There’s a paradox at the heart of our existence.

I’ve spent most of my life living by the ocean. At a distance, the ocean just is. And at the same time, it is endlessly wave-ing.

We, too, live in these two states at once.

There is Being as a Noun. This is our foundation. It’s your “is-ness,” your existence, the simple, unchanging fact that “you are.” This is the deep, silent, and stable part of you that exists beneath all your roles, thoughts, and feelings.

And then there is being as a Verb. This is the dynamic, active, and ever-changing process of existing. It’s “being a leader,” “being a partner,” “being in a meeting,” “being a certain way.” This is the part of you that is constantly in motion, responding to the world.

In other words, there is who we are before we start using our personal thinking. And there is how we are as we use our personal thinking.

The source of so much of our fragmentation and burnout is that we forget the Noun and get lost in the Verbs. We forget who we are and get lost in how we are.

We get over-identified with the process of “being a leader” or “being a problem-solver” that we lose our anchor in our fundamental Being. We become a collection of scattered verbs, with no grounding noun to hold them together.

The work of an Awakened Leader is not to stop the verb of “being.” The dance of life involves being as a verb. The work is to stay anchored in the Noun of “Being” while the verb is happening.

My invitation for you with this is simple. In the midst of all your verbs: all the “doing” and “being a certain way”, can you also feel the simple, silent, static noun of the fact that “you are”, that is effortlessly aware of it all?

As you do, you will notice that this Being as a noun is common to all of us. Just as the being of an ocean is common to all its waves. We all simply exist. At the same time, we all exist as our individual selves. When we are in touch with both, life is a lot more effortless.