Author: Ryan Klette

  • Discovering the habit you didn’t know you needed

    Discovering the habit you didn’t know you needed

    These are often life defining moments, when we stop long enough to reflect on what we’re doing and find ways to get behind ourselves a little more. One of my mentors told me many times over, “you’re fine the way and you need to grow”. The point being we have to take care to do this growing work from a place of acceptance so that we don’t end up fighting ourselves tooth and nail in the service of ‘goals’. If you’re like me with roots in western culture, then you are probably well acquainted with the habit of pushing, controlling and trying to make things happen. When it comes to our personal development, this mode of being can only take us so far. Its often more receptivity we need, to listen in and move with the language of intuition. 

    As habits go, I imagine the underlying question for most of us is how we can feel better, be more productive and bring more of ourselves to everyday life. Its certainly a big question and not one that could be addressed in one article.   What I want to explore here is how to find the habits that are likely to contribute to this project in unexpected ways, and especially the ones that are hidden from view. 

    A short story to lay the foundation for the case of the hidden habit. Take Ami for instance, she is driven by connection. She loves to network and be part of groups. Although not always easy, navigating the dynamics within group space comes naturally to her. Recently, she was on a team building day and one of the exercises she took part in was to stand in sequence from most to least experienced person in the company. Her manager made a mistake and had her stand out of place before a lessor experienced person. She immediately felt something off in her gut. It was visceral rather than intellectual, a ‘felt sense’ as philosopher Eugene Gendlin termed it. The problem is we often miss this felt sense that we can only experience in the body, and this has untold consequences because the body can guide us in ways the mind cannot. Dr. Bessel van der Kolk wrote a New York best seller called ‘the body keeps score’, the essence of which explains how the body never lies and that understanding the language of the body is key to unlocking our potential. Not so for the mind. We can get caught up in all kinds of stories that have little bearing on reality. That doesn’t mean we need to reject the mind, mind has a magnificence of its own. Just that mind and body together will always lead us in more informed ways so that our actions reflect more of who we are. Back to the story, Ami asserted herself with the manager that wrongly placed her and moved to her correct place. She immediately noticed a sense of calm return to her body. Towards the end of the line, she noticed that her friend Tanya was also out of place but wasn’t standing for  her place. Tanya was unable to read and act on the cues that her body would have been sending her, that would have likely led her to a similar action as Ami. 

    This is the function of social intelligence and its instinctive, meaning we are not moved from our heads but rather from the gut. Ami was more connected to this intelligence, she knew it in her body and followed the sensations that accompanied the instinct. When she stood out of her place she experienced unease and only when she returned to the right sequence did she feel ok again. In contrast, Tanya was not used to navigating the discomfort that ensues when navigating group dynamics like these. You may have to stretch your imagination to feel into the possible effects of each outcome. Part of our survival depends on being able to read and navigate these kinds of social cues. Those who are connected to this intelligence are able to contribute to the groups they are part of in more meaningful ways and earn status that in itself is a kind of currency. 

    Although instinctual energy is not something that shows up in the mind, we can still bring perspective to it to see how it is working in us. Think about when you are thirsty, you know it in the body. You feel the thirst and reach for a glass of water. This is another example of our instincts in action, and we have three broad categories of instinctual energy. One only needs to look to nature for confirmation as these instincts have evolved over millions of years to shape the nervous system that we know today.  These intelligence’s function to keep us safe and thriving in the world. At a basic level, they are as follows: 

    1. Self preservation (SP) – immediate needs, money, nutrition, general health and wellbeing 

    2. Sexual / creative (SX) – need for one to one connection , creation, transmission and recreation 

    3. Social (SO) – safety in the group, tuned into well being of the group. what is our role or contribution to the group 

    The key point here is that we need all three instincts in balance and for most of us there is a significant gap between the leading and lagging instinct. As the theory goes, which is connected to the Enneagram typology system, these instincts are stacked from a dominant to weakest. In my case, I am SP leading, followed by SX and SO lagging. That means some of the most effective work I have done on myself has been in the realm of the social instinct. And this certainly wasn’t always obvious to me. In fact for most of my life, I did my personal work, guess where! more in my leading instinct. I focused on diet, health, money and all things self-preservation. The really interesting point is working on the weaker is good for all three as well as our emotional and psychological health.

    As we develop from childhood we tend to grow more dominant in one instinct and weaker in another. To maxmise gains in the practice of habits building, we do well to pay attention to our weaker instinct. Say for instance you are self preservation dominant, that means you would be the kind of person that is naturally more attuned to things like diet, health and wellbeing. One can often tell a SP dominant person when you enter their home. You might feel a sense of calm as you enter their home, many plants for instance and resources like light and air that resource us.   For this kind of person building habits around health and wellness or even care around money may not be the ground that needs the most immediate attention. That’s not to say that people who lead with SP shouldn’t work on habits in this area but the question for me is, what is most pressing baring in mind that strengthening the weaker instinct tends to bring balance to the others all on its own. I am SP leading and my social has mostly tended to be the lagging instinct. Like I said, I leaned into SP when the going got tough in my life. 

    My wife in contrast is a very different kettle of fish. We are actually exactly opposite in our instinctual stack so that I end up being the one nagging her to fill up her water bottle and she is on my case to better prepare for social engagements. Just the other day for instance we had people over and we sat in the lounge for the duration of the evening. Being social, she said to me the next day that she had a niggle to move us to the kitchen. She felt it would have been more conducive for the group. This hadn’t crossed my mind at all but when I listened to her I understood exactly what she meant. It was a similar to the feeling I get when I know I didn’t eat well, and feel the effects of it the next day.   Its a perfect illustration of different things going on for us and neither being more right, just different strengths. 

    Because we understand this map of instincts, it gives us the opportunity to language what would otherwise be invisible to us. We can both (gently) call each other out when our focus is other than where it should be. On a relationship level this can be a game changer because its a very common reason why we miss each other. We often expect people, especially the ones we care about to see the world from our vantage point and we are often worlds apart. 

    What to do then? how to find the habit hiding from view. Reflect on your instinctual stack. if you are SP like I am you will most likely thrive in habits that move you to deeper levels of health and wellbeing. But that’s not necessarily going to be the most productive way of focusing your energy. If you are like me than developing the social instinct may not occur to you at all. Now you are in the field of the hidden habit. Well what could you do in order to develop socially could be a powerful question to ask yourself. If you are like my wife, you would be someone who would likely hugely benefit from exercising the SP instinct and could think through the kinds of habits that would support you in this space. Maybe you are someone with a lower Sexual / creative instinct. This is often called one to one, people who thrive in the juice of intimate connection and the intensity of creative energy. 

    Simple steps to follow – 

    1. Identify your instinctual stack. 
    2. Experiment with habits  in your weakest instinct.
    3. Review and adjust as you go.  
  • Dreaming the deeper dream

    Dreaming the deeper dream

    This will make it 3 of 3 and I know in writing this I am also leaving out  a whole lot that could be included. That’s the nature of this creative project, it always involves loss. You give it all  and there are bound to be mistakes, ways I could have said it better. 

    One of the most important lessons I learn from my quest is to appreciate water.  In my every day, it is too easy to take for granted. On the 8th day I am given a 1.5 L  bottle of cold water. Eight days behind me without a drop except for the medicine tea on day 5 but water is different.  The satisfaction arrives as it touches my lips. My state is instantly changed, water gives me the feeling of life.  My inner spring fills,  I think how a plant must feel after a dry season.  I  don’t need much of anything, I feel that in my being. It’s enough right now, I am enough right now. Life happening and thank goodness water is part of it.

    The water prayer in the  West (on the medicine wheel)  is about surrender and it reaches into the last 4 days of integration. I am visited twice  by the support team on day 8  for the water prayer and again on day 10 which takes me through to the 13th day, where the quester is ‘harvested’. I think anyone who completed a quest will wholeheartedly agree that this last day is a an emotional one. The feeling that overcomes me when I see my support walk towards me for the last time is a mixed bag, relief, joy, even sadness at the finality of it.  

    Back to the story. I thought I  may be in for some smooth sailing after the water days. They were anything but and perhaps the most challenging of all. This time was characterised by incredibly vivid dreamscape, bearing in  mind that lucid dreaming is now a very normal part of my sleep. I climb up a notch or two in my dreamtime leading me to this experience I am calling ‘the deeper dream’.

    It is the dream that invites me to let go of all control and meet my fear in a very real way.  It’s not the kind of experience one can get ready for. The preparation I needed was these past days and the building of trust in the ground beneath me.  Intellectually, I know about my deeper fear. A central theme is not counting for something or not being seen or included. Going there though is a different story.

    This is how it went – I am plunged into my dream to  visit a teacher of mine that I have worked with for many years. He himself taught and received many  a lesson in dreamtime. In the dream he delivers a clean and swift blow to my ego.  A group of students are sitting around him. He captures our imaginations as he always does with wild stories and all the charisma emanating from his shaman heart. My heart is beating so loud it could explode with excitement. It feels like this is what my life was made for. I know  he is going somewhere soon.  I remember he said something about it but the details aren’t clear. I also know it could happen any moment so I must be ready.

    There is a part of me in the background that is also secretly waiting for a special invitation, something that acknowledges our bond and sets me apart from everyone else. It never comes.  Making matters worse, I am mid sharing something in the circle that feels important to me. It’s not that he is not listening, rather his attention is on something much bigger. My little story appears to be insignificant in the moment we are in. He does not give it any attention whatsoever. I don’t come close to finishing. I am ignored.

    In what feels like a flash he stands up and announces he is going on a special assignment. Being the one he is, it’s the kind of once in a lifetime project brimming with meaning and purpose. Just the kind of thing that appeals to my need for significance. Moments like these feel like they carry the antidote for everything in  me that feels void of  meaning.  There is nothing else I would rather do. This is my burning desire. Yet when the times comes, I am too slow and the three places are taken.  I don’t know how they go but they go. They may have left on a magic  carpet for all I know.

    A void remains. I feel an emptiness I may have been avoiding for lifetimes.  Ignored, rejected, abandoned. Here I am in what feels like the worst that could happen.  My  heart is broken.

    In the next moment I wake up, it still feels so real, my heart aches. I am certain that it happened.  I look around,  its early in the morning. The light is starting to break the night sky.  I see a leaf  connected to a branch.  I feel  a deep relief, it was just a dream.

    The thought comes. I am that leaf, maybe I fall from  the tree but I never lose my belonging.  I come from the tree, I am always a part of the tree, no question. Even my deepest fear can never change that. At the most essential level  I am always apart of life and life takes me in. All that remains is thank you.

  • Acceptance runs deeper than words

    Acceptance runs deeper than words

    So much of my ideas around time revolve around doing things. This meeting or that activity measured in certain amounts of time. I put aside time to do things and then fill it with actions.  On vision  quest all those channels are removed.  My experience of time itself changes. Most of it is noise.  When I sit with myself for any extended time I see that clearly. Most of it is different kinds of noise, little of which matters or has much bearing on reality. But my attention is trained in a particular way so put me in social context and watch me run. I run myself as if I were in control, in the illusion of thinking I am the pilot.  Who am I kidding, I am little more control of myself than I am the weather.  The difference is it appears like I am and I have society behind me telling me that I have this thing called free will. That’s a topic for another conversation. Suffice  is  to say that I don’t see anything free about  my will as long as it’s at the whim of my conditioning. The freedom I find on  the mountain is precisely because of the constraints.  That intelligence moves me beyond my predictable patterning.

    This part of my writing then I am calling –  grappling with my story.

    The structure of the quest is broken into 4, 7, 9 and 13 days.  You complete one and move onto the next the following year.  The 13 day being the quest that integrates the entire process. You go through all previous quests and then add another 4 days on just to make sure you get it.  What is one getting? many possibilities but for me the most pressing, I need a lot less than I think I do. In fact needing nothing at all can produce the most ecstatic states.

    The essential self is the ground of acceptance. Without it there is little hope for acceptance because the ego is very simple and predictable by nature. It either doesn’t wants or does. In either case, resistance is at the core of experience. Resistance to losing what I have or to having what I don’t want. In either case, the underlying tone is  discontent. Freud called it ‘normal misery’. I don’t think he is was far off. In this  mode of push and pull, I need an awful lot of control.  The quest is a way of ripping the band aid off.  Giving my ego very little of what it wants, all I need do is witness my own dismantling. 

    This is what catalysed the journey of acceptance.  Up  the notch of discomfort,  take away the usual distraction and see what’s there.  How am I? this is where it gets fascinating because from the outside, there I am sitting there looking like probably not much happening.  From the inside, another reality all together. Thoughts like flies are my constant companion. They can be agonising,  calm, sometimes insightful, memories, imaginations and projections and whatever else. Thankfully mind  does quieten  in nature. 

    ….    Humility – day 1 to 4  – colour Red – element Fire – direction East

    The first 4 days the prayer is for humility. I  have to accept the fragility of my body. I am dying slowly.   I feel the absence of water more than anything.  It is an incredibly physical journey on the level of bodily sensations. The dry fast puts me face on with my instincts.  There is a fight  in me. I feel like a wet cloth being rung out.   I wake up with the first light, a whole day ahead of me without water. The first day passes with relative ease and the second arrives before long. It’s a good feeling have these days behind me because I’m in it now.   On the 3rd and 4th day I experience waves of thirst but also longer  periods of  calm.

    I am on my back a lot. Sometimes I find myself  in foetal position finding  solace in the holding.  Every posture has a cycle and I sense myself coming to the  end  of one and moving into the next.  One of my favourites is on my back with my legs up on  the side of a tree.  I feel so much support from the tree as the soles of  my feet find  a place on the bark. As if tree speaks through my feet, telling me I am a part of this nature. I  love this feeling of feet  connected to tree. Even better when the sun finds my body and warms me to my bones.

    My days are spent in only a handful of different positions and there is some routine. The end of one leads into the beginning of the next. From my back I sit up. many people ask me if I meditate. I never meditate because the quest itself is one long meditation. There is no getting away from it, mind follows. Each moment is a choice of presence or distraction. I sit up,  not meditating, just sitting. Everything else is the same, mind heart body continue as they did  when I was on the ground. 

    I enjoy the sitting but this too will give way into a new position like squatting.  Squatting too feels good for a time and then I am on my back again, this time I may stretch.  From there I walk around my space, or just stand for a while. And those more or less are my movements for the duration of the quest. I find a rhythm in them, there is a comfort in each one because they contain a beginning and end. Similar to a story, mind relaxes  in story, finds an orientation in story.

    My thirst peaks on day 2 and into day 3, thereafter I am in a fasting state punctuated by longer periods where strangely the thirst disappears.  I am left needing nothing, a welcome feeling.   4 nights pass and I am visited by the support team around midday . It’s a welcome sight, knowing that relief is imminent.   I always have the thought that If I can do the first 4 days then I can do anything that follows.  But the painful emotions, the ones I spend my life avoiding can feel harder than not having water.

    ….    Will  – day 5 to 7  – colour Yellow – element Earth – direction South

     On day 5  to 7 the prayer is for will. These are  the prayers set within the tradition we work within. My will as it connects to universal will, remembering purpose beyond my personhood. What am I here for, what is mine to give.  My experience of this time is usually a clearing ground for whatever I pushed aside  that stands in the way of me listening to life. My fear, insecurity, worth, resistance to life come into view.

    My palette is clean and my body is ready to receive every last drop of nourishment. I have to ration my fruit to about 2 pieces a day but before fruits, tea. This is the sacred sacrament of peyote. Just imagine how ripe you are after 4 days to receive this medicine. I  know little else that feels as healing to the body, mind, spirit. My cells feel like they are  in an ecstatic dance.  I am incredibly thirsty so take in more than half the 1.5 L allocated.

    I am in heaven. It  is a strange transition to be on the other side of thirst. Will comes when  I relax, when I open to an intelligence beyond myself.  This new phase of the quest helps me with that by putting me in relationship with my condition in very real way.

    Our conditions are complex, multifaceted and connected to past. Who knows how many generations back. I carry the stories of my ancestry.  They are alive in me,  both strengthening  and weakening forces. I am spun into the whirlwind of everything that I am and have been. The project at hand is coming to terms with the version of myself I have become.

    I am cast back to a young boy. I know this boy but have not fully embraced him. I wish he had done it differently as I imagine who I would be now had he been able to stick it out at karate.

    I feel angry with my dad because the story I am telling is that he let me quit. He should have shown me a way through rather than back away from challenging. He didn’t. That’s the father I had. There is more fight  in me.  Maybe I’m even angry at God, how could it have happened this way. Aren’t I supposed to be someone else.

    I say acceptance runs deep because the things I need to accept are almost always rooted in the past. I have to feel what that boy felt, remember what his life was like. He needs compassion. It’s too easy to think that little guy should have done it differently.

    The hard part about accepting the choice to quit was accepting all that came after that. Accepting  the implications to my life,  how this would shape me all the  way through to present day.

    Only with hindsight’s view do I see the unfolding story.  When I take the perspective of that young boy, I see the truth of the choice  that he made. To him with everything he had at his disposal, the life that he had lived up until then all culminated in that being the best  he could do.  I find a way of softening with him, seeing him. Accepting him just as he is. I think of the pain of excluding him.

    There is  no middle ground when it comes to acceptance. To accept life is to take it as it is, no argument. Those choices start the sketch of the character I will become, the major themes that will play out, the backdrop to my life.  Accepting the little boy in me and respecting his choice to quit puts me in relationship with all the versions of myself that would follow.  They too needed kindness and understanding. They all had their reasons. I must become even more  intimate with my story, finding a way  to love everything that has come before in my life, and the lives before me.

    Accepting my life as it is then also accepting the inevitable archetypical journey that I step into by incarnating. From there novelty can emerge. What an opportunity in that, to do it differently in ways that count not only my own life but all that I am connected to.

    Next and last post in this series – Blessing of water and dreaming the deeper dream

    Credit to Joe Flemming for the feature image.

  • Vision quest part 1 – Introduction

    Vision quest part 1 – Introduction

    When I first heard about a vision quest, I was young. It sounded like a terrible idea even though I knew it was a respectable thing to do. I mostly feared that I wasn’t  made out of the right stuff to undertake such a journey. In the end, it took me 13 years to complete a series of 4 quests.  I had to redo my first and then took space between quests to build up  my will.

    A vison quest really is a strange thing. Even now when I think about it just sounds too far out. You mean you just sit there and do nothing for all that time.   What on earth  could be the point.  There are no formal teachings,  no new knowledge,  no nothing at the end of it not even a certificate to validate your achievement.  Truly, the  ego doesn’t get much on this one. So what is the point and that’s something I’d like to answer  in a few parts. This then is part one, an introduction to my quest.

    Firstly to say that I am so grateful for all the support I received not just from the bottom of the mountain but from friends all over that gave me the strength to  go do this. This is the essence of ubuntu, the deeply felt sense that I am because we are.  I exist within culture, community, family, friendships, relationships. For much of my life the idea of community felt far away. I errored in the opposite direction. My story went something like  I don’t need anyone or at least don’t want to need anyone. I aimed for fierce independence which got me nowhere quickly.  

    These years of vision questing have healed so much  of that. Even though I sometimes felt overwhelmed by the support I received,  I needed it the most this time and felt a growing comfort in being  able to relax into the arms of community. That’s the beauty I think,  that we all get a chance to do this for one another in this ebb and flow of giving  and receiving.  It has been a time of receiving support and I think this alone was incredibly healing for me. 

    One of the first insights I received came early on when 13 days felt like an eternity. Even when it gets really tough, a little voice told me, don’t wish this time of nothing away.  The first 4 days without food and water are always challenging for me and this quest was no exception.  I think the difference was that I wished it away less. I was able be with the extremes of thirsts more than usual, more curious about my bodies response then afraid. As for the rest of the days, I’ll get to that. For now to say the theme of staying with the entire process, beginning to end was the most prominent of all.

    To say a few things on the practical side. The actual vision quest space is small, about 15 sqm and you have nothing to entertain you, not even a pen.  One of the things I’ve noticed is that it feels natural to want  to be as comfortable as possible. And why not try. On a vision quest however, the bar for comfort is dramatically lowered. You accept that many of your moments won’t be comfortable ones.  It’s a case of do what you can then let go and this is an ongoing process.

    I notice one day for example that I could move a branch for more shade, or change the angle  of my tarp so that the rain runs off better. It feels good to evolve things and equally as good knowing the limitations. I’d say overall I have got a lot better at finding and making improvements in my space, working with the setting as well as possible. In that way I see it a little bit like a substitute for scouts training that I didn’t do much of in my youth. I have learned to value this line of practical intelligence so much. It has always been my weaker hand, and as Marcus Aurelius would say, its a good idea to develop skills that don’t come naturally or the ones we neglected in some way.

    Next  post – reckoning with my story. Acceptance runs deeper than words.

  • Middle road

    Middle road

    One of the most useful ideas I ever heard was Ken Wilber’s distinction between absolute and relative truth.   It’s this seemingly paradoxical idea that the world  we are accustomed to  characterised  by polarity (no one thing can exist without its opposite)  also contains a non-polarised dimension – an absolute truth or Big mind as Wilber likes to say that has not been split. It’s the spacious, open awareness that we relax back into in meditation or what Sam Harris calls the “prior condition”.

    Hurts more bother you less

    Ken Wilber

    Why this distinction is so useful to me is because it explains what our evolution can look like. Instead of thinking we need to be untouchable or if we are walking a spiritual path,  that we need to look like a more together kind of person less effected by worldly concerns we can hold a different point of view.  Evolving as these human creatures involves feeling more. That means it hurts even more but at the same time bother us less precisely because of the absolute realm.

    When we are walking in both we know both realities as true. In absolute terms, there really is no problem to solve and we can relax in that. In relative terms, there is much work to do. Over leaning in either direction results in imbalance. On the one side it looks like spiritual bypassing and on the other crushed by the pain of humanity. The middle ground is this profound line  by Wilbur – Hurts more but bothers less. That we can feel the full spectrum of humanity and be grounded in what can never be touched