Coaching and the Questions of Luck and Fate

How Coaching Looks at the Questions of Luck and Fate:

Superstitions and Mass Media- both are factors that can

affect your health, peace of mind, and sense of purpose

The dialogues and discussions that are a part of Spiritual life coaching can be seen as way to overcome our fears and anxieties, and to discover workable and realistic alternatives to those limiting beliefs or imprisoning feelings.

Coaching concerns itself with what the person presents to the coach or it focusses on what is being discussed during the sessions. Differing from psychology, it does not probe the past, or look into psychological illnesses or diseases. Coaches work with whatever is being given, and tend to focus on the “here and now.”

This dialogue can range from discovering a common sense strategy for making constructive changes in ones life, to exploring together how to overcome any limiting chronic negative patterns of thinking and acting that might be creating obstacles or problems in their daily effectiveness.

In this talk, Peter explores some of the more irrational factors that people might bring into their coaching sessions. These limiting attitudes and outlooks can retard progress or through coaching dialogues can set the scene for significant freeing breakthroughs and potentials.

Previously, he has taught or written about his particular understanding of faith. While it remains useful to see faith as the opposite of doubt for understanding religious ideas, he also presents another dimension of faith as being the opposite of needing to be in control.

Faith can be seen as having a sincere trust in the “not yet” but holding to those uplifting and transformative possibilities. It is our ability to hold on to those ideals, values, and principles and keep them close to one’s heart. By doing so, we have faith as armor that can to repel anxiety, despair, and fearful compulsions. Keeping faith will assist our peace of mind by trusting the intuitive universe/God/reality to present the answers and the “soulutions” you need…

Pastoral Reflection: “Prepare for the Worst, and Expect the Best”

One of my favorite end times story relates to a small but devout group called the Millerites. Their belief that the world was going to end when we reached the year 1834; so they gathered up all their members, and climbed a high peak in New York (presumably so they would be closer to God and therefore among the first to be taken in the rapture) and there they waited…

The first day and into the night was filled with anticipation… Wow we are all going to be saved: Glory Halleluia! However, when the dawn of the next day came… and nothing happened… They were increasingly distraught, disillusioned and amazed that their predictions could be wrong! Many people left muttering to themselves… What gives here? Others, the remaining faithful decided to recalculate, and keep believing… Spinning out another theory, and then another to make sense of what they had said, and to make what they are now saying more plausible and believable…

One of the best pieces of advice, is ultimately a pragmatic one, one that is often recommended, but generally speaking, falls short of common practice: Prepare for the worst, and expect the best!

The practical people in our society really get that first part, and we are thankful for their stability, reserve, and ability to build a secure future. The Idealists among us really get the second part- to keep oneself open, willing, and expectant of all the possibilities our lives can hold… The trick as they say, is to be practical and open to change, to be spiritual and realistic, to be relaxed and responsible… The healthy prescription of balance seems to be the necessary strategy to keep fears at bay, and allow the more responsible potentials to become available to us all!

Beware The Ides!

Looking at Predictions, Prognostications and Warnings!

March 15, 2015

The Reverend Peter Edward Lanzillotta, Ph.D.

Beware! Beware! Watch Out! Be Very Afraid! OK… Everybody, get ready, get set, now panic! I want you to fill yourselves with endless sources of apprehension, fear, dread, angst, and desperation! Since our whole society runs on fear, doesn’t feel good to be anxious over so much in our lives? If not, Why worry?

Today is the Ides of March… The one day in the historical calendar considered to be even more fearsome, ominous, and nefarious than Halloween! Or January 2nd, or even tax day, April 15th!

Just when you were getting over your anxiety or your case of tristadecaphobia, (fear of Friday The 13th!) along comes a fearful and loathsome day to be sure- with its only remedy known to the ancients were to cast spells of deliverance, or for the reversal of bad fortune, hexes, and other such dastardly sentences that foretold doom…

But back to the Ides… Why is it considered such a fearful day, one provoking dread, despair and danger? According to Plutarch, the great ancient Roman historian, Julius Caesar was assassinated on this day in 44 BCE. It was the Roman New Year’s Day, a time for holding festive public celebrations since calendar year began in March, with the Spring…

The Ides, in Latin, has a simple definition; It was the day that divided the month in half… And in the irregular calendar of Roman times, that dividing day could be anytime between the 13th to the 18th of any given month. This day of dubious significance was a simple way marker… It is a day that is referenced as a passage of time that has truly endured well past the Renaissance, so we can be safely assured that Shakespeare knew this custom.

In his well known history, Julius Caesar often taught to us in high school without much comprehension or understanding, he takes the historical records of Plutarch and then adds his own particular literary genius and dramatic imagery to the famous lines of prediction and prognostication of the sooth or truthsayer: Beware The Ides of March!

Caesar, on his way to the Senate, and then on to public festivals, listened to the insistent cry, but refused to heed this ominous advice. According to Plutarch, however, Caesar originally did take caution, but a more logical or rational friend named Decimus convinced him that he was “above” such nonsense… When out in the streets on that day, Caesar and the soothsayer meet again, and Caesar declares, ” See, the Ides have come!” And the soothsayer replies, ” Yes, but they have not past! ” Then, according to Shakespeare’s rendition, we are horrified by the fact that one of his best and trusted friends becomes the first assassin, and Caesar cries out, ” Et Tu, Brute?” So the Ides comes down to us as a day to be feared: A day of betrayal, revolt, and social upheaval!

When looking sociologically, and politically over the centuries, we can look back in utter amazement at the enduring importance of mistaken predictions and dire warnings! How they have been taken so seriously- Much of it is media driven… so much so, that they could alter the course of cultural possibilities and historical outcomes.

(As time permits during our discussion time, I would like to hear about your reactions to all of those predictions made by politicians, financial experts, diet gurus, health experts, etc., and how our media will use these often sensational and startling conclusions, often out of context, to rile and worry us, -usually as a means of selling some miracle solution to us- creating headlines that highlight the scare of the week! )

I would also ask: How else can we fund Homeland Security so extravagantly and inefficiently, unless we create a vast amounts of fear and overwhelming concerns? It emphasizes how much you have to worry about threats from 8000 miles away so you do not have to pay attention to the legitimate crying needs of our cities and towns, our children’s health, our roads and bridges, industrial pollution, our veterans… And the list goes on…

Then in either a few months or a few years, these self proclaimed or media driven experts will completely reverse themselves! It seems abundantly clear, that these dire warnings are like the odds at a casino game… They come true just enough times, usually as little as 5% of the time, yet people can react in an uproar about them… Maybe Alice and the Cheshire cat were right… They advise us that we need to believe in at least 6 impossible things before you can have breakfast!

You know, like the hurricane prediction center, where the weather experts and climatologists will deliver us ominous warnings every Spring! And even if an earthquake or a hurricane has not happened for thirty, or one hundred and thirty years… You know… Then we are due! So you had better remain fearful, and anxiously watch out!

The whole topic of superstitions has always fascinated and amused me… Let me give a little background on the nature of superstitions, and how they continue to influence and effect us…

As a category of human behavior, superstitions can be defined as those outward, ritualistic, and often irrational ways we humans try to cope with our fears, worries, apprehensions. Fear elicits many responses, some of which defy reason or logic, yet they do provide a quaint sense of assurance, calm, and temporary relief from whatever we perceive or whatever we believe to be plaguing us…

Superstitions arise from people and from culture as a strategy used to “outlive” or to survive a threatening situation. They are first conceived of as a ritualistic means by which we can diffuse a problem, and as those repeated actions they will result at the least harmful outcome.

At the root of almost every superstition is a belief in magic– or some power that can exist and exert its power over you… This can take the form of an unlucky situation, or a current misfortune, and can include the feelings or experiences of being slandered or cursed by someone or when we have accepted the idea that someone has control or power over you!

Because there are volumes of examples in cultural anthropology, social psychology, and literature of people who feel as if they have a spell, a curse, or an obstacle before them that has no easy solution, it has given rise to formulas and incantations that are supposed to remedy or alleviate the situation. That is the origin of the human belief in luck or fate, and it is the rationale behind the use of charms, talismans, crystals, omens, etc.

What is luck? It is an expression of a belief in fate; Luck cheats fate!

Luck can reverse a curse, which will free you from your fate- Luck changes the course of your life, and the circumstances you had to face… it is your metaphysical “get out of jail free” card!

Luck is a positive companion to the belief in chaos or that could modify the idea that our lives are completely out of our own control, and luck is the proof that we are responding positively to some higher energies and powers that are beyond us.

Fate asserts that we are helpless puppets, and the powers of fate pulls the strings… There is a widely held belief that God or the Divine gives each of us a certain length of life or a life string… When the string runs out, we die… (Greek puppets idea vs. Christian parable version which goes like this: Every time you break your string by making a mistake, God asks us to learn how to tie a knot in the string… The knots shorten the string, but in a way that brings us closer to God… Now that is a kind of string theory I can understand!)

To improve our luck, there are many strategies we can employ: Charms and spells are one way; carrying lucky objects with us is another; And keeping only positive thoughts in our hearts is yet another… I practice a small version of this by carrying crystals in my pocket- each color or kind has a symbolic attribute or quality to it; grounding, optimism, love, protection, etc.. What separates these practices from a belief in blind luck is the symbolism and the way its use is to be understood: It does not ward off problems! I use symbolic items to be remind me to refocus on what the symbol means for me and to know that through my spiritual awareness and understanding, I have access to those qualities and can carry those qualities with me wherever I might go…

Another facet of superstition is that it appears to be tied to the belief in having a certain unchangeable destiny or a certain unalterable purpose or design for your life… By practicing certain rituals, or performing certain acts, we can unlock our destiny or be able to change the course of our lives towards greater fulfillment… There is a lot of beliefs in New Age magic as ways to self fulfillment, success, wealth, and relationships… Its really not all that new!

I would like to relate two of the many times I have been asked to “deal with” dire predictions, warnings, and apprehensions that became public knowledge and that have served to increase cultural fears, worries, and anxieties… The first was the “scientific and computer scare of 2000, and the second was all the Biblical predictions of 2000 about how the earth will end and the Rapture and the Second coming will soon arrive! Beware!

Concerning the computer changeovers that were to happen… I can remember the cultural panic where everyone was anxiously told about the possible computer glitch that could wipe out one’s hard drive or create social havoc with tons of lost information! What to do? Will the scientists and the geeks rescue us in time? You all can remember this one! With all this concern about whether or not our computers would be YTK compliant, I have to readily admitting to be YTK complacent…

Maybe I trusted in technology too much, maybe since I am so unlike a knowledgeable engineer in these fields, that I did not know better, but when we approached January 2000, I did not do anything…

And when there was this collective sigh of relief over a problem that, in all likelihood, was never all that dramatic, there is a lesson, when confronted by something unsettling- out of your control- do nothing.. Listen! Sit with it, do not react! Gather information reliably… Then decide what you will do! Or as the Buddhist could teach: Don’t just do something, sit there!

The second, was in my professional bailiwick… It was all the stress and fuss over the Biblical predictions of the End times…When the Book of Revelations comes true… The earth will end, and the pious dead will rise from their graves, and the Rapture will take the faithful to heaven! Beware! Be afraid! Watch out! Jesus is Coming!

While I was at Penn State, as the interim minister at State College, I was asked to participate in an interfaith panel that had, as its goal, how best to respond to the nightmarish, even ghoulish expectations of Revelations, and how to answer questions about the End times that seem to be now upon us! Some faculty and a few of the local clergy gathered for this large public forum on these disturbing questions- questions and anxieties made dramatic and forceful by all the media coverage that poorly trained conservative preachers received and whose stock and trade is alarm, fear, and repentance, all during the last, fateful year of 1999…

Without going into a Biblical exegesis, let me say that there are no dangerous books, only dangerous interpretations… And those who lack a metaphorical understanding of Scripture, or those who take a modern literal approach, because they are seeking a direct answer are most often the ones that are the most prone to alarm, and are the people most likely to proclaim it or spread it to others… You could call them religious “Chicken Littles!”

As each of the more traditional Christian representatives offered their explanations, even their apologies for mistaken translations, erroneous doctrines, and the like, I found myself looking for a common ground that would give people there more of a sense of rationality, objectivity, leading to human responsibility, and holding on to a spiritual sense of hope.

When it came to my turn, I thank the various clergy and scholars who held forth on complex Biblical and elaborate theological themes, and then I presented how I believe that an informed, responsible and compassionate spirituality is the most effective way to address all human concern.

Applying our best sources of critical thinking, understanding, and insights from physical sciences, sociology, and psychology that emphasize our personal responsibilities for the world we have made, was for me, my best answer, and the one that will provide any degree of worldly rescue or realizing the ethical salvation we seek.

And what of today’s spinning theories, predictions, excuses, and dire warnings? From the ominous Mayan calendar coming to its end, to resurrecting the obtuse Nostradamus predictions of famines and wars, what is there that one can safely or securely believe? Is our whole culture immersed in political spin? Or preoccupied in the reading of economic entrails? It seems to me that our 24 hour news cycle capitalizes on either outrage or disaster, crisis or fear mongering… And for relief, they give us tabloid morality, while quickly reporting every conflicting story, and feeding us with a steady diet of stress and alarm…

In fact, I feel that it can be said that our elevated level of national fear from the events of 9/11 and the constant harping on these devastating pictures and dire warnings is what made the Iraq fiasco possible! To me, its no wonder that among the leading prescriptions for Americans, are anti-anxiety drugs…

Where I would prefer to place my thoughts and direct my actions are towards some collective or shared actions that support both realism and idealism, truth and hope which I would call a Compassionate Spirituality.

While guarding against any Pollyanna escapism, no matter how enticing it might be, and without realistically dismissing the difficulties our culture faces or the challenges inherent in economic renewal, I do find myself constantly asking myself how does the mass media help or harm my awareness or contribute to my personal knowledge and responsible actions? How does the scandalous headlines contribute to any creativity, motivation, hope, or sense of renewal? Maybe we all should fast from the Media, or skip the news for Lent!

What are some of the predictions you have heard about our world, and by listening and believing in them, how has your life changed? In way ways does doom and gloom affect you? In my book on spirituality and time, Spirit, Time and The Future by Outskirts Press, I took on the Mayan and other predictions about the end of the world, and I emphasize how to live a spirit centered life with courage and hope.

Whether you read about this or stay informed from other sources, I do feel that it is imperative to us not to lose either our objective and compassionate perspective or our willingness to work for personal change and social transformation.

Why? Its simply this- We are connected to one another by culture and climate, by breath and business, it only makes sense to work diligently to overcome our fears, and work together for a mutually sustainable sense of hope, and to reinforce the grace found in living in a sacred world. So Be It!

Pastoral Reflection: “Prepare for the Worst, and Expect the Best”

One of the best pieces of advice, is ultimately a pragmatic one, one that is often recommended, but generally speaking, falls short of common practice: Prepare for the worst, and expect the best!