Waking: What Does it Look Like?

October 29, 2019 by Seth Haines

I’m in Grand Rapids to read the audio versions of my first book, Coming Clean: A Story of Faith, and my next book, The Book of Waking Up: Experiencing The Divine Love That Orders a Life. I’m reading them in order, starting with the one sharing how I woke to my dependence on alcohol and how I moved into what I call “inner sobriety.”

Coming Clean represents my journal from the first 90 days of my sobriety journey, and revisiting this material all these years later hasn’t been easy. It’s taken me back into the experience, into the days where I woke from my gin-induced stupor and into the hard questions of faith. I’d used liquor (with a side of theology) to anesthetize myself, to numb myself to sleep. And as I read my entry from November 2, 2013, I remembered why.

Consider the journal entry below and ask yourself: What do I use as a sleep-inducer, as a narcotic to numb myself to the areas of my own non-conformity?

November 2, 2013

On most mornings, I wake early, brew a pot of coffee, and find my way to the plush blue chair in the corner of the living room. This is the quiet space for listening or sorting things out. Sometimes I hear the wind blowing through the trees outside. On this particular autumn morning, I hear it blowing through the trees, hear the acorns pelting the skylight, the squirrel fodder undone from their branches and sent flying like wooden hail.

The wind rustles the mesquite tree branches of my memory, the essence of my young faith, the place I’m trying to return to. Go into the pain. This is the advice of therapists, sages, and poets. Eleventh-century Persian poet Rumi wrote, “The remedy for the pain is the pain.” Starting your morning with a steaming cup of coffee and a side of pain, however, can be a jolt more than one can bear, so instead, I reach for a distraction: Robert Mulholland’s book Invitation to a Journey, a book about spiritual formation.

Distractions—aren’t they all around? When life slides its shiv into the soft spot between two ribs, when the pain shoots through every nerve, common sense dictates that we run to the doctor or therapist. Common sense dictates that we allow them to take it out and bind our wounds. Why, then, do we so often ignore the shivs? Why do we allow them to bleed us dry while we reach for our man-made salves?

I open to chapter 3 of Mulholland’s book, where he writes,

“The process of being conformed to the image of Christ takes place primarily at the points of unlikeness to Christ’s image. God is present to us in the most destructive aspects of our cultural captivity. God is involved with us in the most imprisoning bondage of our brokenness. God meets us in those places of our lives most alienated from him. God is there, in grace, offering us the forgiveness, the cleansing, the liberation, the healing we need to begin the journey toward our wholeness and fulfillment in Christ.”

This is the challenge, I think: to find the places of unlikeness to God, the places where I am most alienated from him. …

Most mornings, my reading and prayer hour wakes at a slower pace. I begin in the chair, eyes closed and smelling coffee while the remnants of dreams linger. Often my attempts to wipe the groggy fog of sleep clean with prayer feels more like an exercise in effort, in the application of mental elbow grease. Often my prayers turn to nonsensical gibberish about long-lost aunts or churches I never attended or pasta or the like. This morning, though, the fog is being cut, being blown away by a sharper, cleaner wind. The words of Mullholland—they are like smelling salts awakening the unconscious.

In what ways am I most alienated from God?

In what ways am I alienated from God? I am a Christian who has used systems of theology and liquor—both addictions in their own right—to numb the pain that God might not answer my prayers, that he might not heal, and that ultimately, he might not be present in my life. The pain is evidence of this area of nonconformity, and I have used these vices to dull the pain.

***

Wake Up?

My next book, The Book of Waking Up: Experiencing the Divine Love that Reorders a Life* is available for pre-order NOW. (Amazon, Barnes & Noble) It’s a book that explores true, inner sobriety, and how to attach to and adore Divine Love. Pre-orders are vital to the success of a book, so please do not wait. Order today. And if you do, let me know via email. I’ll send you a sample along with the 3-part video series that gave rise to this book!

*All links Amazon links above are paid affiliate links. As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases.

Waking: What Appetites Lull You to Sleep?

October 28, 2019 by Seth Haines

Last week, I fell down on the job and failed to post the last two pieces in the Creation series. There’s a good reason for this, a reason that involves a dumpster fire that needed a firefighter. I happened to be that firefighter, and after the flames dulled to smoldering cinders, I was flat burned out.

Generative energy—this is among the things you lose in a fire.

I’m back this week, and we’re moving into a new theme: Waking. It’s the theme we’ll follow for a while, in large part because The Book of Waking Up releases in only a handful of weeks. (As no small aside, if you pre-order the book, let me know and I’ll send you a sample and a 3-part Waking Seminar.)

When I say waking, though, what do I mean?

Let’s start with an allegory.

Snow White found herself in the forest at that witching hour, the hour between lunch and supper when the appetites come calling. On her way to see her lover, she felt the hunger pangs of the cocktail hour, and as if on cue, a gray-haired woman with a crooked, warty nose stepped out from behind the largest oak. Dispensing with pleasantries, the woman said, “I have some little bacon-wrapped shrimp.” Enticed by this mixed-meat perfection (pinned together with a toothpick, no less), Snow White took and ate. Ignoring the maxim Doc the Dwarf was so fond of repeating—”Stranger Danger!”—Snow ate a second, then a third, then a fourth, but instead of feeling satiated, her head began to swim. The lights behind her eyes dimmed. Her knees wobbled, then bucked, and that’s when she knew the truth—the crooked-nose woman had laced all that bacon-wrapped shrimp with flunitrazepam. As she fell down a blackening hole, she was unaware it’d be weeks before her lover prince would come, before he’d wake her with the tenderness of love. In the moments before the coma, though, the angel Sister Regret came whispering, and this is what she said to Snow White: “Desire drives appetite and some of our appetites lead us into a drug-induced sleep. Snow White, what have you done?”

Waking—this is the theme for the week. Before the waking begins, though, ask yourself: What are the appetites that lead me into a drug-induced sleep? Put another way: What desires distract me from the love waiting on the other side of the wood?

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Wake Up?

*All links Amazon links above are paid affiliate links. As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases.

Creation: How Art Wakes Us Up to The World Around Us

October 23, 2019 by Seth Haines

Yesterday we examined how the act of creation can be therapeutic, how it wakes us to the meaning of our more complex emotional realities. Creation not only helps us make sense of our emotional realities, though. It wakes us to the world around us, helps extract meaning from our physical realities too.

I sat with Sean Womack at The Depot—the best and only creperie in Fayetteville—and we “scraped the universe.” (Scraping the universe: Sean’s term for agendaless, free-range conversation.) We discussed his most recent piece of art, one made with heat-fused polyethylene, wood, and galvanized steel. The polyethylene came from Walmart grocery sacks, the steel from chicken wire. His media grew from our particular context. Northwest Arkansas is the home of both Walmart and Tyson, the worlds’ largest retailer and chicken producer respectively, and so, there are sacks and chicken wire aplenty. I asked Sean why he’s poured himself into his art these days, and why he chose these particular materials for his most recent art. He said,

“I started doing art again therapeutically because I needed to make stuff… and I starting making things with different materials, but the materials weren’t indigenous to me. I wanted something more from my world. I started looking for materials we had around the house, and I found these Walmart bags. As a material, it represented an amazing substrate.”

Melting those bags to chicken wire, Sean has created something unique, something indigenous to my landscape. And on the way to the office this morning, I saw an unmelted Walmart sack caught on a barbed-wire fence. I thought of Sean’s work, how his art is an homage to the common Arkansas eyesore (I don’t have to drive five miles to see a Walmart sack hung on a fence). At the same time, his art helps me see this eyesore in a new way, helps me recognize the beauty hiding in it. (If only I could apply a little heat.)

As he creates, Sean offers me the imagination to see beyond the raw materials of my locality, gives me new imagination for the possibilities hiding under my nose. And isn’t this the purpose of art? To wake us to the realities hiding in plain sight.

Check out Sean’s art. What do you think?

View this post on Instagram

I’m very excited to share a sneak peek at some new work. I’m very excited about the materials and technique I’ve been developing. And I’ll be able to share the full works very soon. But for now here’s some detail shots. Heat-fused polyethylene, acrylic, wood, galvanized steel and enamel.

A post shared by Sean L Womack (@seanlwomack) on Oct 16, 2019 at 7:11pm PDT

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Wake Up?

*All links Amazon links above are paid affiliate links. As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases.

Creation: How Creativity Silences Demons

October 22, 2019 by Seth Haines

If I were to name the season, I’d call it tempestuous. If you’re human, you know this sort of season. The adrenaline rush at two in the morning. The mind loops of arguments and justifications. The white-hot pulse throbbing behind your eyes, in your stomach, in the back of your knees. Searching for that mythical animal resolution, that unicorn of rest—this is how those sorts of seasons go.

The details matter less than the chaos, the anger, the sorrow, the trauma, whatever, particularly in my own circumstance. But in those seasons, how do we break free of what Henri Nouwen calls our frozen anger ?How do we silence the stabbing midnight voices and move into something more like rest?

In her article, “What are the Health Benefits of Being Creative,” Dr. Maria Cohut, Ph.D wrote of the power of creativity in managing emotions. She wrote,

“Drawing, painting, or molding objects from clay has been scientifically proven to help people to deal with different kinds of trauma. In a comprehensive article on The Connection Between Art, Healing, and Public Health, Heather L. Stuckey and Jeremy Nobel say that ‘[a]rt helps people express experiences that are too difficult to put into words, such as a diagnosis of cancer.’

‘[A]rtistic self-expression,’ they continue, ‘might contribute to maintenance or reconstruction of a positive identity.’

A number of studies have also found that writing — expressive writing, in particular, which requires participants to narrate an event and explain how it affected them — can help people to overcome trauma and manage negative emotions.”

Creation—it’s a way to stop the deconstruction of the self, to cry out “let there be light” in the middle of a dark night. It’s a way to pull meaning from chaos.

In my own tempestuous season, my own season of frozen anger, I’ve turned to acts of daily creation. I’ve reached for the guitar daily. I’ve eked these little daily offerings. And what have I found? Something like the slowing of my mind-loops, the easing of the heat, the relief in my chest. I’ve found something like light. I’ve found something like soothing music. (Link for newsletter subscribers.)

Are you practicing a daily act of creation?
If not, why not?
What keeps you from saying “let there be light,” in some small way each day?

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Wake Up?

*All links Amazon links above are paid affiliate links. As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases.

Creation: In the Beginning

October 21, 2019 by Seth Haines

In the beginning and for the seven days that followed, God created. Heavens and earth. Sky and land. Animals and humans. You remember the story. And after the close of the first week of Creation, he gave humans the best gift—the ability to be co-creators in the world around him.

Painting, writing, playing the guitar, sculpting, woodworking, knitting, cooking up a batch of gumbo—these are all acts of creation, things we humans do every day. But why do we create? What are the benefits of creation in our life? More importantly, how do acts of creation keep us connected with the bigger story, the Divine Love that reorders a life?

These are the questions I hope to tackle this week in this series of posts. I hope to show how the simple act of daily creation, which is a thing far different than production, can bring a renewed sense of purpose and calm. I hope to show how creation brings beauty to the world.

But before we get to those questions, let’s ask: Where does creativity come from? Watch this video for more.

Wake Up?

My next book, The Book of Waking Up: Experiencing the Divine Love that Reorders a Life is available for pre-order NOW. (Amazon, Barnes & Noble) It’s a book that explores true, inner sobriety, and how to attach to and adore Divine Love. Pre-orders are vital to the success of a book, so please do not wait. Order today. And if you do, let me know via email. I’ll send you a sample along with the 3-part video series that gave rise to this book!

Silence: The Final Word

October 18, 2019 by Seth Haines

Silence.

Count to seven. Listen only to your breathing. How do you feel?

I’ve been musing on silence as a practice this week. It hasn’t been the easiest week to practice silence because my own voices of inner-chaos are pretty loud. This happens from time to time, especially in stressful seasons. And yet, when I’ve pushed into silence this week, I’ve found myself cooler, calmer, more collected.

The practice of silence works to bring us a sort of waking rest if only we’ll let it.

So why have I written about silence every day this week? I’ve turned over a new writing leaf, I suppose. I’m dedicating this space to exploring and writing about spiritual practices, practices of waking up. So over the next few months (perhaps years), I’ll pick a weekly topic like Silence and fumble around the edges of it. I’ll play with it, consider it, practice it, and I’ll ask you to consider doing the same. Make sure to follow along by subscribing, by checking your morning (or sometimes noon-hour) messages?

If you’ve enjoyed this series, if it’s made you think, feel free to email me.

I may not see you tomorrow, but I’ll see you around,

Seth

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Take a chance on waking up.

My next book, The Book of Waking Up: Experiencing the Divine Love that Reorders a Life is available for pre-order NOW. (Amazon, Barnes & Noble) It’s a book that explores true, inner sobriety, and how to attach to and adore Divine Love. Pre-orders are vital to the success of a book, so please do not wait. Order today. And if you do, let me know via email. I’ll send you a sample along with the 3-part video series that gave rise to this book!

*For behind the scenes content join the inner circle.

Silence: A Productivity Tool for Those Who Care About Productivity

October 17, 2019 by Seth Haines

Productivity—it’s the buzzword of the day. There are productivity apps, productivity books, and productivity podcasts. The productivity gurus shill productivity tools meant to boost your output, your throughput, your everywhere-a-put-put. Those gurus have the answers, and they’ll tell you all about them for $9.99, for a retweet, for a like on Instagram. But how often do you hear these gurus discuss the power of silence?

We live in a world of constant noise—cell phones dinging, computer popup notifications, 24-hour news cycles, which is to say nothing of the endless chatter of the daily meetings. What does that noise do but distract us and beg for our attention. What does it do but constantly pull us off task? This endless noise keeps us in the constant churn of stress. It ramps up our anxiety, or at least that’s what the experts say. And in those stress cycles, in the endless hum of anxiety, can we be our most balanced, most productive, most whole selves?

I can’t.

Months ago, I read a book by Justin Whitmel Early entitled The Common Rule. In that book, he shares how the noise of life led him headlong into unmanageable anxiety and the panic attacks that come with it. And though he came up with several strategies to deal with that anxiety, among them was carving out brief moments of silent reflection at work. How did he do it? He closed his office door, got on his knees, and paused for a few minutes of prayer. As he instituted daily silence into his routine (among other things), he found relief from the daily panic.

I’m no productivity guru. I couldn’t shill product for $9.99 instructing you how to make the most of your day. But if I’ve learned anything on my own journey through nagging anxiety and into inner sobriety, it’s what Justin learned: You can’t be your most productive, creative, assertive, whole self when the overwhelming anxiety sets in. And you can’t break those cycles of anxiety without a break from the noise of the day, particularly the office noise. But how do you do it?

How to Incorporate Silence Into Your Workday:

Carve out 7 minutes sometime in your workday (losing 7 minutes won’t kill you; I promise).
Close the door to your office, or if you’re in a cubicle, find a quiet place—a stairwell, a bathroom stall, whatever.
For seven minutes, close your eyes and focus on your breathing. Push out any thoughts by listening to the sounds of your own breath. Focus on how your body feels. Is there pent up anxiety? Are your nerves on fire? Is breathing difficult?
At the end of those seven minutes, take a deep breath, whisper a prayer, and go back to your day. See if the practice of silence doesn’t bring some stress relief.
Do this for one week, and at the end ask: Has the practice of silence in the office made me better, less stressed, more creative, and more productive?

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Take a chance on waking up.

*For behind the scenes content join the inner circle.

Silence: What it Teaches You About Love

October 16, 2019 by Seth Haines

Can you sit in the silence with the ones you love? When you do, what do you hear? What do you know?

View this post on Instagram

In the moments of silence that pass between us, I know what she’s thinking. That’s what twenty years of love does. It makes the silence as meaningful as any conversation.

A post shared by Seth Haines (@sethhaines) on Oct 14, 2019 at 2:51pm PDT

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Take a chance on waking up.

*For behind the scenes content join the inner circle.

Silence: The Voices in my Head

October 15, 2019 by Seth Haines

At midnight, in a space of relative silence, I hear my lesser angels in my head. Amber received a text just before I turned off the lamp—an innocuous text as it were—and my noggin was a veritable spin cycle.

I was right.

Another was wrong.

What I’d say if I had the chance.

How the other would react.

I was right.

Another was wrong…

For over an hour, I turned thoughts over like stones, one after an other, always circling back to the first stone. I turned in the covers too, tossed in them like a madman. Nearing midnight, I cursed myself, cursed sleep, the bed, the damned cell phone that started it all. And when I’d run out of curses, I reached for the rosary by my bed, held the crucifix, and turned to rote recitation. The Lord’s Prayer. Once. Twice. Twenty times I said that prayer until the only thing filling the space where my thoughts had been was bread, forgiveness, the sense of being delivered from my own evil. In that filling, my blood cooled, my breathing deepened, and I fell into the fitful ocean of dreams.

Silence—it creates space for our lesser angels to speak and speak and speak and speak. Rage, heartache, dejection—they all come calling in the silence. And in those moments, we need strategies to find relief from our own heads.

A Strategy for the Times of Silence—Pick a prayer, a mantra, a saying. Perhaps it’s the Lord’s Prayer, or the Jesus Prayer, or an E.E. Cummings poem, or some phrase your mother whispered over you each night before you fell asleep as a child. Repeat that phrase again and again until it pushes the voices out, until it fills every space. Practice it for 7 minutes today, 10 minutes tomorrow, and 15 minutes the next day. Practice when you lie down to sleep. See what comes.

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Wait… wait… Don’t leave!

My next book, The Book of Waking Up: Experiencing the Divine Love that Reorders a Life is available for pre-order NOW. (Amazon, Barnes & Noble) It’s a book that explores how to wake from our lesser angels—the voices, addictions, dependencies we attach to—and how to attach to and adore Divine Love. Pre-orders are vital to the success of a book, because retailers determine demand (and thus marketing) based on pre-order volume. So please do not wait. Order today. And if you do, let me know via email. I’ll send you a sample along with the 3-part video series that gave rise to this book!

*Photo taken with the Fujifilm X100S. For behind the scenes content join the inner circle.

Silence

October 14, 2019 by Seth Haines

A man named Society punched the clock, left his factory, and made his way to the field. There, Society found a tree whose fruit was called silence. Society looked up at the silence, remembered the tales his grandfather spun about it. Silence was sweet, his grandfather said, and if you looked at it just right in the evening sun, you could see a reflection of your truest self in its skin. Considering his ancestor's tale, Society wondered: What is my reflection? The tree was tall, though, and as he contemplated how he might take hold of the silence that was just beyond his reach, his smartphone pinged in his pocket. Again. Again. Again. And distracted from the desire to know his truest self, Society pulled out that phone and gazed into it, going about his way after first stepping over the ladder he’d not noticed lying at his feet. As he went, Society decided that silence was less desirable a fruit than the noise his pocket produced.

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The above is a short adaptation of Aesop’s famous fable, “The fox and the grapes.” It’s a story I shared last week in my monthly newsletter, and as I continue to put myself into the story, I wonder: How much do I value silence?

How much do you?

Contemplate this question this week, then come back tomorrow for more on the topic of silence.

*Photo taken with the Fujifilm X100S. For behind the scenes content join the inner circle.

November 2, 2013

Wake Up?

***Wake Up?

***Wake Up?

***Wake Up?

Wake Up?

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Take a chance on waking up.

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Take a chance on waking up.

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Take a chance on waking up.

Wait… wait… Don’t leave!

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Wake Up?

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Wake Up?

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Wake Up?