OPENNESS...

"I want to know if you can live with failure,

yours and mine, and still stand on the edge of the lake

and shout to the silver of the full moon, "Yes!"

It doesn't interest me to know where you live or how much money you have.

I want to know if you can get up, after the night of grief and despair,

weary and bruised to the bone,

and do what needs to be done to feed the children."

- Excerpts from "The Invitation," by Oriah Mountain Dreamer

I never really had, or learned or wanted to develop, a certain kind of filter that most guys have been brought up to see as being part of what it takes to "act like a man." That, "hey, everything's fabulous" that gets verbally communicated outwardly, while the circumstances of one's life may not be truly reflecting such story. A few years ago I ran into a then friend (let's call him Arthur) and business colleague, and when I asked him how he was doing, he said, "Great, great." When he asked me, I simply told him that I was really struggling, at that time some personal/family issues really bringing me almost to my knees." To which Arthur said, "yeah, me too." YEAH ME, TOO???!!! What happened to "great, great"? Yet there wasn't much to wonder about. So many people are afraid to ante up first, to be honest, to be open, as if that vulnerability feels like they are truly at risk. I often say, no one ever died from ego death. Yet what happened with Arthur transcended just him. It reflected how so many of us (feel that they) need that protective mask, because it's part of the dance we often do with each other. One that keeps the "others" in a conversation, in a friendship, feeling like just that. Disconnected. And, as Arthur, now empowered, having gotten "permission" from me to be truthful, continued to talk about his personal challenges, it struck me that even though we may avoid, or be almost afraid of the realness, we do ned it, and crave it when it's not there. Because having our egos be the basis for our connections or friendships, takes us so far away from what we can make happen, with each other.

I am noticing, very clearly, that more and more people these days are being open that they are struggling, whether that be emotionally, professionally, financially, spiritually. Whether it's about our kids, our health, Haiti, the Supreme Court, the War in Iraq, the economy, the environment, our personal crises or our global challenges. People. In all walks of life. Lawyers, businesspeople, photographers, writers, mothers, fathers, farmers, Presidents. And, even though the circumstances are so challenging, in a multitude of ways, there is also something profoundly powerful about this level of honesty that appears to be sitting right there, and which is getting shared. It is, among other things, an opportunity for building compassion, for seeing connections not differences, for fomenting our sense of what IS really important. For putting away, or at least even momentarily dropping, our masks. For being more real, with ourselves, before we can even do that with each other. You see, I am one of those people who actually misses the way "we" were here in New York City in the days and weeks after the horror of 9/11. Those moments in time when people were right (t)here, in their spirits, caught in an unexpected eye-to-eye with who they are and what they believe in. What moves them. What is essential to them. Like those people who grab their photo albums when leaving their burning home, not other "stuff". The irreplaceables. The non-negotiables. In September and October of 2001, walking with my kids through the streets of New York, we could all look into people's eyes, the eye contact so real and open, the eyes most truly serving as windows to the soul. People not hiding out or holding back. Those who obviously needed a hug, at that moment, from a "stranger," received one. We were, and are, all in this together. If we'd only keep remembering. Because as months turned into years, as we distanced ourselves in time from the visceral feelings we had, not just from the events, I could feel the openness melting, shrinking, evaporating. The "I know now what's important" seemed to transform, or go back, too often, to "I need a new [ ]", or "I just made alot of money in the market" or "I just have to get into the real estate market, even if I'm overpaying" or or or...so when those intervening years heated up not only the real estate market, or the stock market, it also reignited, and/or redirected, people's desires, or greed or focus or values, and we seemed to be back where we were, at least to me. Too much grasping, too much looking outside of ourselves. For the answer, for the balm, the salve. We had had all the reminders anyone could ever need, as we often do. So when the crash came more than a year ago, there was something that felt even worse, about where we had been, how much we had ignored, how deeply the collective we, around the world, had missed the opportunity. I remember sitting with Ariel Rosen Ingber on the morning of Obama's Inauguration, on the Upper Westside, waiting to watch it on a huge screen with a thousand other dreamers and rebels and lefties and hopers, and Ariel and I realizing that we were both members of a certain tribe...those who actually think that the crash, in the big picture, was a good thing, could be exactly what the world needed. Not because of the individual devastation, and horrors that have befallen people, each of us, people we know, people we care about. But because of another chance to rise up, and be more real, with substance, and clarity, and more selectivity, and patience, and faith. To use who we are, more than what we have, to make a difference. To cut to the chase, to connect from our guts. To be inclusive, not exclusive. To understand that we are all one degree from each other, what affects you, affects me. Maybe in ways that are not apparent on the surface, yet invariably, if we are looking, the lessons do become revealed. I always wondered why so many people, particularly men, so often engaged in various levels of puffing, posturing, layering...salesmanship. Because, in my experience, it is when we drop it, drop them, when we pull back our respective layers of "clothing" to allow us to connect with each other more openly and honestly and nakedly, and we acknowledge and celebrate that, regardless of the circumstances, we are all in this together, we create such foundations for supporting each other, loving each other, seeing that even in a time of "less" we are truly blessed and have so much for which to be grateful, we can come from a place of abundance (win-win) not a paradigm of scarcity (win-lose). Out of the darkness does come the light, we often just don't see it when we are in the midst. Let's just keep reminding and supporting each other in seeing the best of who we are, every day, and helping to set each other free to manifest our dreams. Be open. Stay open. Please.