Fulfillment and Balance
Game of Zen - Episode 11
Hi everyone,
Scott and I are back on the air with the Game of Zen podcast. We’ve just launched Episode 11, our first of the year: “Three Sacred Contracts - Balancing Work, Self, and Relationships.”
Looking ahead, we have two guest interviews and a discussion on impermanence in the can for release over the next three weeks!
In this episode, I talk more about the Three Contracts, and how to work with them. If you read my recent newsletters, you’ve gotten an intro to the ideas. The pod goes into more detail with some personal reflections.
I’ve copied the transcript below, with time stamps. You may want to skim the transcript and see if anything looks interesting to you, then jump over to the audio or video. More links below.
As always, if you would like to explore working with me 1-on-1, send me a note for a Discovery session. I can likely get you motivated with some key direction in the free session alone. I’ve got one- and three-month programs if you want to dig in.
Life is too short to not live each day fully. Passion, purpose and presence can be your daily quality of life.
I hope you enjoy.
Paul
Spotify:
Scott Berman [00:00:43]:
So, today's episode is called "The Three Sacred Contracts." Paul, you wrote a really great newsletter a couple of weeks ago about this, and I was fascinated by it. We're going to dive deep into that subject in a few minutes. But, I thought, being this is our first episode of the new year, just wanted to talk to you a little bit about last year and what you learned spiritually and how your journey went and how you grew.
Paul Gyodo Agostinelli [00:01:10]:
Last year was major for me, Scott. It was huge. I think back to a year ago today, and I was just in a totally different place, living up in Bozeman, Montana. I kind of had to be up there because we had to be where my stepkids were going to school. So it was something of an artificial mandate that I had to be up there, and I was out of the community that I had been in for a long time, and we really had no hope of leaving there. But over the course of the subsequent months, it became clear that my kids actually wanted to move to Boulder, back down here, and my wife as well. The whole first half of the year was this kind of rapid evolution of transitioning our location back down here. And the second half of the year was really building out my business, getting back into coaching, which I started up again in June.
Paul Gyodo Agostinelli [00:02:11]:
I kind of sidelined the startup I'd been working on for the previous two years and ventured forward into my coaching work and this podcast, which was a part of it. I would say a lot of my professional work really came to fruition in a really mature way over these last six months, which has been great. And then my spiritual work, together with my Zen center, it's been a little bit on a plateau for the last few years as I haven't been able to spend as much time with people, but it has just boomed over the last six months. I've had students who have had major breakthroughs, especially in the last two months, actually. So it's been just a really amazing year where the first part was focused on family, and the second half has been focused on my professional work and my work with my spiritual community. So it's been a really big year. How about you?
Scott Berman [00:03:14]:
That's awesome. I'm glad to hear it, especially the breakthroughs that you've had with your clients. I think that's huge, and it really feels great to help people along these journeys. One of the things I'm super grateful for is this podcast. I mean, I look back at last year, and my journey spiritually was a big part of it. I learned a lot by talking to you and just even planning our sessions. I'm getting great feedback from some of our listeners, and I think that I've researched more things because I'm like, "Hey, Paul, this will be a good podcast episode." So I'll read something in a book, and then we'll talk about it, and then we'll build an episode on it.
Scott Berman [00:03:52]:
And so I think that's really helped me because I'm broadening my knowledge base, but I'm also diving deeper into some of these things that I learned a few years ago, like the noble truths and the Eightfold path. And so I just am grateful for that. And thank you, Paul, because this has been a really good journey for me in the last year or so.
Paul Gyodo Agostinelli [00:04:11]:
I really enjoyed it too, Scott. And I think people are starting to call you Zen master, aren't they?
Scott Berman [00:04:15]:
Not yet. Not yet. But I'm getting there, so anyway, let's talk about, and again, I love reading your stuff. You come up with great topics and they really make me think. And I read about the Three Sacred Contracts, and I thought, this is every day, every day that something comes up where you're balancing things and you're thinking about it. So what do you mean by it? Let's start right there.
Paul Gyodo Agostinelli [00:04:39]:
Yeah, so this is a concept that I've kind of developed. Extended is maybe a better word from some things that I read a few years back that really helped me make sense of my life. The primary inspiration for me was a book called "The Three Marriages" by David Whyte, who many of you may know of, and if you don't, you should. He's a wonderful poet and spiritual teacher, and he's got a book called "The Three Marriages" where he talks about these three areas of our lives that he calls marriages—those areas being work, self, and other, these three main areas of our life. And he talked about the way that we negotiate our, you could say, relationship, certainly in his model of marriages, our relationship with these aspects of our life. So when I read this material, the book is excellent. I really recommend it. It just really resonated with me.
Paul Gyodo Agostinelli [00:05:43]:
It gave me a really helpful framework to understand my life because I had things that were very important to me. But sometimes it just felt very chaotic. And I wasn't always sure how to prioritize or how to plan or where to kind of put my center. And when I started to recognize that each of these areas is, in some ways, equally important—in fact, they're so important that we're going to give it the word sacred. That's how important they are—that it is of crucial importance to have the deepest connection with your work, with yourself, and with other people. That when you bring that kind of intentionality and consciousness to all three of those areas, then it gives you the playing field. That's the real playing field of living a wholehearted life.
Paul Gyodo Agostinelli [00:06:46]:
Now, how you negotiate those areas, that's where the contracts come in. And working skillfully with the contracts—what do I want? What do I really want from these areas? And what am I willing to give up and which are most important to me at this stage of my life versus, say, the next stage of my life? And we'll get into how you do all that. But the basic ground, the playing field, if you will, of the game of Zen is nicely defined by these three areas.
Scott Berman [00:07:25]:
Yeah. And I'm curious what you think about the way society looks at these contracts because every society is different. Like, every country is different. Some countries have a four-day work week and more time off, and some countries have different work ethics and so on. So how does the evolution of where you live actually affect the way you approach these contracts?
Paul Gyodo Agostinelli [00:07:50]:
Well, it's huge. The culture that you grow up in has its own priorities, if you will, or view of each of these contracts. So it's kind of interesting; you could
look at what are the terms of a contract in these areas. Now, I like to say that these contracts are governed by vows. Okay. And, in fact, that's David Whyte's model of how he brings this in. So in the area of others, we have the highest sacred connection is one you make with a spouse, and you have a marriage vow, right? Now, some cultures have a model for spiritual development that might be some kind of a religious structure. And some people will take vows of monasticism or celibacy or some kind of religious vows, right? But many people don't take religious vows.
Paul Gyodo Agostinelli [00:08:58]:
Right? So the people who don't take religious vows, at least in our culture, will say, "Well, only it's the religious people who are taking formal religious vows who have a sacred relationship to their self." But no, that's not true. We all are called upon to make sacred vows with respect to our own spiritual development. And then you look at the world of work, and it's like, "Well, who makes vows? The area of work." Well, the medical profession has a Hippocratic Oath, and there are some professions that have a code of ethics, you could say, but very rarely does it rise to the level of a vow in terms of why I'm doing this work. There are some people and some institutions and maybe even some socially conscious and aware, purpose-driven companies that might talk in that language. But, for the most part, we don't bring the language of vow to our professional life. So that gives you some sense of certain cultures are going to value each of these vows, each of these areas in different ways, and they're going to put different emphasis on them. In our culture, it's obviously a very materialistic culture, very kind of accomplishment-driven, you could say. So a lot of the energy goes into, say, doing productive work. But is it respected as something that you are establishing your own sacred relationship to? That's the most important thing. I'm not sure there's any culture that has a very open, accepting understanding of all of this. They tend to have traditional ways in which you're supposed to be in a relationship and getting married and pursuing self-development. Yeah.
Scott Berman [00:10:53]:
I mean, you're supposed to work a certain amount of hours and you get paid by salary and so on, and then you pay taxes.
Paul Gyodo Agostinelli [00:11:02]:
That's right.
Scott Berman [00:11:03]:
But I mean, I'm curious because it's like we have to balance them out, especially when we're in a work environment. How do we honor all of those vows to ourselves and to others, but also to our work? And how do we know when it's time to stop working and take care of ourself and vice versa?
Paul Gyodo Agostinelli [00:11:22]:
Yeah. Well, let me ask you, do you have them balanced?
Scott Berman [00:11:26]:
Sometimes I do, sometimes I don't. It's a daily thing.
Paul Gyodo Agostinelli [00:11:30]:
It's a daily thing. That's right. It is a daily thing. That's right. But the most important thing is you have to raise to consciousness what your contract is in each of those areas. And when I work with people, the first aha moment is, "Oh, wow, I actually can have a sacred relationship with my work. Oh, wow. I actually need to have a sacred relationship with myself." So there's a big kind of aha there. And it's a validation. Right. Because everybody wants this. They want a meaningful, purposeful, deep life. So that's a wonderful place. And then the next question is, okay, well, how do I do it? So the first step is to recognize that you need to discern what is the contract you want to make with these three areas of your life. Then you have to recognize, which comes pretty quick, that you kind of can't go full-on on all of them at the same time.
Paul Gyodo Agostinelli [00:12:35]:
You have to really feel into which one is the most alive for you and which one, in a sense, takes the lead and get some level of subordination to them. In our minds, we think we can have it all and we can do it all at the same time. And it's simply not true. We really do. We have to make choices. So, for example, in my life, I had my spiritual development as the center of my life from an early age, from my early 20s, really early to mid-20s, and I knew that was the center of my life. And I consciously subordinated both my work contract and my relationship contract for quite a long time. So it was clear what my order of priority was. Now, that doesn't mean that I became a monk and I didn't have a job and didn't have relationships. It's not all or nothing. I did need to fulfill a certain amount of growth in both of those other areas, but I did need to have a clear sense of priority in order then to come up with a workable, organic path forward.
Scott Berman [00:13:50]:
Yeah. And I think that it's important to establish the terms of each contract. And as you said earlier, though, things change as you get older. The terms of your self-contract will change, or you'll have a new work. I've had a lot of different work relationships. Each time, it's a different type of contract.
Paul Gyodo Agostinelli [00:14:11]:
Right.
Scott Berman [00:14:12]:
In terms of how I work with that organization, you also have, like, if you're an entrepreneur and you're in a startup, that's going to be the term of that contract is going to be more important than maybe other people for a little bit or something like that. How do you, over time, evaluate those things and adjust them and balance them out properly?
Paul Gyodo Agostinelli [00:14:36]:
Yeah, it's a great question. And so, again, the first step is to be conscious, right, that you're establishing a certain aspiration within each of the contracts for this season of your life. I think this is really important. People sometimes they don't have a sense of seasonality, cycles, you know, within their own life, and they think, "Well, I have to be on an upward trajectory on everything all at once." And it's really not true. If you take it all together, you can really have one thing just almost at a maintenance level while the other one takes a lot of your creative energies. So your example of entrepreneurship is a really good one. It's like, "All right, I'm going to give this the next six months, two years, three years, where this is really going to be tops. I'm going to put my relationships, maybe my family on hold, not on hold, but I'm not going to necessarily look to deepen that. And the same
with spiritual practice. It's like I want to go on retreats. I want to do all of this stuff, but I'm not going to do that because the business is going to take it forward." If you don't have a term to it, the other contracts are going to start to squawk. They're going to go, "No, I need recognition. If you tell me that I need to be on the back burner for a year or two, I'm okay with that. But if you tell me you're never going to get back to me or you don't know when you're going to get back to me, that doesn't work for me. I'm going to squawk." And then you get into these distortions where then the work starts to take on the work of the other contracts. And this happens all the time, is people neglect, say, they neglect their personal development. They neglect their relationships unconsciously, in a sense. And they say, "I'm really going to go for it on this professional path." But then they need some sort of spiritual development, some sort of enhancement, and something from their relationships out of the work. And then it all falls apart because your work can't give all that to you.
Paul Gyodo Agostinelli [00:16:58]:
All right. I hope I'm answering your question. It's to be conscious and to recognize that you're just answering for a certain season of your life, and then you get really practical about the terms of what you can give and what you're willing to sacrifice in terms of time, energy, commitment.
Scott Berman [00:17:19]:
Yeah. And I also think that the Zen practice, that the more you learn about it and the more you focus on it, it helps you manage those contracts. It helps you understand that your self-development is really going to be important, like you said, for your work. The more you read or meditate or think about stuff, you go back into a work environment, you're going to be able to handle it a little bit differently. And your contract and your vow may change because of that practice that you did.
Paul Gyodo Agostinelli [00:17:50]:
Yeah, it's right. I mean, in the biggest context, Zen is about being fully aware, fully conscious, and fully alive. That's what it means to be fully present. Right. So it allows you to apply yourself with conscientiousness to these different areas of your life, recognize where you're going off, where you are becoming unbalanced, and to make those adjustments that keep you from overloading one contract with the work of the other contract. Right. Because when you're aware like this, then you also recognize when something just really sounds itself. Right. You might have set yourself up for a difficult run because you've set yourself up to just work like hell for three months, say, and now you've neglected your relationships, you've neglected your family, you've neglected your own self-care. If you're really mindful every day, you're going to start to see the signs of that if things are going wrong. And then you're going to say, "Okay, I need a break." You're going to say, "I need a break" before you crash. If you're not aware on a daily basis, just kind of monitoring yourself with respect to these contracts, most people just end up crashing. Right.
Scott Berman [00:19:23]:
And I think recognition is actually a big part of it. And this is something that I've gained a lot of, is just understanding. Getting back to noble truth number two, why do we have suffering? And so this could apply to other people, could apply to myself, or it can apply to work. And so the quicker that I recognize where I'm maybe going off of the terms of my contract and readjust, I think it's like a constant readjustment where, like we said, it's a daily thing where you go back and you say, "This week coming up, I have a lot of work to do, but I need to go to the gym a couple of times because I haven't been to the gym, or I need to reach out and call a couple of friends because they're going through some stuff. And I haven't been in touch with a friend lately." But that recognition for me has really helped me grow in both work and personal life.
Paul Gyodo Agostinelli [00:20:15]:
Yeah, that's really the key thing is to recognize it and then to take that action on it because all three of these are equally important. That's the big thing. You really have to tend to all three of the areas. So how about you, Scott? Can we see what your own life is like with respect to the three contracts?
Scott Berman [00:20:42]:
Sure.
Paul Gyodo Agostinelli [00:20:44]:
Let's hear about your journey.
Scott Berman [00:20:46]:
So I think that I always have had a pretty good work ethic and work contracts, so to speak. I think that the last year or two, I've been involved with several different projects that some have gone well and some haven't. And so I've tried to readjust my relationship to these businesses, and I said this before, I'm attracted to startups, and I get involved with them, and sometimes it changes. Like a startup will change or it might not happen, or it might go full speed ahead, and that changes my involvement and my attention on it and my time management. So I also think this is like a time management thing. Like how much time should I spend on this particular project this week? Because I think it's going to be great or not going so great. Maybe I need to shift my attention to another work project. So I look at these contracts as individually almost in every project that I have, including our podcast. But I think that that changes a lot.
Scott Berman [00:21:43]:
So I found that because I'm not in one business over all these years, that work thing is constantly in flux, which is a little unsettling, but it's also invigorating. And so I've had to just readjust the time that I spend on certain projects. So, for example, I have one project that I'm working on now that I really love. It's a startup, it's in the cannabis space, it's brand new, but it's going well. But I've found that because I like it so much and because I see the future, that I've spent too much time on it, and I've had to readjust that. So I've actually backed off a little bit, and I'm getting back into some other things. And so I think that's a good example of how that contract is changing on a daily basis. But then I go to other things, like my family, and sometimes that takes a back seat, and I think that's just part of it.
Scott Berman [00:22:43]:
I mean, I think that, in general, the family takes priority for me. But if I'm in a work project or if I'm on a podcast episode or something, it's going to take some time and some focus and energy away from the family. And I
have to just be aware of it, and I have to talk to my wife about it. We have a conversation about it, and she knows what I'm working on. She knows what I'm passionate about. She knows that I get bored easily, so I'm always looking for new things to do, and that's just part of who I am. So she knows that, and so I think, by having these conversations, that has also helped me manage these contracts, and so she knows when I'm in a work project or if I'm in a new business or if I'm going to the gym every day or whatever it is. So that communication has helped me a lot. And then personally, I mean, I think just reading a lot and keeping my mind focused, but then also meditation and making sure I take some time for myself, I think has been really beneficial. So I've had to cut back on work projects and make sure that I'm doing some self-care.
Scott Berman [00:23:51]:
I'm doing some gym. I'm eating right. I'm sleeping right. I'm trying to go to bed on time. And so, I think that those have helped me in general balance these contracts. But they're constantly changing, and so sometimes I need more time at work. Sometimes I need more time for myself, and so it's just a constant balance. So I think I've learned a lot in the last year or so of managing that and having conversations with people. I've had some great mentors and some great conversations with people that are experienced in this space that have helped me a lot. And I think that my work as a coach has also helped me because I'm coaching people on some of these issues. And so it's helped me grow in that regard. So I think that, in general, I'm managing them better than I ever have in the past, but it's still a daily struggle and a daily challenge.
Paul Gyodo Agostinelli [00:24:39]:
Yeah. It sounds like you're really taking these teachings to heart, that you're really embodying them, which is wonderful to hear. And you're also reminding me that really what I'm speaking about with these contracts and these vows and these sacred relationships is the life of a bodhisattva. A bodhisattva is someone who lives a life in full awareness, committed to a path of continual improvement and waking up and helping others wake up. And it sounds like that's really what you're involved in and what you're doing.
Scott Berman [00:25:22]:
Yeah. I mean, I try. I think that we can all make mistakes, and we all have shortcomings. And so I try to be aware of those as much as possible. I try to listen more and speak less. I think that's a big part of the bodhisattva vow for me is just listening to other people and trying to help them. And so I'm not perfect, and I think that's what makes it kind of interesting is that I still have a lot to learn, but I'm open to learning, and I love learning, and so I think that that's part of it.
Paul Gyodo Agostinelli [00:25:56]:
You're doing great, Scott. You're doing great.
Scott Berman [00:25:58]:
I'm learning from the best, so thank you.
Paul Gyodo Agostinelli [00:26:02]:
That's great. Well, I'm glad to be a support. That's for sure.
Scott Berman [00:26:05]:
Thank you. Thank you. So I know that you work with a lot of people on these issues, and I know you have a lot of great experiences, but do you have any success stories or anything that you've learned recently that you'd like to share?
Paul Gyodo Agostinelli [00:26:19]:
Well, I do have a few really wonderful clients that have had great breakthroughs, and I'll just share one of those. I think this is a great example of how these teachings and this framework that we're speaking about can really make a difference. So I have a client who is a very accomplished individual, a very successful person, but kind of had reached a point where, on paper, it looked really good, but she wasn't really that happy with what she was doing, and she had achieved a certain level of success. So it's like, "Now what?" It's kind of like, "Now what do I do?" So we began working together, and we went through this whole process of discerning what she really wanted, what was truly important to her at this point in her life, and that's really a key question. And it was clear that she needed a new relationship to her work and she needed a new relationship to herself.
Paul Gyodo Agostinelli [00:27:24]:
And the relationship to herself needed to be around how she was living a very unbalanced life in the sense that she was doing everything for everybody else, and there was very little left over for herself. Right. So we kind of shifted that, and it was a major life shift. I mean, I don't want to get into all the details, but we went through a lot of work around that, and then she recognized that she needed to reestablish a kind of creative expression in her life. She had done some very creative things, but she had kind of gotten cut off from that, and we really needed to restore that. So this has been over the last few months, really, that we've been working together. And she's just had tremendous success, not only in her personal life but in her work life as well, because she's really bringing her full self to her work.
Paul Gyodo Agostinelli [00:28:17]:
She's really discerned what is truly important to her, and then she's made these really big changes, and they're working. They're working because they're authentic. They're not working because she is now trying to do something that she thinks will be successful. That's not the framework here. The framework here is, what's true for you? What are the terms of your sacred relationship with these three areas? So I think that's a great example. It's just a wonderful example of how this kind of practice can have a really big, positive impact.
Scott Berman [00:28:59]:
That's a great story. I love that. I mean, it's just that sometimes we just need that little nudge, that little push, that little recognition, and then you can make some small changes or big changes. But I love that story. It's great.
Paul Gyodo Agostinelli [00:29:12]:
Well, it's the power of being present to someone and really listening to what's going on for them and being able to offer insights that are informed by the dharma and by these kinds of teachings. That's really what I do, and it's really what I offer to people. It's that kind of listening and reflecting back to people what their situation is and what the possibilities are for them.
Scott Berman [00:29:43]:
I love it. I love it. I know we're getting close to the end of our time here, but I know that you always have a
lot of good wisdom and insight. So is there anything else that you'd like to share or something that you'd like to talk about that we haven't discussed yet?
Paul Gyodo Agostinelli [00:29:56]:
Well, I just really want to underline the simplicity of this teaching, of this framework, and how it can be applied in a very practical, direct way to our lives, right? I think that's really the key thing, that these teachings are not abstract. They're not philosophical, really. They're not religious, in a sense. They're really about how do you take these ancient, profound teachings and apply them directly to your life so that you can have the kind of life that you truly want and that you truly deserve.
Scott Berman [00:30:38]:
I love that. I love that. I think that if we could all live a life that we truly want and truly deserve, the world would be a better place. I mean, I think that's just such a great message, and I think it's really true. So thank you for that. Thank you for all that you do. I think that you're just amazing, and I know that we have a few more episodes coming up, but I want to let everyone know that Paul is just an amazing coach. I've worked with him myself, and I've just learned so much from him. And so I just appreciate you, Paul, and everything that you do. And I think that the work that you're doing is so important.
Paul Gyodo Agostinelli [00:31:18]:
Well, thank you, Scott. I really appreciate that. And it's just a pleasure and a joy to be able to do this work and to be able to share these teachings. So I'm really grateful for the opportunity.
Scott Berman [00:31:29]:
Yeah, no, thank you. Thank you. So, again, I want to let everyone know, if you'd like to find out more about Paul, you can go to zenbitescoach.com. You can also go to the Zen Bites podcast. He has a lot of great episodes, and so I definitely encourage you to do that. Paul, thank you again so much for being on the show today. I really appreciate it.
Paul Gyodo Agostinelli [00:31:49]:
You're welcome. It's been a pleasure. Thank you.
Scott Berman [00:31:52]:
And thanks to everyone out there for listening. I appreciate it, and I look forward to talking with you soon.
Paul Gyodo Agostinelli [00:31:58]:
Thank you. Take care. Bye-bye.