Amazing insight into maximizing one’s human potential in every day living!
Shame is an unspoken epidemic, the secret behind many forms of broken behavior. Brené Brown, whose earlier talk on vulnerability became a viral hit, explores what can happen when people confront their shame head-on. Her own humor, humanity and vulnerability shine through every word.
http://www.ted.com/talks/brene_brown_listening_to_shame.html
[ted id=1391]
Creativity abounds from our being when our bodies, emotions and minds are in balance and harmony. When our stress response of fight, flight or flee is not active, our brain stem or reptilian brain is not receiving signals we are in danger. The bodily and survival needs are met. This in turn allows attention and intention to be directed to higher functions and consciousness such as insight, empathy, connection, abstract and symbolic thinking, and intuition. When we have complete access to the highest functioning part of our brains and being, we have the capacity to perceive subtle energy, knowings and inspiration. Living in this expanded consciousness, we express ourselves in our daily life through healing, teaching, writing, inventing, painting, relating, or loving. We have access to our genius, which is a unique expression of our essential divine nature.
How do we cultivate this creativity? One way is to recognize times we are in a stress response and reverse it by activating the relaxations response. How do you know you are stressed? What are the signs in your body? Your thinking? Your habits? Your emotions? Your behaviors? Get to know your particular reactions to stress so you can notice them when the first begin. What caused your stress response? Recognizing your triggers can lead to preventing them from tripping your reactivity and give you the option to observe and choose to respond rather than react out of conditioned habit. When you notice your stress responses and triggers you can develop your capacity to observe without getting caught. Then you can CHOOSE to begin a transformative practice and reverse your over aroused nervous system and begin relaxing and directing your attention and intention back to higher consciousness.
Transformative practices are designed to center, quiet, and still the mind-body and focus attention and awareness in the present moment. They can focus on the body, the mind or the heart simultaneously or one at a time. Body, or somatic practice, includes such activities as yoga, tai chi, qigong, walking meditation, progressive relaxation, autogenic training, and bio feedback. Examples centered on the heart include prayer, loving kindness meditation, journaling, sitting in nature, guided imagery, and chant. Mind practices include reading sacred text and poetry, study of koans, myths and symbols, observing or witnessing consciousness, use of metaphor, contemplation, ritual, self hypnosis, affirmations, artistic works, and concentrative meditation.
Transformative practices accelerate the natural unfolding process of human development, expanding consciousness toward revealing and living as one’s true nature. They can have many purposes. According to Schlitz in her book Living Deeply: The Art and Science of Transformation in Everyday Life, they can:
. . . quiet the mind-body, heal old wounds, shed false beliefs, cultivate intention and attention, promote insight, and expand capacities. The heart of these practices is their ability to bring you into direct contact with the numinous, open your eyes and heart to the sanctity of life. They assist one in realizing the abundant, ever-present, and surprisingly accessible deep meaning that is present in every moment of every day.
In addition to transformative practices, we keep pathways to our higher consciousness open and growing by recognizing structures, beliefs, self talk and constrictions that no longer serve our expression of genius. These can be found inside ourselves as well as the world we choose to have around us. Are there old tapes playing in your head that insist you are undeserving of greatness, or you are flawed in some way? It is time to hit the delete button. Are there relationships in your life that deplete you? Are you spending time doing activities you “should” do but do not serve your highest expression? Time to re-evaluate your choices. When we say NO to that which diminishes us, we open space and time to develop our creative expression into the world.
Did you know that scientists have learned we actually grow new brain cells and develop new pathways by what we focus on and what we give our attention to? Imagine what will develop as we extract our attention from drama, trauma and chaos and give our attention to that which makes our heart sing. We literally expand our capacity for higher consciousness, integration and creativity by living and creating from our passions and purpose every day.
As Jalaludin Rumi so beautifully articulated in his poem Another Dimension:
The hidden world has its clouds and rain, but of a different kind. Its sky and sunshine are of a different kind. This is made apparent only to the refined ones- those not deceived by the seeming completeness of the ordinary world.
Here’s to having an extraordinary life!
The transformational shift occurring on the planet is accelerating. Do you see it? Feel it? Know it? I have noticed there are new structures emerging. As old unsustainable paradigms are falling away, new components are taking priority.
For instance, have you noticed how transparent the world has become? Behaviors that had previously been covered up, obscured or even acceptable are now on display for the world to see. Viral on the internet are acts of aggression towards people in public and private spaces, infidelity in relationships, illegal business practices, institutional corruption, and environmental dumping.
The old paradigm of protecting and developing our own interests often at the expense of others, scarcity mentality, division and separation, and power over another are all becoming exposed and unacceptable. Replacing that view point is one of transparency, collaboration, honoring diversity, holism, mutual accountability, integrity, authenticity and interconnection. Transformation can be terrifying and exhilarating as we navigate our personal life, relationships, organizations, families, communities, and global community as new rules are being created moment to moment.
Is your focus on what is disintegrating or what is emerging?
There is a story describing the power of our intention and attention.
“The Wolves Within”
An old Grandfather said to his grandson, who came to him with anger at a friend who had done him an injustice, let me tell you a story.
I too, at times, have felt a great hate for those that have taken so much, with no sorrow for what they do. But hate wears you down, and does not hurt your enemy. It is like taking poison and wishing your enemy would die. I have struggled with these feelings many times. He continued, it is as if there are two wolves inside me. One is good and does no harm. He lives in harmony with all around him, and does not take offense when no offense was intended. He will only fight when it is right to do so, and in the right way.
But the other wolf, ah! He is full of anger. The littlest thing will set him into a fit of temper. He fights everyone, all the time, for no reason. He cannot think because his anger and hate are so great. It is helpless anger, for his anger will change nothing.
Sometimes, it is hard to live with these two wolves inside me, for both of them try to dominate my spirit. The boy looked intently into his Grandfather’s eyes and asked, which one wins, Grandfather? The Grandfather smiled and quietly said, the one I feed.
As we experience the acceleration of this shift in the world, we remind each other to share our gifts, talents, strengths, vision and creativity to contribute and build the new paradigm and world view. Does your vision contribute to evolving consciousness on the planet in such areas as health care, business, education, public policy, environment, government, human services, nutrition, global citizenship, laws, artistic expression, communication, financial markets, or fitness? Make time and space to connect with your inner passion and invite your unique expression into the world.
If you live in the twin cities and are interested in meeting to support each other in bringing your creative work into the world, consider joining us every other Tuesday from January to March for Manifesting Your Vision class.
How do we live an empowered life? How do we contribute, have meaning, and connection, while expressing our unique passion and wisdom from inner divine essence? How do we manifest potential in all areas of life? These questions represent a core longing for all individual and organizational clients I coach.
Dawna Marova states the intention of living an empowered life beautifully in her poem:
I Will Not Die an Unlived Life
I will not die an unlived life.
I will not live in fear
of falling or catching fire.
I choose to inhabit my days,
to allow my living to open me,
to make me less afraid,
more accessible;
to loosen my heart
until it becomes a wing,
a torch, a promise.
I choose to risk my significance,
to live so that which came to me as seed
goes to the next as blossom,
and that which came to me as blossom,
goes on as fruit.
What I have seen in my life and the lives of my clients is a progression toward empowerment. First we discover our wisdom and voice, then we own and embrace this authority, then we embody empowerment; which always already exists as our core essence, but at times remains covered and hidden.
The way I see it play out is first we recognize our identification as a victim, with all power being “out there” and “done to us.” This external reference must by definition include a perpetrator from which all experience of suffering and happiness comes. This can be at work with our boss or a co-worker making our life miserable, or someone in our family or even our own inner critic.
Through transformational growth and development, we shift our identification to that of a survivor. Wounded healer, internally referenced, yet it is still in relationship to our previous condition of being a victim. If we stop here, we can feel a need to fight for justice on behalf those abused and identify ourselves being for or against something or someone. We rise above, but there is still a reference to that which needs to be transcended.
As we become empowered, we no longer identify ourselves relative to the other. We just are; living from our genuine nature. This expression of essence through each of us is varied and unique; a poet, a mom, a cellist, a healer, a leader, or no particular expression in any given moment; just radiant presence. Yes, the road to this freedom generally contains discomfort as we relinquish the drama and trauma we once thought defined us, but the reward is worth the effort!
Another model of this continuous development and transformation is up the ladder towards empowerment and mastery:
Addiction<Habit<Influence<Choice>Mastery
There are so many great tools in transformational coaching to assist us in fully uncovering our power and embracing our mastery:
• Mindfulness practice: learning the quiet, still, peace filled condition of our Body-Mind
• Utilizing our witness consciousness
• Recognizing limiting beliefs and self talk
• Creating a “new story” of power, responsibility and choice in our moment to moment decisions; allowing the old story of “being unlovable, unworthy and self loathing” to dissipate
• Recognizing milestones as they occur and celebrate our capacity to Live From Our Center Within for longer periods of time.
Here is another version of our transformational journey (which is universal to every human being) put eloquently by Portis Nelson.
Autobiography in 5 Short Chapters
Chapter one
I walk down the street.
There is a deep hole in the sidewalk.
I am lost…I am helpless.
It isn’t my fault.
It takes forever to find a way out.
(We are calling this addiction)
Chapter Two
I walk down the same street.
There is a deep hole in the sidewalk.
I pretend I don’t see it.
I fall in again.
I can’t believe I am in the same place,
But it isn’t my fault.
It still takes a long time to get out.
(We are calling this habit)
Chapter Three
I walk down the same street.
There is a deep hole in the sidewalk.
I see it there.
I still fall………..it’s a habit.
My eyes are open.
I know where I am.
It is my fault.
I get out immediately.
(We are calling this influence)
Chapter Four
I walk down the same street.
There is a deep hole in the sidewalk.
I walk around it.
(We are calling this choice)
Chapter Five
I walk down another street.
(We are calling this mastery)
For me during my empowered moments, I feel free, and live in a world that is no-where and now-here. There is real choice; I have the ability to respond instead of react. I live and heal and teach and love as my own crazy unique Divine expression. I continue to practice, learn and trust my empowerment and mastery in the world. I invite you to do the same.
Intuition, researchers have found, flourishes in a person who is open, receptive and nonjudgmental. It is a capacity we all possess. Recently I asked participants in a class I was teaching about their experience with intuition and nearly everyone had a story to share. In my experience, we can access intuitive information in various ways. Two include asking a specific question and inviting it to spontaneously flow into our awareness. Here is a story of my experience of the former.
It was a typical Saturday in March. After the full work week, chores and errands were the agenda of the day. I wondered from doing dishes, to sorting the mail that had accumulated throughout the week, to a few loads of laundry. I had done a few errands in the morning and mid day was heading out again, which prompted a ritual of brushing my teeth and putting on my ring. I could not find my ring. My memory kicked in. I remembered wearing it out for my morning errands, I would have taken it off when doing dishes after I returned. My usual habit of pants pockets for temporary keeping was unavailable in my yoga pants and it was not in my night stand, my other location for safe keeping. Hmmmm. I would look later.
When I returned, I looked again, carefully retracing my steps. The kitchen, the desk, the laundry room. My stress response was starting; I could feel myself becoming anxious; my heart beat increasing, that slight sweating on the palm of my hands, the clouding of my thoughts. I asked the other members of the household who were around, had they seen my ring? Possibly in the kitchen where I would have probably taken it off to do the dishes? No assistance.
All of my thinking and movement and asking did not produce a ring. What I knew for certain is it was somewhere in the house. It was time to tap into another way of knowing, my intuition, and intentionally activate my right brain. I sat down, shut my eyes and got very quiet in my mind and body and took a few deep breaths centering all of my attention in this present moment. Out of the stillness an image emerged. It was completely black. As I continued to breathe, I could shift my perspective in this darkness and expand my view. As I did, a bit of light came into my vision and I saw a pile of something. Still uncertain of the images I was seeing in my mind’s eye, I relaxed further and the screen expanded. It was the garbage can in the kitchen. I got up, dug through the layers of mail I had tossed earlier, and found my ring at the bottom.
With this new information, I retraced the steps of my day again and re-engaged my logical left brain ways of knowing. The pocket in my pants was unavailable, but I was wearing a jean shirt with a pocket in the top left corner where I placed my ring before starting the dishes. While sorting the mail (what can we do about the massive junk mail we get?? I do recycle most of it!) I had tossed it off the desk onto the hallway floor into a big pile, then scooped it up and put it in the garbage. The ring must have fallen out of my shirt pocket into the pile and landed in the garbage. I was filled with gratitude for asking for help, the assistance I received and the practical application of intuition. With just my five senses, I would not have found that ring.
Since that experience, initiated by utter despair and surrender, I continue to cultivate my intuition. Pictures in my mind’s eye, sounds, words, physical sensations in my body, thoughts, feelings, and even a sense of smell and taste may come as I turn my attention to my intuitive way of knowing. It has become more accessible and continues to be very practical in my work with clients and daily living. I smile as I recall my daughter calling from college to ask for assistance finding her access card which she needs for her meal plan and getting in and out of buildings. I suggest looking in a book, it seems she may have been using it for a book mark and it slipped down between the pages. She wandered around her apartment, telling me about her English class lecture and the outing the night before with her friends. I can hear the book pages fanning in the background, and eventually the access card drops out of one. She says thanks mom and continues sharing her story. I am grateful my children know intuition as an ordinary and reliable way of knowing.
We are amidst a transformative period in human history experiencing dramatic paradigm shifts and leaps in the evolution of human consciousness itself. Our world itself may fundamentally be the same, yet our perspectives are expanding and changing. What is transformation?
Have you ever looked at a Magic Eye Image? Each picture contains colors and shapes printed utilizing a cutting-edge stereogram algorithm. When you change and soften the focal point of your vision, a hidden image and depth appears; a three dimensional picture. Nothing on the page changes, just your perspective. It is amazing!
Frances Vaughan states it beautifully:
“Transformation really means a change in the way you see the world – and a shift in how you see yourself. It is not simply a change in your point of view, but rather a whole different perception of what is possible. It is the capacity to expand your worldview so that you can appreciate different perspectives, so that you can hold multiple perspectives simultaneously. You are not just moving around from one point of view to another, you are really expanding your awareness to encompass more possibilities. Transformation implies a change in the sense of self.”
What are examples of these transformative shifts?
Collectively, we experience instantaneous connection through new technologies in communication, we view our bodies in a revolutionary new way through discoveries in neuroimmunology, neuroplasticity and the mind body connection, and our comprehension of the material world has expanded dramatically through our understandings of quantum physics are a few examples of the profound shift in identification of self, relationships and community. Individually, we experience questions and expansions in our beliefs, ideas, connection, meaning and purpose in our lives.
How do we navigate these shifts in consciousness in ourselves, our relationships, our organizations, our local and global communities?
At times, one can feel a profound sense of love, joy, flow, ease and grace amidst all the changes. In other moments, one can feel fear, separation, alienation, confusion and uncertainty. Indeed, these transformational experiences can be exhilarating and frightening, all at the same time. If you are unfamiliar with the road map of stages, states and development of being human and the evolution of consciousness, it can sometimes be alarming. One invaluable contribution to this process can be the support and guidance of a transformational coach. Together we can explore consciousness, human capacity, and the interconnectedness of life for personal, professional and planetary transformation.
We are co creating who we are becoming, what are you contributing?
Spring Power Surges
Spring is here and I feel surging and expanding energies. There is a sense of “rewiring” our inner and outer paradigms, belief systems, and patterns. This powerful flow is manifesting in our lives through releasing old outdated modes of being that keep us small or depleted. It is also emerging as potential and new beginnings. Most of my clients and I are experiencing a bit more chaos, spontaneity, exhilaration and uncertainty……with a sense of crumbling, disintegrating and deconstructing right alongside renewing, realigning and regenerating…… simultaneously feeling a deep trust as the process unfolds.
There is a sense that the structure underlying our physical world and being are becoming more fluid and flexible, replacing firmness and rigidity. Living in the present is less dependent upon what worked in the past……. demanding that we assess the current circumstances, needs, impulses and creative potential and live from new possibilities. Miracles are becoming every day experiences. As we direct our attention and co-create with all the forces within and around us, magical yet ordinary solutions, understandings and inspiration are arising.
These waves of shifts are occurring in my body, relationships, community, at work, and across the planet. What have you noticed in your life as old structures are being released and you are co-creating new ways of thinking and being?
Navigating in these times can be a challenge. For me, I have found myself craving whole foods, fruits and salads, needing more exercise, nurturing relationships that feed me, and making time for solitude. I also am utilizing skilled energy and body workers, adding a few supplements, scheduling time with good listeners, reading new books, writing and designing new classes.
How are you supporting yourself with self care? In addition, external assistance can be very useful. If you, someone you know or your organization could use my encouragement as a transformational coach, it would be great to set up a session or consultation.
Enjoy surfing these big waves!