That not only is sin not what they taught us it is, but that it’s a vital part of the spiritual path. Or just the creative path. The one where you become yourself, and create the work you were made for.

    Sin is not the old sin of the Catholic Church, or Bible class, or violating the Ten Commandments, or screwing your neighbour’s wife. It’s something real and vital. Something at the very root of a life of wholehearted fullness and authentic success.

    Sin is a good thing, an important thing, a powerful thing. And that’s what I never expected to say. So, this article is about sin. And not only sin, but about the greatest sin of our times.

    And it begins with shame.

    I’m ashamed

    I’m ashamed of stealing money from my parents when I was a kid. A friend and I were building an elven army from little lead figures that we painted. And they were really expensive. So we stole money.

    I’m ashamed about the way I’ve treated some of the women in my life. I’d promise them my heart, and so they’d open. And then I’d realize I’d compromised my freedom too much, and I’d leave them. And they’d get hurt.

    I’m ashamed about the way I’ve manipulate people to get what I wanted. I did that with my first business. When my business partners got in the way, I played a nasty political game to try and get rid of them. They still don’t talk to me.

    I’m ashamed about all the messes I’ve made, that I didn’t go back to clear up.

    And I’m ashamed of not going after my dreams as hard as I could. I tell people I’m here to do big things. I feel like I am. I wrote recently that I felt I should be famous. Not because I want fame, but because I want to impact the world. I feel I’m here to make a big difference.

    And I feel ashamed that I don’t live up to the magnitude of that ambition during my day. I get scared, and play online pool, or read novels, or eat sugar, or smoke pot. Because it feels safer, because it insulates me from the increasing volume of life’s call.

    And that is the modern sin. The greatest sin of our times.

    That we are not truly listening to what is asked of us.

    That we are turning away from the path we know we’re meant to walk.

    That we believe we’re unworthy of the great mission that burns inside our hearts.

    The original nature of sin

    I was not brought up Christian. I was never baptized. I never went to church as a kid. We had the occasional bible reading from Miss Bathmaker at school. I was brought up as an atheist, with a sprinkling of new-age.

    I thought religion was a crock of shit, until my 20s when I became interested in the work of spiritual philosopher Ken Wilber. And I got into meditation, and Buddhism, and mysticism, and Rumi. Then over the last couple of years, I’ve been drawn increasingly into the mystical teachings of Christianity. And I’ve written about the guidance I’ve found through my friend Jesus.

    Earlier this year I was reading some letters. They were private letters that my mentor Rand had generously shared with me. They were written to him, from his spiritual coach. And in one of them I discovered a discussion about sin. And I was pulled in.

    It’s such a cultural-laden word. What do you think of when you read it?

    Sin.

    Naughty little girl? Stealing. Men fucking men. Abortion. Murder. Worshipping the wrong god?

    That’s always what I thought it meant. An old, out of date word that Christians used to shame people, so they got in line. And I think that’s exactly how it’s used a lot of the time. But sin doesn’t originally mean ‘doing bad stuff’. The original meaning is something so much deeper.

    To learn why, we need to go way back in time at least 2,500 years to the original Hebrew Bible. This was the book that got turned into the Old Testament (the really old, pre-Jesus bit of the Bible). In this original Hebrew text, there were three words, that when translated into Greek, were translated into a single word, in English – ‘sin’.

    But these three original Hebrew words don’t mean ‘bad’. No, what they represent are different degrees of being out of relationship with God.

    Not evil. Not wrong.

    Out of relationship with reality.

    Missing the mark of where you’re meant to be, want to be.

    I felt a giant shiver run down my spine when I first read it. And I’ve told the story many times to friends since. And I still get a shiver each time.

    Sin is disconnecting from your own truth. Sin is violating the principles we live by, and refusing to come back into relationship with reality.

    And a lot of us are doing that. Especially with big things that really matter to us. Like living the purpose we know we came here for. And when you turn away from that truth for long enough, you start to feel something grow in the centre of your being. Something that twists and hurts.

    Deep existential shame.

    Because you know you’re not doing what you’re supposed to be doing. This is why it starts with shame. But shame is a tricky thing.

    The inauthenticity of shame

    A couple of years ago I was staying in a friend’s apartment, and was shooting videos of myself talking about some ideas I was excited about. And the same thing kept happening.

    I’d be in full flow, excitedly talking, gesticulating, emoting. And then mid-sentence I’d slow down to almost nothing. And my head would drop. And I’d close the laptop lid. And sit there. And pretend it hadn’t happened, and go do something else.

    And on the fifth time I actually noticed it.

    “What the fuck was that?”

    I opened up the laptop again, turned on the video and started spontaneously coaching myself on what had just happened. I even moved position in my chair to play both interviewer and client.

    “Wow, so what happened for you there Ewan? That looked intense.”

    “Yeah it was. I don’t know. I was just talking, and then my gut got really tight, and I felt hot, and exposed. It was like I was getting pulled down into something.”

    I discovered the shame spiral.

    I feel ashamed about something. And then I feel ashamed about feeling ashamed. And then ashamed about feeling ashamed about feeling ashamed. Ad infinitum.

    And the weight gets ever heavier and my identity ever smaller, as I’m sucked down into the blackness of unworthiness. But this time I’d seen it. And got curious.

    What is shame?

    I looked it up. It’s an old word. It means literally a “feeling of disgrace”. I was enthralled. Dis-grace. A feeling of not having any grace. And then I clocked it. Shame is not an emotion. It’s an assessment. Something happened, and now you can’t feel your own inherent grace. You’ve lost touch with it. And so you think you don’t have any.

    “I’m worthless. I’m such a bad person. I not good for anything. I give up. It’s all fucked.”

    Shame is a shitty thing to feel, because, I would argue, it’s not an authentic experience in and of itself. The feeling is real, the somatic weight is real, and it’s pointing to something real.

    But the experience of shame is predicated on the belief that you’re inherently bad, and without grace.

    And that’s simply not true.

    Now, shame is not bad. It’s inevitable. I don’t know anyone who doesn’t feel it. And what it does, is show you where you’re out of alignment with your own truth. It shows you where you’re out of relationship with God.

    It shows you where you’re in sin.

    Shame is the start of the trail back out of sin, and into deeper relationship with truth.

    The invitation toward a deeper truth

    The Catholics got it right. Sin is about shame (and guilt). But not in the way they thought. The traditional teaching is that shame is a consequence of sin. Something like this…

    You sin, and so you feel shame as a consequence. Which is good. But makes you feel bad. Because a sinner should feel bad. Because sinning is bad. And maybe if you feel shitty enough, you won’t sin again. And you’ll get into heaven.

    So, when you sin, we forgive you, punish you, and then you’re saved.

    Which is a nice attempt.

    But created some damaging results.

    Chronic unworthiness. Institutional sexism. Screwing under-age choir boys.

    I’m being slightly unfair here. Because these ideas were actually revolutionary and transformed culture as we know it. The problem is that the revolution happened a couple of thousand years ago. And things have moved on rather a long way. So like I said, nice try, shitty results.

    And to understand why, we turn to the research of the brilliant writer and researcher Brené Brown. Brené makes a crucial distinction between shame and guilt.

    Guilt is “I did something bad”.

    Shame is “I am bad.”

    Guilt is about behaviour. Shame is about identity.

    And people who feel one or the other lead incredibly different lives. Her research is unequivocal in its findings. Large levels of shame in a person are highly correlated with high levels of addiction, depression, aggression, suicide and other really fun stuff. High levels of guilt are inversely correlated with those things.

    In other words. Guilt is really good for you. Shame fucks you up.

    I think shame is guilt that has no outlet toward transformation. It’s guilt that has rotted and gone bad. Or it’s guilt that has been smashed into a hard shameful truth by some religious hammer.

    Shame is an amazingly big assessment to make. Something happens that you don’t feel good about, and you extrapolate out, and make some sweeping statement about the infinite truth of your infinite existence.

    I watched porn.
    Bad people watch porn.
    That means I’m a bad person.
    And a bad person is worthless.
    I’m worthless.
    Period.

    You take a black mark and decide to tar your whole human existence with it.

    So while shame is in some sense, an inauthentic feeling, its root is not. It’s a beacon, and it’s pointing toward greater relationship with ourselves. And the journey winds through guilt.

    The great gift of guilt

    Being out of relationship with god, out of alignment with your truth is inevitable. It’s what happens when we live. And guilt is this amazing gift. It’s what we feel when the alignment slides out of whack, when we’re out of integrity with our code of truth. It’s our higher self smacking us on the ass.

    “Hey buddy. That doesn’t feel good does it? In fact, it hurts. Change direction.”

    It’s like a series of little lights, guiding us down the path of greater truth, greater goodness and greater beauty.

    But when we don’t listen to that feeling. When we don’t let it penetrate us, hold us to account and spark our discomfort, then that guilt starts to toxify. It goes stagnant, and it turns into shame.

    Shame is toxic. And it stops us from acting. Because if I am bad, then I’m powerless to do anything about it. I’m a victim of my own rotten core. Shame feels final. It’s not, but it feels like it. The gift and the power lies in embracing your sense of guilt.

    In part 2 of this article, I’ll go in depth into the basic principles of working with shame and guilt, and how to transform them into deeper truth.

    But for now. I want try and summarize the nature of sin.

    Here’s the basic recipe

    1. Sin is what happens when you get out of alignment with your own truth.

    So, sin is not smoking pot. Sin is smoking pot if you know you have a lot of important work you want to do, and you ignore your sense of integrity, and get high anyway.

    It’s sin, because you violated a deeper truth. Not because you ‘broke a commandment’.

    1. And when you enter into sin, you feel guilty.

    Not because someone said you should, or because bad people smoke pot. But because you know you’ve violated your own integrity. True guilt is yours.

    1. And if you don’t honor that sense of guilt. And take action, then it will start to rot. And the guilt turns into shame.

    Shame is a nasty fucker, who eats up a whole bunch of stuff. But is actually trying to help us by turning up the volume on our suffering.

    Because many of us are sinning. And there is one sin that is standing out. Head and shoulders above the rest.

    It’s a great sin.

    What is being asked of you?

    You have a great body of work to express. It’s yours. It’s unique. It’s precious. It’s fragile. It holds untold power. And God is asking you about it.

    What is being asked of you?

    Only you know. And you do know. Maybe it’s being shouted in your face. Maybe it’s that insistent whisper that you know is always there, and that you dampen with busyness, or television, or bravado.

    What is being asked of you?

    If you’re truly honest with yourself, you’ll likely find a place where you’re not listening. We’re all doing it. It’s the greatest sin of our times.

    There has never been a time like this. When the barriers to sharing our work with the entire world are gone. Completely. The internet and the information age have shattered the barricades of tradition and hierarchy.

    The only blocks now are yours.

    It’s your fear. Your terror of truly showing yourself. Of not wanting to fail. Of not knowing how to do it right. Of not wanting to be rejected by everyone. It’s my fear too.

    And when we don’t listen, we suffer. Because however much we practice numbing out, we know deep down that we’re more powerful than we can bare to imagine.

    And I know you’re ashamed.

    And I am too.

    And this is the invitation.

    For both of us.

    To listen to what is asked.

    And come face to face.

    With that which calls us,

    In every moment.

     

    This article is the first part in a 2 part-series. In part 2 – The Lost Technology of Spiritual Transformation – I explore an old and powerful practice that people have used for centuries to work with shame, and transmute it into greater depth and greater truth.

     

    Ewan Townhead

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  • You have the ability to change time.

    You can change it, because you can think about it, and change the frame. No other creature we know about can do this.

    Our ability to think in time is one of the super-powers we are given as human beings. A lizard is perpetually stuck in the now. A complex adult can project their imagination billions of years in either direction.

    I’ve been thinking a lot about time-frames recently. I think they have significant implications for our work in the world and the way we go about realizing it.

    Let me explain.

    The entire expanse of history in a single map

    I remember when I first got interested (actually somewhat obsessed) with the work of integral philosopher Ken Wilber. His huge maps of reality saved me during a time of existential soul searching.

    One of the huge gifts that I got from his work, was that I started to think about human history in terms of epochs.

    Modern humans have been around for about 180,000 years, which is a stupendous amount of time, and hard to grasp. But when it was broken down into a handful of major paradigms, I could start to see the broad strokes of the evolution of human consciousness.

    It meant I could now look at the existential conundrums that had been plaguing me inside a huge context. It was not that I now had the answers, but rather that my frustration was dissolved inside a container big enough to hold the questions.

    Here’s another example of the power of time-frame manipulation.

    The earth has been around a while. It’s hard to grasp just how long. So let’s switch the time-frame.

    If the entire 4.5 billion year history of the earth were condensed into a single year, here’s what we see.

    Life arrives as single celled bacteria around the beginning of March. And things move pretty slowly for quite some time!

    In the middle of November we get the oceans filling up with multi-cell organisms.

    At the beginning of December, amphibians venture onto dry land.

    On December 13th Dinosaurs arrive on the scene, and stick around until 26th when they’re wiped out. Mammals come along the following day.

    It’s not until December 31st that the first hominids (apes on 2 legs) appear.

    Modern humans rock up at about 11:35 pm.

    And the industrial revolution happens in the last 2 seconds before midnight.

    Why are time-frames powerful?

    When you change the context of something, you simultaneously change the content.

    In other words, change the frame, and you can look at things in a completely different way.

    This is definitely true with time-frames.

    For example, let’s look at slavery. It can look like a very different issue if I change the time-frame.

    If I look at slavery through a 500 year time frame, I will see it as a horrific, barbaric thing that powerful white people did to defenseless black people.

    If I look at it through a 180,000 year time frame, I’ll see it as something that is common to every single human culture we know about, regardless of race, until the industrial revolution, when it was outlawed on a mass scale in a relatively short period of time.

    When I expand the time frame around a particular topic – when I stretch the edges to increase the canvas – I see a different picture.

    What time frame are you thinking about your work in?

    The next few hours of urgent to-dos you have to get through?

    The remaining few weeks until your next vacation?

    The 2 months until your big launch?

    The next 10 years as you build your legacy?

    The next 10 lifetimes as you unwind your evolutionary destiny?

    When I look at my business in the time-frame of the next product launch I’m performing, then success looks like nailing that launch. It looks like hitting the financial targets I have in mind, converting the right number of people into customers, persuading enough people of the value of my offer.

    When I look at my business in the time-frame of the next 30 years, it doesn’t matter if the next launch fails. In fact, I’ll learn much more from an abject failure than I will from a success.

    When I look at my business in the time-frame of the next 30 years, then I don’t want to persuade as many people as possible to buy my thing, I want to build relationships of intimacy and trust that will have people become customers and partners for decades to come.

    Stretch your frame

    You’re here for some particular work. It’s your work. It’s your life’s work. What happens if you examine that work in the context of the rest of your life?

    When you take things out of the context of financial success during this calendar year, and place them in the context of a lifetime of discovery and growth, what picture can be painted?

    Your dreams are big. Too big to hold sometimes. So put them in bigger hands. Put them in a time-frame of the rest of your life. What is possible now?

    Or go really creatively out there. Stretch the time frame beyond this life-time.

    What would happen to your work, if you knew that the mission would be taken up again, after you die, by a version of you that forgot all your memories, but retains all your implicit learning and ability? How would that change things?

    In other words, your work is so important, that you don’t have to rush to nail it all today, or this week, or this year.

    You have at least the rest of your life to work on it.

    Expand your frame. Give your dreams a big enough field to play in, and your stress a long enough journey to be belittled by.

    Now the frame is different.

    What picture do you see?

     

    Ewan Townhead

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  • “Until one is committed, there is hesitancy, the chance to draw back…the moment one definitely commits oneself, then Providence moves too.” ― William H. Murray

    Until late last year, commitment was a dirty word for me.

    It was something that constrained my natural artistic flair, boxed me in and tainted my organic inspiration.

    It was the rules scrawled on the high school wall.

    “Thou shalt not do anything we don’t allow.”

    I rebelled at school. After being a rather timid and shy kid, I discovered self confidence at the age of 14 when Miss Bowring (unexpectedly) gave me the lead in the school play.

    From then on, rules were there to be broken as far as I was concerned.

    And a commitment was a rule.

    So, fuck rules.

    And fuck commitments.

    There is however, a much deeper form of commitment. One that is not about adhering to a code, or doing what you’re supposed to.

    A true commitment is the meeting between what is already true, and what wants to become real.

    It is the commitment to becoming who you already are.

    And it is one that we must make, if we are to manifest the dreams for which we have been born.

    We Deeply Misunderstand Commitment

    Historically when I thought about the word commitment, I would think of commitment to something. A pledge to do something specific or undertake a particular action.

    “I commit to doing 50 sit-ups a day.”

    “I commit to finally making that course I’ve been thinking about for ages.”

    “I commit to killing infidels in the name of god.”

    “I commit to loving myself unconditionally.”

    The original meaning of commit, is to ‘combine’ or ‘put together’. It comes from Latin. We don’t use that definition much anymore.

    The modern meaning, to ‘make a commitment’ is really recent. 20th century. Probably from translations of Satre’s existential philosophy.

    Satre had this concept he called engagement. When people translated his work from French, the term ‘commitment’ was used. This is from Stanford University’s notes on existentialism…

    “Commitment—or “engagement”—is thus ultimately the basis for an authentically meaningful life, that is, one that answers to the existential condition of being human.”

    As with any good philosophical text, the wording is abstract enough to allow multiple interpretations.

    Here’s mine…

    Commitment is choosing to be who we really are.

    It is not a commitment to some abstract thing like we usually use it. It’s not committing to getting six-pack abs. It’s not committing to changing the world. It’s not committing to make 6-figures this year.

    Rather, it is the practice of engaging life as our true self. Our authentic self.

    A Commitment is Not Simply Made. It is Forged.

    A true commitment is not something we simply make. It is not something to be taken lightly. It is not something that we must adhere to. It is not about keeping one’s word, or being accountable.

    A true commitment is something that is forged. A fire-born integration of what is already true with what wants to become real.

    The melding of two elements that hitherto were distinct.

    True commitment is born from what is already true and within you. It is your essential desire, or soul’s mission. The purpose that is already there, a seed waiting in your deepest heart. It is formless.

    True commitment is born from what wants to become real. It is the words and form you give to the seed of your heart. It is the shape of the grammar, the specificity of the words, the shape of the metaphors.

    A commitment is not simply made. It is forged. It is the forging, from two disparate halves, of one powerful whole.

    Inner formless truth.

    Outer form defined.

    For one without the other is not a true commitment.

    A commitment without the inner heart of truth is not a true commitment. It is an empty promise to a notion of betterment. It is a shell with no meaning.

    “I commit to 60 minutes mediation every day, so that I become a better and more present person.”

    When my commitment is born from an idea that it’s good for me, that I should, that I ought to; it is not a true commitment.

    A commitment without the outer form of defined boundaries is not a true commitment. It is a floating desire, ethereal and unreal. It is a spirit with no body.

    “I have so many passions and deep yearnings. I feel them. They’re deep, and full of potential.”

    When I cannot specify what I’m committed to being, when the words are vague, the definition absent, the congruence impossible to measure; it is not a true commitment.

    A true commitment is the combination of unchosen desire with ruthless definition.

    A true commitment is one that will change your life. Because it is born from who you already are, and will be enacted by who you become.

    It is the entwining of two elements.

    Element #1 – Sourced from Soul

    “Everyone has been made for some particular work, and the desire for that work has been put in every heart.” ― Rumi

    You were born with a mission. A soul purpose.

    You didn’t choose it. Not in the way we tend to think of choice. But it is yours, uniquely.

    It was there, latent and unspecified, before you realized you could think about such things. It’s not a directive, or a prescription. It’s a feeling, a shape, a pattern. Like the unique design of a single snow flake. It is distinct but not defined.

    It shows itself through every single thing you do.

    It’s what has you feel drawn to one thing, and repulsed by another. It’s the whisper you hear when you’re quiet enough to notice it. It’s the string from which the background hum of destiny vibrates through your being.

    You are here for a reason. It’s not meaningless.

    But the way you define that meaning is up to you.

    For that inner desire—that deep soul of yearning—has no form. It’s an incomparable and undulating shape. It’s a morphing sound at an irreplicable frequency. It’s a feel of something that cannot ever be sufficiently explained.

    It is formless. It asks to be manifest. Created. Defined.

    Element #2 – Bound by Words

    “Language is the house of the truth of being.” – Martin Heidegger

    Words are concepts, empty. They are nothing more than signs to which we attribute meaning. If you see the face of God, he does not have words. If you show a word to a fish, it cannot comprehend the concept.

    And yet, it is words and language that has given us access to the highest stages of consciousness that we know of. Self-awareness. Free-will. Creativity.

    Without the incredible texture and power of language, you and I would not be able to think about consciousness. Or indeed be conscious.

    Without language, you would not be reading these words. I would not be writing them. You and I could not talk about anything.

    Words breathe consciousness into form.

    And so, it is to words that we turn, as the second element of true commitment. In old folk tales, to know something’s name is to have power over it. To know your mission, your purpose, your heart’s desire, and to give words to it, is to bring it into power.

    A true commitment is not something abstractly philosophical, meandering, and ethereal.

    It is a statement. A declaration. The power is captured in the binding.

    Binding is the art of giving shape, through words, to that which is ultimately undefinable. It is taking something that has no perfect definition, and defining it in a way that gives it form and power.

    The Forging of an Item of Power

    From the ashes a fire shall be woken,
    A light from the shadows shall spring;
    Renewed shall be blade that was broken,
    The crownless again shall be king.
    – J.R.R Tolkien

    I have long been captivated by fantasy and mythology.

    As a child it was King Arthur, Robin Hood, and The Hobbit. As an adult it’s been writers like Ursula Le Guin, Guy Gavriel Kay, and Marrion Zimmer Bradley.

    Great heroes in these stories often hold items of great power. The sword Excalibur. Thor’s hammer. The One Ring. These items of power are not only symbols, they grant the wielder magical abilities.

    A true commitment is an item of immense power.

    By binding the desire of your soul, with the potency of the poetic word, you call forth the power of your higher self.

    By reaching down into the depths of your origin, and reaching up into the heights of your possibility, you can create that which you truly are.

    By declaring your commitment with uncomfortable and ruthless clarity, you will lay the first stones of a road that will take you further that you can imagine.

    This is the power of a true commitment.

    What a True Commitment is

    A true commitment is many things. And there are many things it is not.

    Here are 6 things that a true commitment is…

    1. Precise, but not simple.
    2. Abstract but not vague.
    3. A statement that is (probably) less than 50 words but more than 5.
    4. An artwork that can be interpreted in a thousand different ways.
    5. Not a task that can ever be completed.
    6. Not a burden that one must carry.

    A true commitment is the shape of your soul, bound by words, and declared to the world.

    It is not something you can create in an afternoon. It is not something you should leave to your next life.

    The forging process may be hard, hot and painful. But what is created carries untold power.

    You carry untold power.

    Define it. Declare it. Live it.

    Ewan Townhead

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