Author: Toku

by Toku on Poetry

Is it enough?

Each day
Waking to a question in my mind

Is it enough?

This body
with some muscles and some fat
some wrinkles creeping in around my eyes
some part of me leaking out when I don’t want

Is it enough?

This life of making coffee
doing work I love
but making less money than other people make
and more than many do
having less fame then other people have
and more than many do

Is it enough?

The noise of traffic outside
a few plates in the sink
things mostly in their place
but clutter too

Is it enough?

A walk with friend to pick up dinner
talking about things we’ve talked about before
and yet enjoying the new curiosity on old pages

Is it enough?

Knowing the I’ll get old and die
well actually not knowing about the old part

Knowing it will be forgotten
all the laughter and angst

Knowing the earth is getting hotter
that racism is still a thing
that I don’t respect our leaders

Is it enough even though it’s never enough,
more days
I could handle anyway
more money
than I could spend
more life then
I have stomach for

Is it enough?
And what if it was?

 
by Toku on Mindset

Accept It or Change it: Eliminate Suffering In Your Life

If the world were full of angels, or robots, or digital avatars things would have the possibility to be perfect. But the world for good or for ill (and often both) are filled with humans. Humans have the potential for other worldly creativity, love, passion, dedication, sacrifice, and possibility. But they have the equal potential for stagnation, hate, boredom, laziness, selfishness, and scarcity.

You can look at your own life and you can see both. Elements, moments, events, etc that show your divinity, your endless possibility . . . AND failures, bad habits, shameful episodes that show your frailty, fallibility, and even your dark evil parts.

Because of this we often encounter other people and people-created institutions that annoy or frustrate us. The DMV, tax bureaus, bosses, retail stores and clerks, and all sorts of other things. We often wish these things worked differently and so we commit a two way sin
We refuse to accept things the way they are
We have no clear commitment to change these things.

This is where suffering comes in. If we can accept things, even if they are bad, we can be at peace with them. Even if this takes time and work, acceptance is a powerful human trait.

And of course, there are some things we don’t want to and probably shouldn’t accept. If we’re unwilling to accept something our only other choice is to commit to changing it. If we don’t, we’re essentially committing to suffering.

Because A – Things don’t usually change on our time table and B – when we refuse to accept things that we aren’t working on we tend to get very whiny and victimy about those things.

Committing to changing something is daunting because a true commitment to change requires we meet the thing we want to change fully where it is and become responsible for it being or occurring differently to us regardless of other people, situations, circumstances, history, or habits.

And this is hard because we like to blame other people for showing up as humans (even as we ask forgiveness for how we show up that way) is one of our favorite things to do.

But all progress is dependent on people doing just that. Seeing what they can’t accept and working to change it despite the obstacles that arise.

So we’re back to our BIG choice again, do you accept it or do you commit to change it?

Because even if it doesn’t change, working to change it can give you meaning, drive, hope and possibility. And even though acceptance might be hard, accepting something that is can liberate you from the suffering attached to it.

So you’ve got to pick. Change it or accept it. And no matter which you choose, you will be literally creating your world from choice rather than from the resignation that suffering so often causes.

 
by Toku on Mindset

Is Luxury Stingy? Overpriced Hotels and Restaurants

I love staying at nice hotels, but often they feel like a ripoff.

While the La Quinta Inn in Walla Walla Washington offers free wifi, the Grand Hyatt in Los Angeles charges $5 a day.

While In and Out offers free refills on sodas, some five star restaurants charge you $2.00 for every glass you get.

The cost of hosting one more person on wifi or giving someone another $.05 glass of soda is marginal, but the impact is significant.

Maybe most people that go to nice restaurants and hotels don’t care about a dollar or two here or there. But for me instead of creating an experience of luxury, it creates an experience of stinginess. I start to feel like I’m getting nickeled and dimed, because that’s what’s happening.

Which makes me think about who I am as a leader and business owner. Because generosity (within reason) almost always leads to a sense of spaciousness and abundance. Whereas holding things tightly creates the opposite impact on both sides.

So the question is how do I want people to experience me as a leader. After all, the word of mouth created by my generosity is much less expensive than the cost of advertising.

 
by Toku on Mindset

The Four Stages of Change: Navigating Change

Change in people follows a predictable pattern. Understanding this pattern can help you understand where you are in the change process and how to move to the next stage.

Stage 1: Unconscious to conscious

The first stage is going from unconscious to conscious.

In recovery work it’s called admitting you have a problem. In meditation, it’s called noticing when you’re thinking.

Sometimes this happens because you’re forced to wake up to something you didn’t notice before. Sometimes this happens because you want to change and you start looking. No matter how it happens before you can shift something you must become conscious of it.

How to know if you’re here: There’s a problem you’ve been avoiding. You know you need to deal with it, but you’re afraid to admit it to yourself or someone else.

How to move on: Share what’s going on with someone you trust. Ask them just to listen and reflect. Sometimes telling someone else can be really powerful and healing.

Stage 2: Fixing to Facing

The second stage is going from fixing to facing.

Once you notice something you’ll start seeing it everywhere. You’ll want it to be different but you won’t really know what to do about it. You’ll try to control, suppress, or hack your way around the problem. This generally doesn’t work very well. Some of these solutions will work for a little bit but usually you are just fixing something in the short term. It doesn’t really change things.

A lot of people get stuck here, just noticing something and fixing it so they can forget. This is why beer was invented.

If you’re really committed to change and you’ve got good support you’ll eventually move beyond this. You’ll realize that you can’t just fix what’s happening, you have to actually look at what’s causing it. You’ll have to change how you relate to it and address who you’re being that’s making this problem show up again and again.

How to know if you’re here: You see repeating problems showing up in your life. You try to stick a bandaid on it but the problem keeps coming up.

How to move on: Get some support to distinguish the problem and what’s actually causing it. Work to figure out how you have tried to fix it and what it would mean to stop creating this problem in the first place.

Stage 3: Problem to a Possibility

The third stage is going from a problem to a possibility.

Once you have fully faced your problem you have a chance to truly transform it and yourself. Most people who are stuck in fixing are focused on what they don’t want. They don’t want to smoke anymore, they don’t want to be single, they don’t want to have a cluttered inbox. All of this not wanting has you fixated on the problem.

Something magical happens when you start to think about what you DO want. You want to feel healthy and vibrant. You want to create an incredible relationship. You want to answer people in a timely manner.

When you start to focus on what you want instead of focusing on what you want to avoid, things begin to shift. You’ll start to realize that there are many ways to start creating what you want. You’ll get inspired by what your goal is instead of discouraged by your setbacks. You’ll start to get supported in creating what you want and things begin to feel a bit easier.

How to know if you’re here: You have a problem you want to resolve and you’ve begun to look at what’s been causing the problem, but you notice yourself focused on what you don’t want rather than what you do want.

How to move on: Get clear on what it is you’re creating. If you can’t let go of anything you’re averse to and try to figure out what your true desires are. If you need to get support to start coming up with some ways you could create what you want.

Stage 4: Proposing to Practice

The final stage is when you stop proposing dreams, visions, and ideas and you start taking action in alignment with what you want.

You don’t just talk about doing it tomorrow, you start doing it today. You are willing to do it imperfectly. You are willing to gesture towards what you want to do. You start doing it (whatever it is) because you know nothing changes by thinking about it. Things only change when we’re in action, when we live into our commitments one awkward step at a time.

How to know if you’re here: If you’ve come up with lots of possible solutions, but you’re not implementing them or you do implement them but as soon as you hit a bump in the road you backtrack. You find yourself looking for new tools and techniques in the hopes that by acquiring some sort of new knowledge you’ll be able to overcome the problem.

How to move on: Get into action! Find an accountability buddy or hire a coach to keep you accountable. Think of all of your actions like an experiment, your #1 goal is to try things so you can learn what does and doesn’t work. Try to respond to failure with the phrase, “How fascinating!” instead of “I suck”. Finally, keep going until you find a way through, this phase is all about persistence, persistence, persistence.

These 4 stages are what I’ve seen myself and others go through again and again. Sometimes people jump a stage, sometimes they fall back, but no matter where you are, learning how to see what you’re missing, face what you’re avoiding, focus on what you’re desiring, and practice what you’re creating can help you achieve way more than you could ever possibly imagine.

Go forth and get to work!

 
by Toku on Meditations

The Internet Is Like A Dorito

Have you ever looked up from your phone only to realize that you’ve spent 30 mins researching what causes a rash. Or 40 mins watching short videos that added little else than vague amusement to your life.

The internet is masterful at offering us easy to munch ideas, images, and experiences.

It’s like a Dorito, most of the magic is in the coating. Once that’s gone, you’re left with an inferior corn chip with little texture or nutritional value.

We almost never do this in real life. Spending time walking down a street, noticing the architecture of buildings, spending time chatting with a store clerk.

Real life is harder, it’s 3D, it’s complicated, it’s messy. But the payoff is real.

It’s why spending time in nature is so healing. And why spending hours in the digital forest is so exhausting.

So the next time you notice yourself lost in the woods of pages and ideas, you might try going outside and being with yourself for a change.

It may not be as easy or immediately satisfying, but I guarantee it will change your life.

 
by Toku on Uncategorized

Some Unusual Qualities of Time

I’ve been thinking a lot about time recently. How it bends and shifts. How weird it is, and how weird we get around it.

Here are a couple of things I noticed that may help you have a better relationship with time.

Displacement – Time is like a solid box and everything we put inside it is like a liquid substance. Since time can neither be created or destroyed tends to simply displace itself to other areas.

When you’ve added something to your calendar you don’t really add anything, you simply displace something else by adding it.

When you remove something you take nothing away you simply create more space for something else to fill it.

This is why it’s so easy to overschedule yourself, because most people don’t really consider what they are displacing when they say yes. It’s also why you feel busy even when you “clear some time on your calendar” because you don’t notice the other things that flow into the space.

Inhumanity – Time doesn’t really care about you being a human and that things go wrong. It is unyieldingly precise. Time doesn’t flex because there’s traffic, it doesn’t contract because the bus is late. It marches on regardless of what is occurring to you in your life.

This is why things fall apart so quickly when something in your well designed schedule doesn’t work out as planned. If you don’t add some humanity to your schedule and life, a little space for things not to work out, you’re screwed.

No judgement – Time doesn’t exercise any judgement. If you fill it, you will feel full. If you leave it empty, you will feel that space. Time doesn’t care what you fill it with. It could be something profound, mundane, dramatic, or even absurd. Time will simply tell you when it’s full.

This is why so many people are what I call Lazy-Busy. It’s a state where their time is filled. They feel busy because of this fullness but it’s full of things because the things have been poorly designed and mis packed. It’s like someone opened up the back of a hatchback and just threw things inside. And then when something was taken out, they found the next thing closest to them and threw that inside too.

A poorly packed car is maddening, a well packed car is impressive, a car packed with the items it needs, with space to find and maneuver those items in a useful way, is truly magical.

 
by Toku on Uncategorized

Extroverted? Here’s Some Tips From a Zen Monk on How To Be More Quiet and Reflective.

It seems like the world is obsessed with introverts. We want to understand them, laugh about them, and even try to change them. As an extrovert who has mostly dated introverted people I’ve laughed at the memes about introverts being relieved when people cancel plans, had my heart melt at comics about how loved introverts feel when people lovingly give them space, and even marveled at how my partners can feel totally depleted after a party when I feel fully energized.

In April 2019, Tom and Lorenzo responded to a tweet by Oprah that featured an article titled “Introverted? Here’s how to be more social”. He asked a simple question, “Where are the articles titled: Extroverted? Here’s some tips on How to be more Quiet and Reflective.”

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​https://twitter.com/tomandlorenzo/status/1167004120756236291​

And he makes a good point. For the first twenty years of my life I was a passionate, outgoing, extrovert known for arguing any point that crossed my path and interrupting people to say “actually . . . “ and share my knowledge on a given subject.

But in my late twenties I moved into and lived at a Zen monastery for two years and what I learned there about being quiet and reflective changed my life. Sure introverts are interesting for their sometimes counterintuitive behavior, but what’s really unexamined is the strange thing that drives extroverts to talk and how changing it can help you in all sorts of ways.

Extroverts who learn self control around speaking and connecting . . .

  • Appear more confident and powerful
  • Have people listen to them more closely
  • Experience greater satisfaction and depth in life
  • Have stronger and more intimate relationships
  • Appreciate the small things in life more
  • And take fewer things personally

One thing most extroverts don’t understand is that . . .

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Talking a lot isn’t always a sign of confidence, it might actually be camouflage for your insecurity.

When I lived at the monastery we spent a lot of time not talking. And at first this was really challenging. I noticed how often I wanted to make a comment, a joke, or offer an interesting fact about something that was happening.

But because silence was encouraged I learned how to bite my tongue and I discovered how deeply uncomfortable I was.

If I wasn’t talking, sharing my insights, making a joke then who was I?
Was I valuable as a person? Would people want me around?

I came to see that while I do love connecting with people my desire to talk and connect wasn’t coming from a deep commitment to connection, but an anxious yearning to have the people around me constantly reassuring me that I was funny, smart, and charming.

And when I let that go I had to face the reality that I wasn’t very confident at all, I was just addicted to the constant stream of feedback I got by being extroverted.

You see, many extroverts love to connect. They get energy from being around people, from loud noises, and exciting activities, but they sometimes struggle to be with themselves.

The silence can feel confronting, their own energy can be hard to contain, and so they go through life hooked on this social feedback. Slowly by being silent I learned to let go of this need and found that I could enjoy other people even more.

Because they were no longer a dealer for my social dopamine high, but rather actually really interesting people with whom I could connect and deepen relationships.

This leads me to the second thing I noticed:

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The key to more connection isn’t more conversation, it’s more silence.

One of the biggest complaints I’ve heard from friends about the dates they go on is that the person just talked about themselves the whole time.

It’s a mistake that can be understood by our current culture of producing content. Our job is to share, share, share and hope that someone will respond. This puts our attention on talking and sharing and not much on listening.

None of the platforms most of us spend much time on really encourage us to listen or engage. It’s why so many of my coaching clients are blown away by how much I simply listen to them.

When you’re quiet there’s more space for things to arise.

​

Practice talking less and notice what arises in you

If you want to actually connect with more people, be quiet and notice what arises.
When you’re listening are you really listening? or are you waiting for your turn to talk?
Can you slow down and pause before speaking?
Did you really hear what that person just said? Or do you already have something lined up?

What do you feel when you hold your comments?
What do you feel when you talk less?

By slowing down and talking less you can learn a lot about yourself and even find a way to be fully comfortable without having to talk all the time.

 
by Toku on Poetry

Receive Her No With Grace and Graciousness

The true test of a man shouldn’t be how many women he can bed, or how much money he can make, but rather how much grace and graciousness he can show in receiving a no.

No one likes to be rejected, shut down, or told no.

It can give you a feeling of being stifled, shamed, judged, or even of having your worth denied.
But even though you can do a lot to impact the no that’s offered, what really matters is how you react to it.

A no is not something to be worked around. To be cajoled. To be pushed past.

A no is an invitation to pause, to get curious, to reflect, and to lean in with an open heart.

This is especially true when a woman tells you no.
And even more true when she tells you no gently.

It’s brave for a woman to say no.
Because we live in a world where no from a woman is a dirty dangerous word.
So if she gives it, gently and with love it means she trusts you or hopes to.

She is asking with hope that you will be the kind of man who honors this no, feels the fullness of its gift, and is willing to swallow any pain that might arise and simply be with her.

A no isn’t personal anymore than a fenced yard is, or a keep off the grass sign.
No is the simplest unit of a boundary.
No is a line that helps you see where your desire hits her comfort or willingness.

Her no is a gift because it tells you exactly where you are.
It gives you a ground to stand on and explore with her or within yourself.

Sure you can ask about the no, get curious about what might have it be a yes, work through nos that want to be changed, but you can only do this with honor, if you can receive it with grace and graciousness.

The grace to hear it and really feel its power.
The grace to let it land and to pause before you react.
The grace to own what it brings up, while also honoring how it was offered.
The grace to learn from this no and to hear the no behind any yes so that you can feel where the chance for growth (mostly yours) lies.

And alongside these graces, graciousness.

The graciousness that she trusts you to tell you no, (esp directly)
The graciousness to be strong enough to not collapse in the face of it.
The graciousness that she doesn’t want you to step over an edge that might damage your connection.
With a graciousness that she is offering you a chance to honor and even heal her with your loving reception.

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This is a true test of what it means to be a man.

Because a man who is strong in himself, truly honors the one he’s with and is capable of accepting challenges with dignity and courage, is a man all men should all work to be.

 
by Toku on Mindset, Poetry

The Desire To Die — Explained

I remember at one point last year in the isolation of the pandemic where the grief of my failed relationship and the acute sense of isolation felt unbearable.

There was one night where I rubbed my eyes and stared at this horrible racing game I had been playing for hours. My mouth felt stick and dry from the sugary cereal I’d been eating. Part of me wanted to trawl the internet for porn, but I knew that on some level would only give me a few moments of relief.

I wanted to sleep and forget about everything, but as soon as I’d tried to close my eyes the thoughts and feelings came flooding back.

I felt hopeless, life felt meaningless, and I wasn’t sure why I wanted to keep going.

This feeling of not being able to bear my life, emotions, and everything else that was happening was a familiar one. It was something I felt a fair amount of times in high school and even more in college.

For a long time I used pot to cope with these feelings to various levels of success. When I lived in the monastery the feelings were still there. I took it (just like everything else) into meditation and to interviews with the teachers. But despite years of meditation this feeling still existed in me.

It’s the feeling of not knowing how to go on.

It’s taken me a few years to recognize it, but this feeling almost always arises at the tectonic edge of two parts.

One part is an old way of being in the world. Some people call this part a survival mechanism, an old belief system, or a breakdown. I call it historical gravity.

It’s like this phantom limb that keeps grasping for some comfort it can no longer have.

The other part is the new way of being. Some people call this an essence, a higher self, or a breakthrough. I call it spiritual momentum.

When my historical gravity and spiritual momentum meet, it can feel like I’m getting squeezed in the middle. Very often the version of myself in that moment knows I have to keep going, knows that something needs to shift, knows I need to let go, but that same part of me also doesn’t know how to keep going, is unwilling and unable to shift, and feels like letting go will mean losing everything it ever cared about.

The pressure of this moment when it arrives is intense. It’s a moment that will make anyone long for escape. It’s this kind of moment that can drive a relapse into drugs, the reaching for meaningless sex, and even the desire to die.

If you don’t know how to go on, but you can’t stay where you are, what else is there to do?

THE LIE AT THE CENTER

The other thing I’ve learned is that this moment also has a lie at the center. The lie at the center of this moment is that it will last forever.

You will be forever caught between an unstoppable force and an immovable object.

Your survival mechanisms are trying to keep the old you alive, but that you can’t live in the environment you’re in anymore. And I think it’s why some people choose to jump out of a building (life) that’s on fire (in the midst of a tectonic call to change).

The problem is that the lie of this moment convinces us there’s no escape. And what I’ve learned is that there is ALWAYS an escape and that escape is found by sliding down the chute of time.

While these moments feel endless they always shift given time.

One plate (hopefully the future/more conscious plate) slides on top of the other. And the other plate (hopefully the past/less conscious plate) presses into the earth and gets turned into molten energy.

THIS ALWAYS HAPPENS !!! I know it may not seem like it’s going to. And trust me I’ve been CONVINCED that it won’t but it always does. This is the process of transformation, of deep and meaningful growth in life, but it rests entirely on a combination of two things:Pressure and time.

The feeling of total crisis, of spiritual death, that’s the pressure. So all you really need it to add time to the equation and you’ll be fine. Your life will shift, you will be able to become the thing life is demanding of you to become. It takes some time, but it will happen.

 
by Toku on Mindset

10 Prompts for Deeper Conversations with a Friend or Colleague

Have you ever felt like you want to get to know someone better, but you just have no idea where to start?

In life, it’s safe to say we’re going to meet and interact with all different kinds of people…

On a few lucky occasions, we’ll come across a person that we get along with right away. Usually we know this because our interactions with this person provoke a feeling of trust or comfort. It feels almost effortless to get to know the person, and equally effortless to share personal details about our life…

On the other hand, there are times when we know right away that we are not compatible with someone. Maybe their core values or views conflict with our own, or maybe it’s as simple as their tone of voice just rubs us the wrong way…

But what about the people that we just simply want to get to know better? Maybe you have a hunch that you’d really enjoy someone’s company… but it’s hard to bridge the gap between the niceties of “Hey, how’s it going?”, “I’m fine. How are you?” to “Hey, did you end up deciding to take the day off to visit your cousin in the hospital? I’ve been thinking of you both…”

A client of mine actually reached out to me the other day asking for some ideas on how they can create deeper conversation with their colleagues on a weekend trip they were about to embark on…

And this got me thinking…

When looking to have a deeper conversation with someone, where do you start? Obviously you don’t want to scare anyone off by probing if they’re not very comfortable with you yet, but at the same time, maybe that’s the person who could really stand to gain from opening up about their life. What’s more, sometimes I find that it’s almost easier to confide in a person you don’t know very well, compared to confiding in a spouse or a family member.

In search of how to aid my client in their request, I came up with a list of 10 different ways to invoke deeper conversation with someone:

1) Have each of you make a list of the things that you’re most curious about the other person then take turns answering questions about their area of interest

2) Each of you shares one regret you have in life and what you learned from it (repeating as many times as you please)

3) Each of you writes down 5 answers on individual pieces of paper (answers that involve simple ideas or concepts) then, place each paper into a hat and take turns drawing an answer and trying to come up with the question that you think your answer is responding to.

4) Time Machine Time! Share something about who you were or what your life was like starting at age 5 and working your way up to your current age in increments of 5 years. (What was life like at 10 for you? 15? 20? And continuing on…)

5) Talk about the future you see for yourself and the future you see for your kids. What will the world be like for them and how might you help them prepare for it?

6) Talk about what you love about your romantic partners and what you want to learn to love and accept more of.

7) Discuss what you are most grateful for.

8) If you could change something about the way you were raised, what would it be?

9) Each of you choose one problem you are currently facing, then take the time to share, discuss and reflect on them together.

10) Throw all these questions away and simply ask in each moment what could I say that’s more true? What could we talk about that would matter more? What am I hiding or holding back? What if I shared more of my heart in this moment?

The beautiful thing about this process isn’t just that you’re about to gain a new friend! You also stand to gain from being vulnerable with this person, and will learn more about yourself through these conversations!

If you try any of these conversation-starters out, let me know how it goes!

Happy conversing!