The Transformative Power of Going Deep.

Photo Credit: Cave Diving by Inusuke

If you’d rather listen than read, you can find the podcast version here, on Sound Insight.

When I’m trying to write and feeling stuck, I sometimes read poetry. Poetry helps me drop into a deeper state of mind.

This morning it was a poem by David Whyte called, A Seeming Stillness.

It starts like this.

We love the movement in a seeming stillness,

the breath in the body of the loved one sleeping,

the highest leaves in the silent wood,

a great migration in the sky above:

David Whyte, A Seeming Stillness, from David Whyte: Essentials. Copyright © 2020
Whyte, David. Reprinted with permission from Many Rivers Press.

This speaks to me about what happens when you break through the surface of things. When you drop into stillness. When you drop into depth.

I’ve been exploring the question of what it means to live life more deeply. What it means to make space for depth. And the cost of living life in the shallows.

As I write this, it is early, the apartment is still. The only sound is the satisfying tap of my fingers on the keyboard.

I look out onto the Halifax Harbour and watch the gulls circling over the grey water. A characteristic of ocean water is that it is never completely still. There is a complex world below the surface.

Life is like this. Never completely still with entire universes unfolding under the surface.

There are the shallows, where most of us spend most of our time.

There are the depths, the world beyond the shallows where, if we are lucky, we can return again and again.

Diving deep reveals more to you. If you stay deep, even more.

Have our workplaces become hostile to going deep?

This principle, that more is available to you if you dive deep, also applies to the world of work.

“Deep Work” is a term coined by Cal Newport, in his book of the same name. He defines deep work as activities that demand concentration and push you to the edge of your cognitive capabilities. He makes the case that these efforts create new value, improve your skill, and are hard to replicate. He goes on to say…

“The ability to perform deep work is becoming increasingly rare at exactly the same time it is becoming increasingly valuable in our economy. As a consequence, the few who cultivate this skill, and then make it the core of their working life, will thrive.”

Newport, Cal. Deep Work (Rules for Focused Success in a Distracted World) (p. 14). Grand Central Publishing.

I would take it a step further. Deep Work is also satisfying work. Focusing uninterrupted on something you find interesting and challenging is fulfilling. It’s key to motivation, inspiration, and creativity. It also helps you grow and perform at your best.

The problem is our working environments have become ill-suited for deep focused work. Open office designs, constant interruptions, expectations of 24/7 availability and instant multi-channel communication make deep work all but impossible.

Most of us spend our days shoveling a mountain of tasks and demands off our desks. We spend our days, busy in the shallows. Worse, the more frenetic and busy we become, the more we create that for those around us.

The difference between being busy and being unavailable.

People often say to me, “Sorry to bother you, I know you’re really busy.”

It always makes me cringe.

I’ve worked hard to eliminate busyness from my life. I decided several years ago that I was done with busy. And to a large extent, I’ve been successful.

People think I’m busy because I’m often not available, but there’s a big difference between being busy and being unavailable. I reserve a lot of my time for deep work – writing, research, coaching, and reading. 

These days, I treat busyness as a signal that something is wrong.  It means I’m overcommitted. When I notice I’m rushing, feeling stressed, taking shallow breaths, or having transactional conversations, I see it as a signal to reset. It’s a signal to slow down, to simplify, to do less.

The irony is, in this state of not being busy, I’m more productive than at any time in my life.

Being intentionally unavailable because you’ve claimed the space to focus on what really matters is not the same as being busy. This is a choice for depth.

The most common complaint I hear from leaders is, they don’t get enough thinking time. They are craving greater depth. They are not getting space to drop into focus, to delve deeply into the questions and issues that really matter.

They are not creating space to think, to reflect, to discover. As a result, they can’t find what Oliver Wendell Holmes called “The simplicity that lies on the other side of complexity.”

The transformative power of deep connection.

Deep work is not always solo work. And a deep life does not mean living the life of a hermit.

Depth can also be found in connection with others.

How many times have met someone and asked the question, “how are you,” but felt too busy for a real answer. How many times have you answered “fine,” when you weren’t fine.

One of the greatest gifts of becoming a coach is that I earn a living having deep, intimate, meaningful conversations. It is such a privilege. And it is such a rarity at work and in life.

A lot of the team coaching we do focuses on making time for conversations that matter. This too, is deep and essential work. 

When a coaching conversation with an individual or a team is going well, you can feel the power of the connection. The conversation slows and becomes more spacious. Small, powerful silences emerge. It feels effortless. There is new insight. People say things like, “I hadn’t thought of it that way before,” or “I understand now,” or simply, “Oh…”

For most of us, these deep connected conversations are rare. When you have one, it’s a little like watering a plant that has gone bone dry.

I had one of these recently when I visited my 94-year-old Aunt in the hospital. She had a big influence on my early life and is a central figure in my large extended family. A few weeks ago, she fell and broke her hip. And like so many of the elderly here, she is stuck in a busy hospital waiting for a bed to open up in a nursing home. She will not walk again. She cannot go back to her home where she was living independently.

When I entered her hospital room, there was no pretense, no “How are you. I am fine.” We dropped right into her heartbreak and my heartbreak for her. We talked quietly. From time to time, I reached out to hold her hand. We talked about how this situation sucks and how everything she is feeling would be what I would probably feel in her shoes. How she has lived a long and rich life and how she is ready for it to come to an end. I didn’t try to make her feel better.  I didn’t tell her it would be okay. I just let her feel what she felt and held space for it. Toward the end of the conversation, she said, wiping away tears, “I will feel better once I’m settled.” “You are probably right,” I said.

It took two and a half hours to drive to the hospital that day and two and a half hours to drive home.  My visit with her lasted only about 40 minutes. She was only permitted one visitor at a time and there were others waiting to see her that day.

I could have easily told myself that I didn’t have time. That I was too busy. No one expected me to make the trip. Her children were with her and taking good care of her. But had I been busy, I would have missed that heart-breaking, moving, loving connection. 

Because of her age and her declining health, I know that each conversation could be our last. In one sense that knowledge makes each conversation more precious. But when I think about it, this is true of anyone in my life. Any deep connected conversation could be my last. Any deep connection is precious. 

My work has taught me that conversations can be transformative. Creating the space and time to dive below the surface of things is transformative. Making space for depth is restorative. It is meaningful. It makes life worth living.