Molly Larkin's Blog, page 13

Your surprising super power: inexperience!

Have you ever thought that your inexperience might be your super power?

In leadership seminars I took many years ago, I consistently heard the phrase, “knowledge is power.” But is it always?

Sometimes the more you know, the less you see, because you think you have nothing new to learn. Just like a computer with too much data, it just might slow you down.

I have also found that naivete and inexperience can be powerful allies in life.

Years ago I was at a party and walked into a room where a group of friends were playing on a small pool table. Curious, I asked what they were playing.

“Pocket billiards. Want to play?”

“Sure,” I replied, “what do I do?”

Pointing to the various pockets and handing me a cue, my friend said, “shoot this ball into this pocket and that ball into this other pocket,” etc., etc.

Much to my friends’ amazement, I did exactly that, because I was too naïve and inexperienced to know it was supposed to be hard!

So there was a super power I didn’t know I had.

Why inexperience in business can be a gold mine

My story is an example of why organizations willing to bring in smart people with no experience in their field can get the benefit of people able to think outside the box; they have no self-imposed limitations.

David K. Williams, of Fishbowl, embraces the concept of hiring people with little to no experience.

He first looks for what he calls the 7 Non-Negotiables:

Respect,
Belief,
Loyalty,
Commitment,
Trust,
Courage and
Gratitude.

These are good qualities to have for success in any area of life.

Williams also says the inexperienced come with:

Room for growth
No bad habits to break
Fresh ideas

He’s found that, “when someone is eager and excited to excel, and is given the environment to thrive in, miracles transpire.”

I wholeheartedly agree. When I was hiring staff for my former firm, I usually went for someone smart and eager over someone with loads of experience. Give me someone with no preconceived ideas of how the job should be done, teach them the job, and let them grow and shine and bring new perspective.

The people I hired under those values almost always proved me right.

The value of shoshin

In 1989, Liz Wiseman took her first job out of business school with a mid-size startup called Oracle. With no experience, she was recruited as a technical trainer; a year later she was promoted to manage the training department.

In retrospect, Wiseman, who has written three books and now heads her own consulting company, says, “My real value didn’t come from having fresh ideas. It was having no ideas at all. When you know nothing you’re forced to create something.”

It’s what Zen Buddhists refer to as shoshin or, “beginner’s mind.” That’s an attitude of openness, eagerness and lack of preconceptions when studying a subject.

“In the beginner’s mind there are many possibilities, in the expert’s mind there are few.” Shunryu Suzuki in Zen Mind, Beginner’s Mind.

Did Orville Wright have a pilot’s license?

Here’s your answer:

“Orville Wright did not have a pilot’s license.” –slogan used at Facebook to warn

hiring managers not to overly focus on credentials.

Today, most everyone has heard of the Wright Brothers, the two Americans who invented, built and flew the first successful airplane. But at the time they were working on it, no one knew who they were.

According to Simon Sinek in his popular TED.com talk, in the early 20th Century the pursuit of powered human flight was the dot.com of its day. Everyone was trying it.

While the Wright Brothers worked in anonymity, there was one man working on developing human flight who was practically a celebrity: Samuel Pierpont Langley.

In 1898, Langley, a highly experienced scientist and inventor, was given $50,000 by the U.S. War Department to create a piloted airplane. That was a lot of money back then.

A few hundred miles away from Langley, the Wright Brothers had no money and little experience, but they had a dream and believed they could do it. It’s said that every time the Wright Brothers went out on their plane, they would bring along five sets of parts, because that’s how many times they would crash before dinner.

On December 17, 1903, they successfully took flight and no one was even there to watch it. The nation found out about it a few days later.

When the Wright Brothers took flight, Langley quit. He wasn’t even motivated to offer to help the Wright Brothers and say, let me help you make it better. Langley wasn’t first, and didn’t get rich or famous, so he quit.

So if you’re someone in a position to hire, give the inexperienced a chance and you may be wonderfully surprised.

If you’re looking for a job or to start a new project, don’t let your inexperience hold you back. Your passion and enthusiasm may take you much further than you expect.

“Whatever you can do, or dream you can, begin it. Boldness has genius, power and magic in it.” Goethe

 

 

 

 

 

Have trouble feeling gratitude? Watch this

The link to this lovely film on Gratitude was sent to me by a friend in Norway.  I just had to share it.  It’s only 6 minutes long.

 

DOWNLOAD A FREE GUIDE TO GRATITUDE MADE EASY

How to find the sacred in everyday life

This post was first published on www.tinybuddha.com

“Enjoy the little things, for one day you may look back and find they were the big things.” Robert Brault

One of the things I love about the Native American spiritual path is the focus on appreciating the simple things in life.

Simple things are often hard to relate to in today’s world of overwhelm.

Eric Schmidt, executive chairman of Google, says we human beings currently create as much information in two days as we did from the dawn of civilization up through 2003!

And yet our bodies were, and still are, designed to be in tune with the sun, the moon, the seasons, and the cycles of nature. That simplicity is what our souls long for.

This week’s post was first published as a guest post on www.tinybuddha.com. You can read it in full here:

http://tinybuddha.com/blog/enjoy-the-little-things-11-ways-to-find-the-sacred-in-everyday-life/

 

Reincarnation: how to know if you lived before

Do you believe in reincarnation?

Were you here before?

How will you know?

Does it even matter?

Reincarnation is the spiritual belief that when we leave our physical body, our souls eventually re-enter another physical body and we live another life. Possibly over and over.

But perhaps we don’t need to reenter a physical body to live again, because consciousness may very well survive death, the brain and the body!

The Roman poet Lucan summarizes the Celtic attitude to death as follows: “Death is the middle of a long life.”

I once asked my Muskogee Creek teacher, Bear Heart, if Native Americans believe in reincarnation.

This was his one word answer: “Yes.”

He also once told me, when I was asking him a barrage of questions. “You know, some of these things you can figure out for yourself.”

So I pondered his “yes” and put it together with everything I’d learned along the “red road” – the Native American spiritual path.

The Native Americans I have met talk about our ancestors who came before us being available to watch over us and be called upon to intercede through prayer.

I think of those ancestors as somewhat analogous to guardian angels. They’re not ghosts, not lost souls; they exist in some sort of afterlife and are simply watching over us and happy to help when we need it.

To many indigenous people, whether a soul comes back into a physical body or not is irrelevant. Those ancestors who have gone on are so highly revered and remembered, it’s as if they never left.

Everything is related and the veil between the worlds is thin. Physical or non-physical is all the same.

According to data released last year by the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life, a quarter of Americans now believe in reincarnation.

Members of Eastern religions such as Buddhism, Hinduism and Sikhism also believe in reincarnation.

There is even evidence that the early Catholic Church taught reincarnation, but it was removed from the teachings in the early centuries. This is a much debated point, and I’m not going to argue it one way or the other in this post.

Signs of reincarnation

These are some of the signs that you may have lived before:

Unexplained phobias that have no basis in this life.

I used to have an irrational fear of moths. [Yes, really!] On a visit to the Australian outback eight years ago, I suddenly found myself sharing the outhouse with a moth larger than my hand. Total meltdown on my part! And there may have been some screaming, too.

My host came to my rescue and escorted me back to the house through hordes of Australian Gum moths flying through the air. Once at the house, the moths flung themselves against the window to get to the light! More weeping and gnashing of teeth!

I was told these giant moths only manifest once every five years to lay eggs, and a few weeks later they are dead. So they apparently manifested just for my visit!

My hostess, a gifted healer, led me through a past life regression to find the source of my fear. We went back to a past life when I was standing high on a parapet at night and was startled by a group of bats flying right by me, causing me to fall to my death. Since the moths I saw were the size of a bat with a 5” wing span, the connection made sense.

In any event, we worked on the issue and I haven’t been afraid of a moth since!

Extraordinary talents: there are people who can sit down and play an instrument with no lessons. When children pick up talents very quickly perhaps it’s because they were proficient in a past life.

Unexplained aches, pains and illnesses. People may also carry illness and wounds from a past life.

A colleague of mine worked with a client with a bad throat. Doctor’s found nothing wrong with the patient, so my friend did a past life regression and discovered the patient was killed by an arrow in the throat in a past life.

Within two days his throat problem cleared up.

I have also worked with clients who have unexplained pain that cleared up after a few healing sessions. I have no doubt these were pains that came with them from a previous life.

Frequent déjà vu. Déjà vu is having the strong sensation that an event or place has been experienced in the past. Perhaps because it was!

Meeting people for the first time who you feel you’ve known before.

Have you met people in this life who you felt sure you’d known before? I certainly have. There seems to be an instant familiarity and comfort.

Some spiritual teachers say we travel with soul groups and, before being born into this physical body, agree to meet with others from our group in this lifetime.

Then again, there may be others with whom you are immediately uncomfortable. This can also stem from a bad past life relationship that needs to be worked out.

The theory is that this life is just a classroom for us to learn lessons and either grow, or not. When we die, we go back to a “life between lives” where our teachers help us process the lessons learned in this life.

If you subscribe to the theory that there is a life between our lives on earth, it makes events in our lives easier to deal with, particularly the hard ones because this is just a classroom. We either learn our lessons or don’t. And we keep coming back until we do.

That could be good motivation to get it right this time.

You can learn more about life between lives in Michael Newton’s fascinating book, Journey of Souls: Case Studies of Life Between Lives.

Conscious past life memories of children

There’ve been many stories in the news lately about young children who remember past lives. These stories have been recounted in Jim B. Tucker’s remarkable book, Return to Life: Extraordinary Cases of Children Who Remember Past Lives

A two-and-half-year old girl was distraught over her inability to find her children and described the road accident in which she died.


Four year old Ryan began directing imaginary movies and described his past life as an actor in Hollywood in the 1930s. He and his mother looked through a picture book on Hollywood and Ryan said, “Hey, Mama, that’s George. We did a picture together. And that guy’s me. I found me!” The actor Ryan identified was Martin Martyn. Author Jim Tucker contacted Martyn’s daughter who confirmed many of the facts Ryan had given about her father.


Two-year old James Leininger loved toy planes and kept recreating an airplane crash in which he died. After years of research based on what James told him, his father learned that his son had been James Huston who was killed in a World War II battle.


Ever since he could talk, Cameron described a life from before, 200 miles from where he lives today. He’d never been there in this life, but could recount in detail the house he lived in, and the town. You can watch a documentary about Cameron here:  The Boy Who Lived Before.

Past life studies Dr. Helen Wambach is a researcher who started out in the 1960s with the intention to debunk reincarnation. But after finding consistent verifiable recollections among her 1000+ subjects, she concluded:  “I don’t believe in reincarnation – I know it!”

None of this is provable scientifically, and it really doesn’t matter. What matters are two things:

First, Are you living as your best you this time around?

Striving daily to be kind, courageous, compassionate and forgiving?

Second, there is more to life and this world than we’ve been led to believe by watching TV and reading the newspaper.

It’s time to expand our horizons and see the world for what it is: utterly mysterious and beautiful. An interconnection of energies and consciousness that can allow us to expand far beyond anything we’ve experienced heretofore.

What an exciting adventure. So let’s open our minds, be amazed, and find miracles in every moment!

And remember the words of Chief Seattle:  “There is no death, only a change of worlds.”

 

Memorial Day: Earn it!

This post was first published in May 2012.

“James, earn this… earn it.” Dying words of Capt. John Miller to Private James Ryan in the film, Saving Private Ryan

Officially, Memorial Day in the United States is a day for remembering and honoring all Americans who died in any war.

Unfortunately, Memorial Day weekend also marks the beginning of the summer holiday, with people focusing on shopping, family gatherings, picnics and sporting events. So we sometimes forget the real meaning of the Day.

I suggest that each of us take time out from this holiday weekend to say a prayer of thanks for those that gave of their lives so that we could live ours in freedom.

My Uncle Frank

One day during World War II, my grandmother, Nana Sue, was shopping with her oldest daughter when she suddenly felt very weak and had to be helped to the car.

It wasn’t a heart attack; she had a strong premonition that one of her sons had just died.

She was right. The next day she learned that, at the minute she felt faint, her son Frank was killed in a plane crash during flight training for the Air Force.

Such is the connection between mother and child.

Many of us have heard such stories, perhaps even experienced them.

Regardless of one’s political leanings, or whether you personally knew them, the death of a young person in war, far from home, is a tragedy.

Saving Private Ryan

Saving Private Ryan is a 1998 film which follows a World War II Normandy Invasion company commander and his special squad sent to locate and bring home a soldier whose three brothers had all been killed in action.

The squad of 8 is led by Capt. Miller [Tom Hanks] and six were killed during the mission to save one young man, including Capt. Miller.

Captain Miller’s dying words to Private Ryan were, “James, earn this… earn it.”

The final scene of the film shows the Older James Ryan addressing Capt. Miller’s grave:

“ My family is with me today. They wanted to come with me. To be honest with you, I wasn’t sure how I’d feel coming back here. Every day I think about what you said to me that day on the bridge. I tried to live my life the best that I could. I hope that was enough. I hope that, at least in your eyes, I’ve earned what all of you have done for me.”

My Uncle Frank died in World War II, never having left behind any children – his only legacy courage and dedication to serving his country. I can honor his memory by trying to live my life in the same way.

My suggestion today is that the Memorial Day we remember those who have sacrificed their lives so that we may live ours. Try to live your life the best you can, and earn what our soldiers have done for us.

“The word memorial does not indicate that someone has died. It symbolizes that someone has lived. What is going to be that living memorial that you’re going to leave behind? Why are we here now? We’re here to add something, to construct, to preserve. To leave something good for those little ones who are going to come into our world. Let that motivation be so firmly established in your heart and mind that you can say, ‘I will stand for this. I will live for this.’ ” Bear Heart in The Wind Is My Mother

 

Moon time teachings: why they’re not for women only

This posts takes a look at the traditional indigenous teachings around the moon time [menstruation]. I used to share moon time teachings with women’s groups, but I’ve decided that men need this information, too.  

For my women readers, this is information that has been lost in our society, but it can help us in achieving the life balance we all seek.

To my male readers, please read this in the spirit of gaining a better understanding of female mysteries! Learn to appreciate the women in your life as energetic beings in tune with the cycles of nature.

When I started attending Native American ceremony 30+ years ago, there was one guideline that caused me considerable confusion:

Women were not permitted to participate in most Native American ceremonies if they were on their moon time [that is, menstruating].

No other explanation was given other than that women were “sacred” at this time.

This taboo was a great mystery to me. My first reaction was the same as that of most women: anger, suspicion and indignation. — it was hard for us to see this prohibition as anything other than one more example of men excluding women from the cool stuff.

But wait! What if there were more to it than that?I’m a researcher at heart and I like to know the why, what and how of things. I’m like a cat that way – always curious.

So I undertook the task of learning everything I could about moon time teachings and what I found surprised, enlightened and transformed me.

It was life-changing, really – a glimpse into the world beyond the mundane. A look into the magical realms of the energy of the natural world.

“Part of aligning with Divine Order is aligning with the natural cycles of the earth and the cosmos.” Christiane Northrup, M.D. in Goddesses Never Age: The Secret Prescription for Radiance, Vitality, and Well-Being

Why nothing is what it seems

The first thing to understand is that, in the Native American way, there is a reason for everything, and that reason always goes back to our relationship to Spirit.

Seen through Western eyes, the role of native women seems grounded in sexism.

Seen through Native eyes, women are honored and revered.

I once participated in a ceremony in Australia performed by the Maori [the indigenous people of New Zealand] in which the men either stood or sat on chairs and the women sat on the ground.

I can guess what you’re thinking, because I know what I thought at the time: “They don’t think women deserve to sit in chairs.”

But the real reason was something that my Western mind would never have come up with on my own: the Maori are a warrior people — the men might start throwing daggers at one another and getting into a fight with little notice. By being on the ground out of the range of swords and daggers, the women were kept safe.

Women are sacred in the Maori culture, as they are in most indigenous cultures, because they bear and raise children, which is the most honored role in the tribe. By keeping up the tradition of the women staying safe on the ground, it serves as a constant reminder to the tribe of how cherished the women are.

What Western world mothers don’t know

When I had my first menstrual period, my mother passed on the teaching she received from her mother: it’s known as “the curse,” a major inconvenience in our lives and something women just have to learn to put up with.

In the view of traditional indigenous people, a woman’s moon time is a ceremony in and of itself. It is when she is the most sensitive, creative and intuitive.

To understand why this is, we need to understand the cycles of the moon.

While the sun has been viewed by ancient societies as male energy, the moon has almost always been female. The moon rules the flow of liquids on earth [think of the ocean tides] and in women’s bodies.

The time of the full moon is one of energy and outward activity. Walk in the country on the night of the full moon and you can see everything you need to see, but it’s as though the landscape is lit by magic.

At the new moon, called the dark of the moon, it’s said that the veil between the physical plane and the Great Mystery is the thinnest. It’s a more spiritual, introspective time – there’s less light and, therefore, less activity.

Women who lived traditionally, in nature without artificial light, almost always had their menses at the time of the new moon. Hence the term, “moon time.”

To have our bodies’ cycles synchronized with the moon, we have to be able to see it. In the modern world of artificial light, we tend to be indoors and not noticing where the moon is. This makes it more difficult for us to perceive the natural cycles.

This is also the reason why many women have irregular menstrual cycles – their bodies are no longer in sync with the energetic rhythms of the natural world and the moon.

A woman’s moon time is a time for retreat and vision and quiet reflection. In some tribes, a traditional woman on her moon time would go to a Moon Lodge, a place of quiet and beauty separate from the activity of daily life. It was a kind of vision quest. Food was brought to her. She was considered on retreat and had no responsibilities other than to pray, dream, to call for vision on behalf of her people and do her creative work.

The visions and dreams women received in the moon lodge were often passed on to the tribe as messages from the Great Spirit.   It could be something as simple as a recipe, a rug design or a larger scale project.

But some of the most amazing prophecies about modern times were made by women in their moon lodges: prophecies of giant silver birds and great spider webs covering the land [planes and power lines] are said to have come from the moon lodge visions.

This heightened sensitivity which Native people acknowledge and honor during the moon time is the same sensitivity that creates what our society calls PMS.

Unfortunately, because we keep up a normal schedule at that time, we often get stressed and misunderstood. Taking at least one day during our moon times to nurture ourselves, meditate and rest is indescribably beneficial. The moon time cleanses our bodies and our time in solitude nurtures our spirits.

As the moon becomes full again, the women work to manifest their visions. The full moon is a time of outward contact and connection. Also the time of ovulation if we are in cycle with the moon.

A week or so after the full moon, we might start feeling our energy draining, impatience, restlessness or cramps. This is the signal it’s time to start withdrawing and doing less outward activity.   Carefully choose what you do and who you spend time with.

I’ve heard of new moon drumming circles but that may be what the men did. Traditional women would not have drumming circles on the new moon; first, they were probably in the moon lodge; the new moon is a time of quiet and retreat and drumming is too much activity. The full moon is the time for drumming circles for women.

While the moon time is viewed as a ceremony, it works with a very different energy than most other ceremonies. In the view of many Native American tribes, energy, and most of life, is seen as moving clockwise, or “sun wise.”

When a medicine person is conducting a ceremony and needs to communicate with spirits or animals in the area, he or she does so by psychically traveling on that sun wise energy.

I once vision quested in an area that had a lot of rattle snakes. In fact, I knew there was a rattlesnake near the site I had selected because I almost stepped on it. I could have chosen another site, but I felt I was supposed to be there.

I told Bear Heart, the elder who was putting me on the vision quest, about the snake, and trusted he would take care of it. And he did — I never saw that snake again.

The way Bear Heart took care of it was by communicating with that snake, asking that, for the protection of both the snake and me, it stay away. That communication took place by his psychically traveling on sun wise [clockwise] energy.

The energy of a woman on her moon time is a counterclockwise energy because it is an undoing energy. After the body has built it’s monthly nest, to be ready for the possibility of new life, the nest is discarded to make room for a new one.

That discarding and undoing process is our menses, which creates a counterclockwise energy in and around the woman’s body. Since most other ceremonies utilize clockwise energy, there is an incompatibility.

The moon time energy is so powerful that it can get in the way of a medicine person communicating with the spiritual realm during a ceremony. [A very in-tune woman friend of mine once wanted to test this out at a very large gathering for a Sun Dance ceremony on a reservation in South Dakota. Although she was not menstruating at the time, she concentrated on creating a counterclockwise energy in her body. Within 5 minutes an announcement was made over the loudspeaker reminding any women on their moon time to please leave the area. So the medicine people truly can tell.]

Another Native view of the moon time is that it is the body’s natural purification process. Not only are we releasing blood, but also the toxins we have accumulated over the course of the month. A little known fact is that the purification [sweat] lodge ceremony originated many generations ago to allow men an opportunity to purify their bodies the way women naturally do on a monthly basis.

It’s only been in recent times, due to the extreme pollution and toxicity in our world, that women even started going into the purification lodge.

Women who have achieved menopause are considered the elders, whose wisdom is held inside their bodies. It’s sad that in “civilized” society, older women are not revered, but in traditional societies, they are – very much so.

Things to do to honor the moon time and your body:

Spend more time in moonlight where artificial light is not hitting your eyes at the same time. Sleep where the moonlight will be on you. Pay attention to where Grandmother Moon is in her cycle. Offer her gifts such as small stones and corn meal and ask her to bring you into balance with her.


Have your family cook their own meals for 1-3 of the days you’re on your moon.


Take the first day of your menses off from work, if possible. If you have to go to work, at least spend your non-working hours at home, resting.


Nurture yourself for four days. Don’t have intercourse during the menstrual flow – too much expenditure of energy.

The tampon and sanitary napkin commercials telling women they can maintain their level of activity during their flow are doing a great disservice to women.

In her book, Mother-Daughter Wisdom: Understanding the Crucial Link Between Mothers, Daughters, and Health, Christiane Northrup, M.D. at p. 533, comments on the reason for menstrual cramps:

“The fact that so many girls have cramps speaks volumes about our culture’s love affair with incessant productivity and activity at the expense of adequate periods of rest. Menstrual cramps are a sure sign that the sympathetic nervous system stress hormones associated with “fight or flight” are out of balance with the parasympathetic chemicals of “rest and restore.” That’s why cramps are often relieved by simply resting with a hot water bottle on the lower abdomen, or taking a relaxing hot bath.”

Create a beautiful place of retreat to be in during your moon time.


Do your art work and crafts during your moon time; you’re at your most creative then.


Use cloth pads, not tampons. We’ve all heard stories of girls dying of toxic shock from using tampons. The menstrual flow is a detoxification; why would we want to hold the toxins released in the menstrual flow in our bodies?


The new moon is also a time of new beginnings; a teaching I received from my elders was: when you see the new moon, acknowledge her and bless yourself by reaching up toward her and pulling her energy and light down over your body. It’s also a good time to start new projects in a meditative, relaxed way, particularly artistic projects.

So why not give this a try for a month or two and see how you feel. After all, as caretakers of the earth for millennia before we came along, the Native elders must have known what they were talking about when it comes to the energies of Mother Earth.

It’s a shame that the European conquerors, in rejecting Native American societies, also rejected some of the most profound teachings about how to live a balanced life on Mother Earth.

“When you take care of yourself, you take care of more than just yourself.” Matthew McConaughey, Buick commercial

How to overcome your limiting beliefs

“Treat a man as he is, and he will remain as he is. Treat a man as he could be, and he will become what he should be.” Ralph Waldo Emerson

That goes for how we treat ourselves, too.

I just listened to a talk by one of my mentors, Brendon Burchard. He made an interesting point about ending our focus on limiting beliefs and instead focusing on what works.

Brendon related the following email conversation he had with one of his coaching clients:

Client: “But what about my doubts and fears?”

Brendon: “What of them? They’re not going to go away. The question is, are they winning the day, or are you? What of your greatness and power? When you connect there, finally, after all this time, your insecurities will be irrelevant.”

We’ve heard it before: what we focus on expands.

Do you want to focus on your problems? Or what works?

Many people tend to focus on disorder, abnormalities or what’s holding them back.

Focus on virtues and strengths, instead of your weaknesses.

Brendon went on to say, “Some people say, ‘My limiting beliefs are sabotaging me.’ It’s not your limiting beliefs, it’s your limiting vision of who you are and what you’re capable of.”

Everything can be reframed, everything. Even the most difficult circumstances we go through.

I attended a seminar many years ago in which a woman was bemoaning the fact that her mother never wanted her, and, while pregnant, tried to abort her.

The seminar leader’s remarkable response was, “Your mother tried to abort you, and you’re here anyway. Look how powerful you are! You’re clearly here for a purpose. Find it and live it.”

How can you reframe limiting beliefs?

Before you can release them, you might have to know what they are.

In the classes I teach, we do a section on identifying limiting beliefs and reframing them into something positive.

One student who had a fear of public speaking remembered an incident that took place around the age of four. Her parents had shamed her for making an innocent comment about her grandfather’s declining health, as children tend to do.

But this shaming left her feeling afraid to speak at all.

Once she remembered this incident that had been controlling her life, she was able to leave behind the criticism of parents who didn’t know the harm they were doing and go on to be an in-demand public speaker.

It’s not always easy to ignore childhood trauma that’s ingrained in our behavior without even knowing it. But to identify it and reframe it can be very empowering.

What do the experts say about limiting beliefs?

In the last 12 years, there’s been a shift in what psychologists know about the human mind. We’ve learned to change the emphasis from negative to positive, and leaders are suggesting we stop focusing on our problems.

A prime example is grief counseling. The latest research is that grief counseling may cause more harm than good because it focuses on the trauma.

Studies demonstrate that deeply probing distressed individuals about their feelings of loss until they have a cathartic reaction can be harmful and even interfere with recovery.

It’s been found that conventional talk therapy is more effective.

Displaying little or no symptoms following a traumatic event may actually be a sign of health rather than a sign of problems.

What can you do to combat limiting beliefs?

Here are four simple ideas from Brendon Burchard to help you feel stronger:

First: Give more weight to what works, instead of what doesn’t work. Focusing on what doesn’t work will set you back.

Optimists are more likely to face a problem than pessimists. Pessimists won’t try; optimists will.

“Don’t let who you were talk you out of who you’re becoming.” Zig Ziglar

Second: Focus on being great: change your focus from insecurities [which will always be there] to greatness, your potential, your resourcefulness.

“It’s not the lack of resources, it’s your lack of resourcefulness that stops you.” Tony Robbins.

To solve a problem ask, what would the greatest me do right now?

You might get negative feedback from small-minded people, but are you going to let them stop you?

Third: Focus on aliveness. The power plant doesn’t have energy; it generates energy. Focus on your aliveness and you will get more energy.

Focus on things that energize and inspire, such as gratitude. Will yourself into feeling more alive each day.

Fourth: Live your live from love. When someone does something against you, send them love. When you see an accident, a road kill, disasters on the news, send love.

Ask yourself these questions from Brendon on a daily basis:

Am I living fully?
Am I loving openly?
Am I making a difference?

When you can answer, yes, yes and yes, you’ll know you’ve overcome your limiting beliefs.

The Japanese Tea Ceremony – the sacred in every day life

I love to look for the sacred in every day life. And there may be no better example than the opportunity offered by mindfully drinking a simple cup of tea, as in the Japanese Tea Ceremony.

Whether gazing out the window, or going through the formality of a Japanese tea ceremony, there is tranquility and grace to be found there.

I only became a tea drinker very recently, which is interesting since I’m Irish and they are great tea drinkers.

But I try to stay up do date on all health news and when I learned that a cup of green tea a day was good for us, and someone gave me a box of tea for my birthday a few years ago, I was off and running.

Ironically, once I started having a cup of green tea a day, I learned the latest prescription was four cups a day! Oh, well.

I don’t really want to drink four cups a day, but have been pretty steady at having one cup a day of either green, white or red tea, all of which are said to have great healing properties.

The Japanese are reputed to have the lowest rate of heart disease in the world. Diet is a big part of that, but also, 50% of Japanese drink three cups of green tea day!

And there are over 1000 studies showing that green tea helps prevent heart disease.

 The Japanese Tea Ceremony

The Japanese tea ceremony, also known as The Way of Tea, is a beautiful example of finding the sacred in every day life.

Dating back to the 16th Century, it developed as a path to spiritual awakening characterized by humility, grace, restraint, and simplicity.

This is a far cry from the modern practice of pouring hot water over a tea bag and drinking tea on the run. Something I’m embarrassed to admit I do all too often.

This is what Web Japan www.web-japan.org says about The Way of Tea:

The tea host or hostess may spend decades mastering not only the measured procedures for serving tea in front of guests, but also learning to appreciate art, crafts, poetry, and calligraphy; learning to arrange flowers, cook, and care for a garden; and at the same time instilling in himself or herself grace, selflessness, and attentiveness to the needs of others.

The ceremony is equally designed to humble participants by focusing attention both on the profound beauty of the simplest aspects of nature—such as light, the sound of water, and the glow of a charcoal fire (all emphasized in the rustic tea hut setting)—and on the creative force of the universe as manifested through human endeavor, for example in the crafting of beautiful objects.

Conversation focuses on praise for the beauty of natural manifestations. Guests will not engage in small talk or gossip. The objective of a tea gathering is that of Zen Buddhism—to live in this moment—and the entire ritual is designed to focus the senses so that one is totally involved in the occasion and not distracted by mundane thoughts. It’s a practice in mindfulness.

The students studying the Tea Ceremony learn to think of others first. Learning is experiential, not from a book. The goal is to attain presence of mind. The Way of Tea is not a course to be completed, but a way of life itself.

It’s about the beauty of simplicity.

The traditional tea ceremony is a spiritual experience embodying harmony, respect, purity and tranquility. Guests enter by walking across roji [Japanese for dewy ground], symbolically ridding themselves of the dust of the world.

Then they wash their hands and mouths from water in a stone basin as a last purifying step.

The host receives the guests through a low door or gate, forcing them to bow upon entry — a reminder to be humble.

The doorway also symbolizes leaving behind the material world and entering the spiritual world.

For an informal ceremony, guests are served sweets and tea. A formal ceremony will include a full meal and can take up to four hours.

It is an art and one may study for a long time to be qualified to do it right.

A tea ceremony generally involves the preparation of powered green tea known as Matcha, which was originally used by monks in Japan to center themselves during meditation. Over time, it became part of Japanese tea ceremonies and then an everyday drink.

Matcha is gaining in popularity in the West, with matcha cafes opening in New York, L.A., Boston and Miami.

Because one consumes the entire leaf instead of simply a bag steeped in water, matcha has more fiber and 20 times the anti-oxidants of regular green tea. The way it is processed fills it with chlorophyll and vitamins, making it good for detoxing.

In Japan, people may choose to take classes or join clubs dedicated to teaching this tradition. Students learn the common hosting duties such as

how to properly enter and exit the tea room,
when to bow,
making the tea correctly,
proper placement and cleaning of the utensils and equipment,
as well as appropriate guest behavior like handling and drinking from the tea bowl.

It reminds me of many indigenous ceremonies, which are all designed to bring us closer to God and to appreciate the simple beauty of this magnificent creation.

Every placement of a spiritual instrument has a purpose, one of which is to call in the good spirits to hear our prayers and act on them.

The low door of the purification lodge makes us all equal and reminds us to be humble, just as the entryway to the tea room. We leave the mundane world behind and purify ourselves to be worthy of serving the Creator.

Over the years, I have come to understand that ceremony is the language of spirit – the language of humility, respect, kindness and grace.

Whatever tradition you follow is sacred, as long as it gives you the experience of being in the presence of the Divine.

Honoring guests is a time-honored tradition in many cultures of bringing beauty and kindness into every day life.

It’s not necessary to conduct a formal tea ceremony in order to experience tranquility, mindfulness and share joy with friends. One can do that with any meal, or even a cup of tea. Why hot try it?

What traditions do you share with friends that bring joy and contentment?

“The first time you share tea with a Balti, you are a stranger. The second time you take tea, you are an honored guest. The third time you share a cup of tea, you become family.” A Pakistani village elder to author Greg Mortenson in Three Cups of Tea: One Man’s Mission to Promote Peace – One School at a Time

 

 

Sacred Fire: the manifestation of Spirit

“The Sacred Fire used to heat the rocks represents the eternal fire that burns at the center of the universe.” Dr. A.C. Ross, Lakota

I don’t believe I have ever been to a Native American ceremony that did not incorporate Sacred Fire.

Fire is a gift from the Creator. It is spirit made manifest.

It is untouchable yet touches us with it’s warmth and light.

When we learn how to communicate with it, our lives are enriched.

Just as the sun provides warmth and light, and allows growing things to flourish, fire warms our homes and cooks our food, and lights our way in the dark.

Even without looking for deep, spiritual meaning, fire is certainly mesmerizing. What is more relaxing than sitting and watching a fire?

Does fire have a consciousness?

I think the answer is, “yes.”

In 2002, a friend put up a community purification lodge on his property in Malibu, California. It was built in the traditional way, with prayer and respect and offerings of tobacco.

The following January, a devastating fire moved through the Malibu mountains. That fire moved up the hillside toward my friend’s house very rapidly, and it appeared the house would be consumed along with so many others on the hillside.

Then an amazing thing happened. The fire split in two, and went around the lodge, horse arena and house, before coming back together on the far side.

A fluke of nature?

An erratic wind?

Or were the spirits of the land and the fire protecting that lodge and home because this little house of prayer had been built in a respectful manner and held many ceremonies?

Elders speak about Sacred Fire

In The Sacred Pipe: Black Elk’s Account of the Seven Rites of the Oglala Sioux (The Civilization of the American Indian Series), fn. 30, the following is shared about the sacredness of fire:

“For the Sioux, the fire at the center [of the tipi] represent Wakan-Tanka [Creator] within the world. To emphasize the sacredness of this central fire, it should be recalled that, when the Sioux were still nomadic, a man was appointed to be the keeper of the fire, and he would usually have his tipi at the center of the camping circle. When camp was moved, this keeper would carry the fire in a small log, and when camp was set up again, each lodge would start its fire from this central source.”

 This is what Bear Heart says about Sacred Fire in The Wind Is My Mother:

“Then there is the spirit of the fire. In our Indian way, we say the fire is the sun here with us. The sun shines on the trees for days, weeks, months and years and the wood absorbs that sunlight. Then the tree is taken down and when we put a flame to it that sun is now here with us in the form of fire.

“We also say fire came to us a long time ago so it’s our Grandfather. When that wood burns up it turns gray, like an old man, a Grandfather, and we give it the same respect we give our elders. To be a fireman in our ceremonies is a position of great honor. Non-Indians have a fireman who puts the fire out. Ours starts the fire.

“When a fireman handles the fire he handles it very gently because he’s handling an old person. He doesn’t shove the wood around because dishonoring the fire has its penalties — it can warm us, give us energy and cook for us, but it can also burn us, our loved ones or our homes. So we always respect that fire. We’re very gentle with it, like an old person.

“And then, when our firemen put the flames out, they do it very gently. They don’t just take water and douse it all at once. They do it very gently, because they’re not putting the fire out, they’re putting Grandfather to sleep. They’re thanking Grandfather for helping us and saying, “Now, you’ve earned your rest. We thank you for helping us. There may be a time when we’re going to have to wake you up again and ask you to help us. But right now, we want you to sleep.”

“The fire that burns in our fireplaces is the eternal fire, it is the sun here with us, lighting our way. Among the different Indian tribes, we respect the fire that way.”

 Spiritual communication through Sacred Fire

Druids and shamen use sacred fires for divination. Druids would read the shape of the smoke.

Bear Heart and other Native American’s I know would read the coals for information and messages. And they would send their prayers out on the smoke, to be carried up to the Creator.

The ancient Celts would keep the hearth fire lit year round. It was only allowed to die on the Beltane festival on the First of May, when it was ritually rekindled.

The hearth fire was the center of Native American and Celtic family life. It provided warmth and light and food to be cooked. Evening storytelling would take place around the warmth of the fire, as its light played with shadows and created a mystical environment.

 Using Sacred Fire for Burning Bowl ceremonies

The burning bowl ceremony is a very powerful way to release those mental and emotional issues you no longer want to hold on to, and to pray for new things to come into our lives.

Designate a special bowl for this purpose.
Light a candle.
Cut tissue paper into small 3” x 3” squares.
 Write on the paper square what it is you want to let go of.
Fold it twice; light one corner and drop it into the bowl, where it will burn safely.

The power of intention is what helps this release take place for you.

I also use the burning bowl for the purpose of calling in new things: just write on the paper what you want, and follow the same steps.

 How to care for Sacred Fire

Lakota elder Wallace Black Elk taught me that, when tending a fire, it’s important to occasionally offer it cedar as an honoring.

Bear Heart taught me that 3-4 times each winter I should offer raw meat to the fire in my home; that by making these offerings the fire would be satisfied and not take anything else. So I offer a nice cut of steak several times each winter.

Keep your fire neat and your hearth clean. It represents how you take care of your life and loved ones.

If it is a fire you will use for ceremony or prayer, don’t throw trash in it.

During the winter months, I have the fire going 24/7 and it adds a lovely warmth to my home. I rekindle the fire every morning, offering it cedar and singing a fire honoring song, then I sit in prayer and meditation. I can’t imagine a lovelier way to start the day.

So the next time you sit by, or start, a fire, I hope you can see it in a new light. As a gift that can take away our sorrows, and take our prayers and intentions for a new life and send them out into the universe to become manifest.

And there is no greater gift than that.

Why having a role model can change your life

“Surround yourself only with people who are going to take you higher.” Oprah Winfrey
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Do you sometimes wish you had someone to answer all your questions and tell you how to run your life?

Tell you which path to take when you’re at a cross-roads?

I’ve wished for that many times.

When life seems confusing and hard, it would be so nice to have someone we respect just say, “Here, why not take this path. This is what you should do.”

Well, the fact is, we all do have people like that in our lives. They’re called role models.

Why we all need role models

Role models are people who can impact our lives in a positive way.

Most of us have heard the phrase, “What would Jesus do?”

But perhaps we don’t even ask the question, because it seems too high a standard for us to relate to.

Tony Robbins addresses this in this simple quote: “Perfection is the lowest possible measure – it keeps you from trying.”

But that doesn’t mean there aren’t other ways to ask it, or other people to model our behavior after.

At times when I’ve been faced with difficult situations, I found my way through by asking, “What would Bear Heart do?”

Bear Heart was my Native American spiritual teacher and co-author of The Wind is My Mother. He was also my friend and adopted father in the Native American tradition.

In trying times, I would go to him for counsel. When he wasn’t around, and particularly after his death, I’d ask, what would he do in such a situation? How might he handle it?

Hopefully we all have someone like that we can hold up as a role model. Someone who has made more progress than we have as far as having good character, an open heart, forgiveness, kindness, etc. Someone we can aspire to be more like.

I have also asked other questions when trying to make a decision:

What would prosperity do? If money were no object, what would I do in this situation?

You have to be careful with this one, and not spend money irresponsibly. But when it comes to sharing, that question is a very good way to open the floodgates of generosity.

What would love do? 

What would Mother Theresa do?

What would the Buddha do?

For the socially responsible, “What would George Clooney do?”

Hopefully we all aspire to be better than we are today. I know I do.

That’s what makes life an exciting adventure: growth and improvement.

What is a role model?

Role models are people who have qualities we would like to have and who inspire us to be better.

The qualities of a role model might include:

The ability to inspire others.
Having a clear set of values.
Being non-judgmental.
The ability to overcome obstacles.
Creativity in problem-solving.
Kindness

Years ago I got the following assignment from a career counselor: find people doing what you want to be doing and interview them to find out how they got there. I did that and it definitely helped move my career in a new direction.

“Find someone who has a life you want and figure out how they got it. Read books, pick your role…
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Here’s an example of how a role model might help

Years ago, I was owed $500 by a friend. The debt had gone on for over a year, and he wasn’t responding to my emails and phone calls.

Now, the truth is, I had gotten rather angry about this debt, and I’m sure this anger spilled over into my communications.

But anger only makes the recipient dig deeper into their hole of resentment and denial. So you end up at a stand-off.

Then I remembered a story Bear Heart told me, and it solved my problem: the debt was repaid quite quickly. It might solve a problem for you, too, some day:

My grandson, Bobby, was six foot two and weighed 180 pounds at thirteen years old. One day he was standing in line to pay for lunch at school and his friend standing next to him took his money out. Playfully, Bobby took the money, just to tease him and then someone behind him took the money from him.

It went on down the lunch line and by the time it got back to his friend, part of that money was missing. The principal got involved and called Bobby’s mother at work because he wouldn’t tell who actually got the money. 

His mother grounded Bobby –“no more Nintendo, no more bringing home friends, no more overnights with friends until you resolve this with the school.”  

My grandson wants to follow in my footsteps for whatever reasons. I haven’t told him he ought to do this, he wants to do it, to learn some of my ways, and I’ve had long talks with him about dealing with various situations.  

He was grounded and deprived of certain privileges, but he didn’t say anything. He wanted to be true to his friend, but he didn’t want to snitch on the others either, so he was caught in the middle.  

The next day he went to school and came back as if nothing happened. His mother said, “Well, how did it go?”

“O.K.”

“What do you mean, ‘o.k.’?”

“Two boys admitted to the principal that they took the money.”  

“How is it that they admitted they’re the ones who took it?”  

He just nonchalantly said, “I told them to.”

That’s all it took for him to settle the situation. At thirteen years old he was beginning to use a little wisdom.

In remembering this story, I decided to use Bobby as my role model. I wrote a gentle letter to my friend, expressing as kindly as I could the reasons he should pay me back. And, keeping in mind the words of Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, I tried to reflect back to my friend his best persona.

“If you treat an individual as he is, he will remain how he is. But if you treat him as if he were what he ought to be and could be, he will become what he ought to be and could be.” Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

I received a check for $500 within the week.

Find your role models with this question

Role models don’t have to be limited to people you know, or that are even still alive.

Ask yourself, “Who are the ten people, living or dead, I most admire and why?”

When I came across this question in a self-help book many decades ago, I found it most enlightening.

At this point in time, I remember just two people on my list:

Jane Fonda because she was willing to make huge mistakes [such as visiting Hanoi during the Vietnam War], face harsh criticism, pick herself up and move on with her life.

Joan of Arc because she stayed true to her vision, followed her Divine Guidance and became a great military leader while just a teenager.

The great thing about this question and answer is that the qualities you admire in these people are the qualities that are dormant in yourself. So go ahead and develop them!

“My mother once told me, when you have to make a decision, imagine the person you want to become…
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So, you see, you can even be your own role model.