Heartwork

[Music]

i

have cheated my entire professional

career

for 17 years universities think they

have been paying me to develop student

programs

run all of these reports to make data

informed

decisions but i don’t care about any of

that

i drudge through all of that work so

that i can spend time with these

confused little humans

that we call our students

let me tell you no group of people are

more mysteriously amazing

than the group of know-it-alls that are

both confident

and scared at the exact same time

i literally collect a salary to clear

their heads

fill them up with this philosophical

jargon and

send them off into the world to search

and destroy

i love my job at every level of my

career starting as a student in the

office of student activities to

becoming president of some grand

university one day my

secret to success has been to deprogram

the environmental and social

conditioning of the minds of our

students

and open them up to their own interests

desires and curiosities

this was me in 2003 as a pal

panther advisor leader our role

was to ensure that every newly enrolled

student knew that they made the right

choice to attend this university

before their first day of class to break

through their

hard cool kid outer shell we had to

employ

my secret three-step process

encroach inspire

employ encroach

p for prairie v-i-e-w-u

me and a hundred other pals screaming

the school songs and chants at the top

of our lungs

from the moment you woke up until you

learned all 64 dance moves

of the school dance we call the pv

shuffle

by the time we were done with you you

were tired crazed out of your mind

and yet begging for more we got all

up in your space and we got comfortable

only so that you could get comfortable

in this new place this university your

new home

inspire p for prairie v

i e double you

you yeah you you

belong here it was imperative for me to

ensure that every student knew that they

belonged here you belong here

in this place this is that place for you

to explore

all of you use those classrooms and

use these student organizations and

those grilled cheese sandwiches from the

caf

gave me an extra 45 pounds for me to get

to know while i was here

in this place this is that place

this is the place where you begin the

rest

of your life ever since the first grade

they were always asking us

what do you want to be when you grow up

and to this day i still don’t know the

answer to that question

i take the line in my job description

other duties as assigned

very serious and i assign myself

the duty of releasing our students from

their fears of expectations

and exposing them to new fields of

exploration

while they’re at this place

employ pete for prairie v

how do you do you

this is probably one of the most

important questions that we ask our

students

because it affirms that they have a

unique contribution

and it’s needed it confirms that

all the energy that we put into

inspiring our students

helps them to see themselves

we employ them so that they can learn

themselves college days are some of the

best days that we all get to experience

because we get to discover

who we are our duties as professionals

to ensure that we put those discoveries

to great use mr orrock

you helped me realize that i really love

dance and dancing brings me so much joy

oh really did you know that we had over

10 dance organizations and one dance

company here on the campus that you can

join

today mr o’rock i’m an engineering major

and i want to join an organization but

y’all don’t have anything for

engineering majors

oh really did you know i’m looking for

10 students to serve as my production

and design team

for campus activities board do you know

anyone who would be interested

mr orrock i’m learning so much about

operational theories and

organizational theories in higher

education i didn’t know i love this

until now

oh really how would you like to work in

my office and

develop student programs and run these

reports so that we can make data

informed decisions

encroach inspire employ

what happens at my day job with these

students is nothing other than

decluttering

of the heart space making room in their

heads and their minds to fully

experience themselves as they exist

in the world who knew that the crux of

my work as a professional

would be considered some of the most

important work that every human has to

do

i call it heart work

hard work begins with acceptance

i could say that only college students

struggle with this concept of acceptance

however

i know that acceptance is really hard

for some of us to digest

whether we’re young or old traumas and

dramas and triggers

oh my all of us have experienced

things that have led us to ask the

question why

why didn’t i get that job or why do they

treat me this way or

why don’t i have enough or why am i not

enough

some of the sources of major conflict in

our lives comes from the fact that

we desire from other people

we desire to be acknowledged we desire

to be accepted we desire to be

admired we want to impose our will

on other people if other people just did

what we asked them to do then the world

would be a perfect place

but no i want to release you from that

train of thinking

this session begins with hard work and

we’ll start with your definition

of love m scott peck the author of the

book the role less traveled

has a definition of love that i

subscribe to in which

not only frames how we accept ourselves

and how we accept other people

but also how we should exist in

relationships

we’ll use this definition to better

understand acceptance

let’s call this segment acceptance from

love

m scott peck defines love as the will

to extend oneself for one’s own

or another’s spiritual growth

we’ll have to break this down piece by

piece to understand how it connects

to acceptance the will to extend

oneself this simply means that you

choose to employ your own

authority over yourself to stretch past

all that you are you

are the author of your actions you are

the author of your experiences

you shape how your experiences register

in your mind the will to extend oneself

for one’s own or another’s spiritual

growth

your spiritual growth that’s who you

will become

another spiritual growth that’s who they

will become

i take spiritual growth to mean the act

of striving towards the idea

or image of your greatest self

let me say that again spiritual growth

is the act

of striving towards the idea or image

of your greatest self

this quotient of spiritual growth goes

past the limitations of your current

conditions

past the limitations of your former

environment and dare i say

pass the illusions of reality in your

mind

this definition of love implies that you

as an individual

and everyone else in their own

individuality

has an idea of who they wish to become

let’s be clear to fully understand this

concept of acceptance you have to know

this to be

true you can’t control

what someone is or who they will become

no matter how we rationalize it every

individual is striving to meet their own

needs and become

their idea of their greatest self

by this definition of love the will to

extend oneself for one’s own or another

spiritual growth

you can only offer your support

for another person that’s striving to be

their greatest self

you can’t impose your desires on their

life

because that is not in your control

does that question make you feel

convicted in any way

if it does this is where hard work

begins

for you i want to share with you where

hard work began

for me i

accept my mother and how she chooses to

live

outside of my family unit

i accept the lifestyle that she has

chosen for herself as she sees best fit

for her

i support her i want her to be happy and

fulfilled

even though that does not include

me does that hurt

absolutely shame

abandonment these are all experiences

that i have lived

which have led me to doubt whether or

not i was good enough or

led me to try to find attention in all

the wrong places are

had me impose all of these strict

controls

on my relationships at the age of 26

my heart was still 12 and cold

and hardened because i couldn’t receive

the love that i wanted

i wanted everyone to give me what my mom

hadn’t given me

in all those years and that was simply

to be accepted to be loved

but it wasn’t until i accepted her it

wasn’t until i accepted

her image of herself it wasn’t until i

accepted all of her

that i began to release those

strongholds

in my heart that was occupied by fear

resentment

and anger to love her

is to accept her as she sees herself

without regard of what i want out of the

deal

no more petitioning for love unrequited

no more shrinking to someone else’s idea

of who i should be

no more trying to convince the world

that i am

good enough acceptance

it somehow mutes all of those external

voices that proclaim what you

are not and opens you up to everything

that you are

this pandemic has caused us to face some

of the things that we commonly run from

our health care for our neighbor

loneliness

and even death and while

those are all monstrous the biggest

monster of them all

was that for the first time in a long

time we had to face

ourselves many of us are familiar with

being still finding calm or meditation

but

during the quarantine we had to sit with

our

thoughts

let me ask you during the pandemic

did you take the time to redesign your

home spaces

to match your creativity or your

comforts

did you take on any new challenges that

may have previously scared you

did you take the time to notice the

worlds within our world

that maybe we were too busy to notice

when things were

normal hope that you use some time

during this pandemic

to really heighten your awareness and

get to know yourself just a bit more

while dodging kovit i grew an affinity

for growing

other living things not only as a

professional but also in my dad’s

backyard garden i asked my dad one day

i said dad can we grow sunflowers so

that we can make our own sunflower seeds

my dad says something that completely

caught me off guard it was

really really deep my dad replied he

said son

in order to enjoy the beauty of

sunflower seeds

you have to be willing to let the

sunflower grow past the beauty

we all know

i was like whoa dad where did that come

from

wow it was so deep nature

always has a way of saying these things

that are super deep

like like that phrase the faith of a

mustard seed

i never knew what that phrase really

meant until i heard it in a completely

different way

miles monroe once said god hid

everything that a thing is supposed to

become

in itself

so that means that this mustard seed so

small and

seemingly insignificant contains all the

information and processes and procedures

in itself that it needs to become a

full-blown

plant in itself

that small mustard seed already knows

what it will become

and will pursue its highest level of

spiritual attainment

you are just like that mustard seed

you have been encoded with everything

that you need

to reach your highest self

you also grew an awareness to witness

the entire process

and also reach for your highest

spiritual attainment this part of hard

work is about

following your senses towards your

interest your desires

and your curiosities you don’t have to

know where you’re going

to move towards what you will become

following your senses only requires that

you accept things as they are

while knowing that the answers to the

question that you have exist within you

an indian mystic name sergio said it

like this

he said life is not about becoming

superhuman

it’s about realizing that being human is

super

you are super and no one needs to know

that or celebrate that

but you you have to be bold enough

to do the hard work necessary to become

your idea

of your greatest self accept the world

as it is

and then use this newly freed space to

explore

all of you hard work starts off as that

hard work that begins the moment you

realize that the world doesn’t revolve

around you

first you must learn to accept the world

as it exists within and then the world

that just so happens to surround you no

matter who you thought was supposed to

love you

you are the generator that powers your

spirit higher

bring all of you into your awareness so

that you can follow

your heart’s desires whether that’s

engineering the next supercar or

becoming the world’s top nurse or

marching in storms to stamp your own

impression

know that you don’t need permission to

show up as

you using your own desired method of

self-expression

you are the master of your peace and

your masterpiece should be your most

masterful artwork i welcome you to this

place and extend to you the grace

to begin your own hard work

thank you

you