Commitment: Session 4 Notes

Intention of Session Four:

To reveal the “in order to” your character lives from.

The character I play in life, i.e., the ROLE I play, has many attributes, some virtues, some limitations.

Consider that my character was not put together by accident but by a clever design. My character’s virtues (and limitations) are completely an expression of my hidden and undeclared commitments.

Every virtue (and limitation) is designed from an “in order to”. Think of “in order to” as ‘what does it justify’ or ‘what does it BUY you’.

Limitations are restraints or restrictions I apply to life when things are going good. Things I do to mess life up (and make my life’s story more interesting 🙂

My limitations are designed to conceal an “in order to” and to allow me to continue to live from my hidden and undeclared commitments.

Notebook exercise:

List your character’s VIRTUES and their corresponding “IN ORDER TO” :

Benevolent -> in order to be important

Generous -> in order to be liked / accepted

Forgiving -> in order to avoid conflict

Smart -> in order to ???

My character’s LIMITATIONS and  their corresponding “IN ORDER TO”:

Controlling -> in order to get what I want

Manipulative -> in order to protect myself

Lazy -> in order not to be used up

Duplicitous -> in order to get what I want

Give Up -> in order to avoid responsibility

Get present to a life designed “in order to”.  Thoreau described such a life as one of “quite desperation”.

In an “in order to” life the game is to get something else: THIS ISN’T IT.

All your character’s virtues and limitations are INAUTHENTIC.

Examine the IMPACT of living a life “in order to”.

Some people softly tip toe through life so they arrive at death safely.

By owning and taking responsibility from the inauthentic way of being of your character’s virtues and limitations, an opening for new possibilities arises.

MORE LATER.

Commitment: Session 3 Assignment

Holding place. I will fill this in.

Commitment: Session 3 Notes

I was absent from session three, but Wendy re-created the session for me.

Here are a few notes. Please feel free to make additions and corrections.

Intention of Session 3:

NEED THIS.

Consider that what stops you (in life and in sharing) is your hidden and undeclared commitments. Consider also that RESIGNATION and CYNICISM are hidden and undeclared commitments that stop you from being truthful.

Give yourself permission to be human.

Consider: Life is like a long movie. We play a character that is a product of our hidden and undeclared commitments. Those hidden and undeclared commitments are essential to the plot of my life’s story.

What type of story am I living (SciFi, Drama, Heroic epic, Romance, Comedy, etc.)

(I think I am living an European “Art” Film.)

What is the THEME MUSIC for you story?

(My theme music is songs about sacrifice in love: I give up everything so YOU can be happy and have the life and relationship of your dreams. Like the plot of MAKING LOVE.)

What is the persona of my character? His qualities and attributes?

My character is not perfect. He has flaws that make the story interesting and help to create dramatic tension. In fact, my character has an unresolvable dilemma.

You don’t have to LIKE your character, just own that you are responsible for creating him and own the impact of living that character.

Commitment: Session 2 Assignment

• Continue writing in your notebooks:
  • Keep revealing hidden and undeclared commitments by looking at how you act and operate.
  • Look at the impact of theses commitments on your life, and
  • Continue to speculate on new possibilities
• With at least 3 people in your life, share a new possibility that you are inventing for yourself and your life out of being in the seminar in such a way that the listener is present to your new possibility as a victory over the past and is touched, moved and inspired by that possibility.
• Consider that with your hidden and undeclared commitments in the background, what occurs in the foreground is the character that you are in life. Your character is an expression of those commitments. Inquire into what the character is that you are and play in life.

Commitment: Session 2 Notes

Intention of the Session:

To begin to reveal the hidden and undeclared commitment that you are in life.

Where there is loss of power, somewhere there is an inauthenticity.

Even if you experience yourself as someone who has problems committing, you are very committed.

Consider: All human beings are committed. This conversation is not about IF you are committed, but WHAT you are committed to.

Why is there such a disconnect between what people say they are committed to, and how they operate in life?  Because we are completely inauthentic in our relationship to commitment.

In the backgroun of our lives we have hidden, undeclared commitment from which we operate. These hidden, undeclared commitments run our lives.

They are not commitments we HAVE. They are commitments we ARE, and as such, shape who we are being.

These are not commitments we invented; we inherited them. They are like the water a fish swims in; completely invisible to us.

To distinguish our hidden, undeclared commitments, start by observing our actions in the FOREGROUND. Then ask, what is the hidden, undeclared commitment that is giving me that way of operating in life?

Tim shared:

Guilt is just a way of looking good when you are doing something that is out of integrity.

MY HIDDEN, UNDECLARED COMMITMENTS:

• to not get hurt
• to be right
• to not be seen as stupid
• to be comfortable
• to be paid attention to
• for things to be easy

Avanish:

I play the game at this level because I know I can win at this level.

Alex:

Pleasure seeking, pain avoiding person.

Living from hidden, undeclared commitments has an enormous impact. What has been the impact of my hidden, undeclared commitments?

UNKNOWN at this point.

In the space that opens up from being authentic about being inauthentic about commitments is the possibility of being at CHOICE about the commitments that run your life.

Commitment: Session 1 Assignment

• Continue to engage in the work we started in the notebook exercise listing your commitments. Keep adding to your list of what you are committed to. Look for insights into what your commitments are by observing how you actually operate and act in your life.
• Share with at least three people what you are committed to creating for yourself out of being in the seminar. It is very powerful to be known as your commitments. Notice what you come up against as you share what you are committed to.
• Share a possibility that you have invented for yourself and your life in a way that leaves the listener touched, moved and inspired by your having gotten that possibility. Share that possiblity as a triumph over the past.

Commitment: Session 1 Notes

Commitment: The Path to Adventure

Intention of the Series:

To empower you to create and live from commitments that leave you enlivened and fulfilled.

Intention of tonight’s session:

1) To create a foundation of workability for causing the intention of the seminar to be fulfilled.

2) To begin to distinguish the commitments you are.

The already/always understanding of the word ‘commitment’:

• responsibility
• duty
• stuck
• not turning back
• constraining
• burdensome
• obligation
• etc.

Things we commonly say about ‘commitment’:

• overly committed (as if too much commitment is a problem)
• my plate is full (get a larger plate)
• I’m afraid of commitment

We commonly collapse commitment and desire. We see commitment as something to be avoided.

The DISTINCTION COMMITMENT lives in the domain of BEING. A commitment gives you who you are being.

Commitment, as a distinction: is the act of investing one’s self or giving one’s self to a possibility.

The phrase “I commit …” is not a description of something you HAVE. Saying “I commit…” is an ACTION in SPEAKING that produces a RESULT. Saying “I commit” is giving one’s self to whatever “I commit” to.

What people say the are committed to and what people are actually committed to is rarely a match.

How we live life on a day to day basis has little to do with what we say we are committed to.

CONSIDER: that there is a whole world of commitments that we are living into which are completely hidden and undistinguished.

Anything that is undistinguished has power over you.

An exercise: List what you are committed to:

REXL’s List:

• sleeping until I am not tired
• dancing for my own pleasure
• looking for sex
• watching TV
• eating food I really like and enjoy
• enjoying time with the people I spend time with, like my brother Kane.
• avoiding traffic
• doing as little as possible around the house
• feeding my cats
• only responding to email that matters to me
• my shower time
• working on the board of directors of NASSPDA
• teaching those who ASK
• taking my medications
• sharing celebrations with my family

What the Commitment Seminar IS and ISN’T:

It isn’t about dealing with or fixing your issues around commitment. It is not about learning to manage, take on, get better at, stop fearing, etc. commitment.

It IS about transforming your relationship to commitment and empowering you to create commitments that enliven and fulfill you.

What *I* want from my participation in this seminar:

To discover those thing that I am committed to that are hidden and unacknowledged that sotp me from making commitment that leave me fulfilled and enlivened.

Welcome to the Orlando Landmark Participants’ Blog

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This blog is intended as a forum for members of the Orlando Landmark community to exchange thoughts on and support each other in their partiticipation in Orlando area Landmark programs.

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