A Letter to A Contemplative Leader

Dear Friend, Dear Contemplative Leader:

Join me in a new way of being: being up for a very bright future full of possibility and miracles. Join me in this moment. The one you imagined in the moment before. Because here we are. Together.

There is power in silence. It is the place leaders find peace. And discernment. This spacious place we all know, yet forget to seek. It is always with us on the inside. As constant as our breath. If you are breathing you can also be meditating. The tool is in you.

Silence can give us the words we need and at the time when we need them. We can respond from a place of emotional fortitude. Not reaction. Interpretation. We can fact check our own stories. We have time for this.

There is power in togetherness. We are stronger together. I need you and you need me. I see you in the elevator and I say little prayers for your children, and your mothers. And the beautiful work you create every day. I see you. Ask me for the cup of sugar. It’s waiting in my cupboard. Ask for what you need. 

There is power in understanding. Contemplation opens up skills for deep listening and loving speech. We need this. Our children need this. Urgently. You, dear contemplative leader, can show them a different way to respond. A kinder, gentler way. We were born to love each other.

There is power in awareness. I want to be awake and alive with you in this moment and the next. I want to practice and grow and practice and grow some more. I want to fail and succeed and be present for my heart in both of those spaces. Contemplative Leaders leave lots of space to fail. You do, too, contemplative leader, because you know that in failure there is truth. And in truth we grow the most. Through practice we learn to be okay with uncertainty. You are perfect in your imperfection. More vulnerable in your truth.

Dear contemplative leader, we want the same things. We share these values: we—balanced and gracious are up for something greater than ourselves: mindful, compassionate, fearless and so devoted to leadership we look to the next generation to teach us because we know where brilliance lives. It lives in all of us. Contemplative Leaders help other contemplative leaders lead.

Dear Contemplative Leader, don’t forget to breathe. The breath is a rhythm. Rhythm leads to pattern…pattern leads to practice. And don’t forget to write. To be curious about where compassion is sourced in the world. And Dear Leader, read lots of poetry by Mary Oliver, David Whyte and John O’Donohue. And so I leave you with the words of Mary Oliver:

Summer Day

Who made the world?
Who made the swan, and the black bear?
Who made the grasshopper?
This grasshopper, I mean-
the one who has flung herself out of the grass,
the one who is eating sugar out of my hand,
who is moving her jaws back and forth instead of up and down-
who is gazing around with her enormous and complicated eyes.
Now she lifts her pale forearms and thoroughly washes her face.
Now she snaps her wings open, and floats away.
I don’t know exactly what a prayer is.
I do know how to pay attention, how to fall down
into the grass, how to kneel down in the grass,
how to be idle and blessed, how to stroll through the fields,
which is what I have been doing all day.
Tell me, what else should I have done?
Doesn’t everything die at last, and too soon?
Tell me, what is it you plan to do
with your one wild and precious life?