Alicia M. Rodriguez's Blog, page 11

How Your Inner Sage And Your Inner Critic Help You Through Life Transitions

Have you had the experience of feeling like something inside of you was pulling you in opposite directions? 

One voice seems to be braver, encouraging you to step into a bigger life, to see yourself as greater than you’ve ever seen yourself, to dare to grab for that big dream and make it happen.

The other voice asks, “Who are you to….?”   It shows you all the evidence that proves that you’d fail, that you would be taking too much on, or maybe that you just don’t deserve to do or be that wonderful, big giant of a person you dream of.

And of course, there is this little thing called “reality” that kicks in.  You still have to pay the bills, take care of your family, to be that responsible person you know yourself to be.  Clearly taking something on that is so challenging and venturing into the unknown territory of the future can be frightening.

How will you choose?

First, let’s identify these voices so you can begin to have a conversation with them. They are neither friend nor foe, simply voices of your heart and mind speaking their truth to you.

One is the voice of inspiration.  It is the impulse to evolve into something more than you have ever been.  It is the drive to enhance your life, to be the fullest creative expression of who you are in the moment.

This voice comes from deep within and sees life as limitless.  This voice is hopeful, optimistic, based on a faith that indeed you are capable of more and that the world will greet your talents and gifts with open arms.

The other voice is the voice of fear, created out of a lifetime of messages and experiences.  It has taken care of you your whole life, protecting you from injury, emotional or otherwise, and speaking cautionary words to keep you safe and secure in your small identity.

It does not want you to fail or be hurt. It wants you to conform so you will be accepted in society.  It has an uncanny ability to provide evidence to keep you in the limited identity you have created.

Each of these voices serves a purpose. One is to expand you. The other is to keep you safe. They can work in tandem if you know how to discern when one is taking over or when fear is driving your decisions.

How will you know?

There is a difference in the energetic field between the voice of fear and the voice of inspiration. Intuition is what will help you discern this difference. Intuition is a deep wisdom that comes from a knowing beyond the mind. Intuition is the Inner Sage and its voice is inspiration.

Inspiration creates an energetic field that is expansive and light yet at the same time feels very grounded.  

This energetic field points to openings and possibilities as opposed to limitations and closings. Inspiration is based on faith in what is unknowable and sees this unknowable territory as a place of emergence, not a place of fear.

Fear produces an energetic field that feels contracted, limiting and dense.

This energy is an intellectual or mind based energy. It involves your thoughts. If your thoughts are fear based it produces anxiety. Anxiety is the outward manifestation of fear. Judgment is the Inner Critic and its voice is fear.

If you tune into your body you can feel the sensation of these energies. If you use deep breathing you will feel the opening or closing, an ease or discomfort. 

Your body is a wonderful litmus test for discernment between the voice of fear and the voice of inspiration. The body never lies and cannot be deceived.

The Way Forward

We are an evidence-based society. We seek proof for things that are improvable. Intuition is not valued nor actively developed in our western society. Eliminating or diminishing the role of intuition in our decisions and choices is like walking on one leg. Both evidence and intuition are important as ways of knowing. 

You must intentionally develop yourself in holistic ways so you can discern which voice is speaking and how to incorporate both voices in your personal evolution.

You must walk the path in unknown territory in service of your own discovery.

No one enjoys discomfort yet to venture into this unknown territory where the emergent is present creates discomfort and confusion.

It is only in the vastness of the unknown that you discover yourself so you can begin the process of leaving that discovered identity behind. 

The moment you discover yourself, you have created a limitation. Self-knowledge is not the end game as it turns out.

Self-knowledge is the intention to understand oneself in the moment, to integrate one’s past experience into the process of continued evolution of the self. 

It is not a destination. It is merely a point in time on the infinite continuum of the universal movement.

Ironically the only way to discover the essence of your true self (the spiritual and divine) is to experience yourself as a stranger, to see yourself as an integral part of this great and vast unknown.

Fear appears because this feels truly like a death.

To experience yourself as a stranger is to die to an identity that no longer serves you.

Faith is what keeps you strong when the vast unknown opens in front of you.  You must be courageous enough to dare to birth yourself anew.

In the moment you experience yourself as a stranger the emergent unknown opens itself up to you, a playground to create a new expression of your essence in this world unencumbered by cultural messages and the voices of judgment and fear.  Inspiration is free to reveal new possibilities to you that your previous identity could never have conceived of.

Out beyond ideas of wrong-doing and right-doing, there is a field. I'll meet you there. When the soul lies down in that grass, the world is too full to talk about. Ideas, language, even the phrase each other doesn't make any sense. ~ Rumi

This emergent process is like a koan or a paradox. You strive to know yourself only to release that identity in the process of constant rebirth.  This is how you follow the universal laws of flow and evolution.

This is truly not for the faint of heart. But the rewards are immeasurable. To live your life authentically as the fullest creative expression of your essence is to live joyfully, purposefully and meaningfully.

Rebirth and Renewal

The cautionary voice of judgment (your Inner Critic) is the executor of the plans that emerge from the field of possibilities.  This voice measures and calculates how to keep you safe as you move towards the creative expression that emerged from the inspired voice (your Inner Sage).

Here Is where both play well in moving you towards a new way of being in the world that expresses the who you are becoming in the continuum of your evolution.

The Inner Sage and the Inner Critic will serve you well when you can discern which is speaking, and how to balance both to support changes in your life.

Whether you are aware of it or not, you are constantly in a state of rebirth.  Life is dynamic; everything is changing in each moment. The cells in your body are constantly dying and renewing themselves. The natural world through the changes of the seasons is the obvious shedding of the old and making way for the new.

Your life transitions are how you renew and evolve finding ways to express the essence of your soul in its evolution in this lifetime.

No man ever steps in the same river twice, for it's not the same river and he's not the same man. ~ Heraclitus

Each transition is a kind of rebirth that requires consciousness, self-compassion and right action derived from your understanding of this process.

It’s taken me many years and working with thousands of individuals to understand this transformational process and to hold it as a sacred practice for personal evolution.

Understanding this will allow you to step courageously into the unknown certain that if you are listening deeply to your soul’s desire, honoring your intuition and allowing your knowledge and experience a place to support your life transitions then you will embrace each rebirth with grace and gratitude.

A Poem for Troubled Times: The Silent Ones

There are days, like today, that I just have to keep the television off and the noise from the internet away. My heart aches when I see the pain humans cause one another. Don't we know who we really are? Are we so attached to power that we abuse one another to feel more important, more powerful, than another person?

Where does love appear when the battlefields are in our minds?

This world needs healing - and healers. They walk among us, unseen, incognito, hiding in plain sight. You may know one or a few. They are the silent ones, doing their work quietly, without publicity or fame.

They are ordinary people doing extraordinary things because they know who they are and where they come from.

I wrote this poem a while ago but never published it. The poem was in itself a silent one, waiting for the time when these words might provide solace and hope to a world run amuck. Look for the silent ones, they are standing beside you but you don't yet see them. They are fully present in the light and darkness of life, without judgement, doing their profound work in whatever way they can.

Blessings to you and to all for our healing and continued evolution, no matter how difficult.

* * * * * 

The Silent Ones

Walk softly on the earth

Between the spaces of our lives

Leaving droplets of wisdom

In a silent gaze

That shifts everything

The silent ones

Lay no claim to goodness

Do not seek fame or limelight

Dissolve into the evening starlight

Without a word or wave

No need to say farewell

The silent ones

Change everything yet are unseen

Pulse to the universal rhythm

Outside of human drama and noise

Dropping love petals in their path

Gifts from another place

The silent ones

Need not speak, or sing or write

A gaze, a silence, a tear

Love without measure

The language they speak

For those few that can understand

The silent ones

Wait for the rising

Pray for the dawn

Hope for the awakening

Patiently doing their work

Unseen

The silent ones…

 

La Dolce Far Niente

The first time I heard this phrase it was in the movie, Eat, Pray, Love.  In the movie Julia Robert’s/Elizabeth Gilbert’s two male friends are getting their hair cut at the barber. One of her Italian friends mocks the American lifestyle noting how we work ourselves to the bone only to lay around in our pajamas on the weekend watching TV. He claims that Americans know nothing about pleasure, always trying to justify pleasure instead of embracing it as well deserved (like Italians do). Her other friend then introduces the concept of La Dolce Far Niente – the sweetness of doing nothing.

This phrase came up this week as I was speaking to Gloria Coppola who will be running a retreat in Italy, one of my favorite places in the world. Yes, I love the whole country, the lifestyle, the food, the wine, the people, the art, the culture, the architecture, the language – well I could go on and on. And so I told Gloria about la dolce far niente.

Since that conversation this concept has been lying in my subconscious, until this morning when I woke up alone with my two dogs, walked onto the balcony and just breathed in the cool morning air.  For a moment, there was nothing to do, nowhere to be.

And yes, it was so sweet.

I’m alone for a few days as my partner had to travel unexpectedly. Instead of freaking out I noticed how I anticipated this alone time.  You would think I had too much alone time living here in Ecuador while my friends and family are thousands of miles away.

But alone time isn’t only about being without the presence of someone.  It is mostly about being present to myself.

I realize that I have been filling up my time with computer work, Skype calls, social media and course writing.  I have not actually been alone with myself as often as I wish and it wasn’t until today that I experienced that sweetness the Italians speak of.

This morning I reveled in the slow pace of making my coffee and breakfast and sitting quietly, no music, no TV and no conversation to distract me from my Self.  Even the dogs were quietly padding about as if they knew not to disturb the silence that lay like the glassy film on calm waters.

And so la dolce far niente arose from the subconscious and made itself present because for the first time in weeks, I allowed the space for it to emerge.

I became the invitation for the quiet in my heart to speak. 

“I miss you,” it said.

“I miss you too,” I replied.

“We really need to get together more often,” it said.

“Oh yes, we must,” I replied.

For a few hours I have been sitting quietly, walking around the property, having lunch, feeding the dogs.

The simple ordinary activities of life performed intentionally provide a doorway to presence.

It was from that space that this blog post emerged. Once I could hear my conversation with myself, I knew I was ready to write and share the experience.

Earlier I only wanted to savor it just as it was, letting the juice of the moment drench me with the sweetness of doing nothing.

A few days ago I had a similar experience of time, empty of activities, conversations and distractions but my response was very different.

I became anxious.

Shouldn’t I be DOING SOMETHING?

Time was wasting. I reprimanded myself for not sitting down to finish the course or for not writing a newsletter or for not weeding the garden outside the door that scolded me every time I walked outside.

I was not alone then although there was no one with me.  My thoughts became anxiety and the anxiety became noise.

The soul never appears when there is noise. 

Only when the safe embrace of silence gently beckons it forth does the soul appear.

When was the last time you spent time with your Self?  It is so nourishing to create stillness in your life no matter what is going on.

You don’t have to be busy or productive every day. That is a myth that sabotages our growth and our health.

You think that nothing is occurring in that stillness but it is alive with the seeds of creativity.

You only have to allow the space for those seeds to bloom into the fruit that can nourish your heart and soul.

You desperately need this right now. It’s the only thing you have to counter the noise in your life, to remind you of your goodness, to connect you to your true nature.

Be intentional about creating spaces in your days for stillness and reflection so you can be in conversation with the most important person in your life. How else will you get to know your Self?

Be intentional about the simple activities of life whether it’s making a meal or going for a walk or taking your child to the playground. 

Presence is the doorway to stillness.

Stillness is not merely something that happens outside. True stillness occurs within us whether we are moving or not.

La Dolce Far Niente – the sweetness of doing nothing – Ah!

Revel in that sweetness and you’ll feel peace and joy and aliveness, appreciating the beauty around you and the goodness of you. Whether it's a moment, a day or a week, pause and enjoy the peace.

Walking The Path of Belonging

I’d like to tell you that there is one path you’re supposed to be on.

I’d like to tell you that you’ll be hit with the answer any minute now.

I’d like to tell you that life’s journey is simple, easy, known.

I’d like to tell you that it gets easier with time.

But all that is not true.

~~~~~~~~

I’m lost.

I’m trying to find my way home and I start walking, then decide to take a right. Something blocks me so I have to veer off course. I feel frustrated.

I start down the road to the left and it curves around and I discover something interesting.

I stop to look.

Oops, I just missed my bus so now I’ll have to walk a mile.  

But someone stops and picks me up.  

In conversation with that person I find that they know someone that I should meet. 

I get out and call that person who introduces me to someone else.  

But I don’t click with that new person.

So I leave and keep walking.  

This time I notice a road I had not seen before.  It was always there but I wasn’t paying attention before. I get curious and follow it.

And then I arrive.

And I realize that without all the wrong turns, without the curves in the road, without the unexpected twists and turns, and the synchronicity of meeting people, I would never have arrived to the place I belong.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

You believe that there is a path you should walk.

You believe that there is a purpose for your life and you must “find” it.

You get angry or sad or frustrated that something or someone is getting in your way or that you haven’t yet been hit with that bolt of clarity you expect.

Stop that.The path you create is your path.HERE is where you are meant to be.

Each and every moment, decision and choice in the present moment creates it.

Paying attention and being present is the only thing required to find your place of belonging.

Meaning and purpose change during the course of your life.

You may not like it.

It may be uncomfortable.

You may feel confused.

Sometimes it’s dark and scary.

But keep walking, keep showing up and your own life will steer you to your place of belonging.

You are never lost.

You are always right where you are supposed to be.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I’d like to share one of my favorite poems. When I have felt disoriented this poem reminded me, I am never lost. Blessings...

Lost

Stand still.  The trees ahead and bushes beside you

Are not lost.  Wherever you are is called Here,

And you must treat it as a powerful stranger.

Must ask permission to know it and be known.

The forest breathes.  Listen.

It answers, I have made this place around you

If you leave it you may come back again, saying Here.

No two trees are the same to Raven.

No two branches are the same to Wren.

If what a tree or bush does is lost on you,

You are surely lost.  Stand still.  The forest knows

Where you are.  You must let it find you.

-by David Wagoner

Why Every Relationship Is Doomed To Fail And What You Can Do About It

“Every relationship is destined for destruction.”

When he said this to me, I flinched.  You see, I believe in love and commitment and happily ever after.  At least that is what I was taught to believe.  So you can imagine that telling me that every relationship is doomed to fail is traumatic. Especially when it comes from the person I chose as my life partner.

But now I see how it is absolutely true.  As a culture we have an idealized and romanticized version of love.  (Picture a young, beautiful couple riding horseback through a meadow. Yes, that is a real television commercial.) 

We are a culture that runs from discomfort, hides from our deepest truths and rationalizes our feelings. 

Little wonder that love - messy, wonderful, unpredictable and true love - eludes us. We sign up for love online, search it out in bars and join meet up groups forever hopeful that we will find our one and only “soul mate”. 

WHY WE FAIL AT LOVE

Sorry, it’s not going to happen that way. Why? What keeps us in these spirals of crashing relationships is our misunderstanding of the essential nature of love.  We only know the kind of love that we have been sold. 

We have an option of two love stories. First, the one where the prince finds the princess and they live happily ever after.  Or we can choose the tragic love story where lovers die together in an eternal embrace.  Yes, there are variations in between but our mythology on love drives us toward one version or the other – repeatedly.

This kind of human love is based on need, wanting and lack.

It’s the silent message that we are not enough and therefore undeserving of love.

Our need to have someone, the need to love or be loved, is what compromises true love. When based on need there is always a void to fill. We ask our partner, no, we demand from our partner, that they fill this void.  We are not even aware that this is what we are asking of the other. If there is an emptiness it is our own responsibility to make ourselves whole, not the other person’s responsibility.

We don’t recognize our own void so we keep searching out there for relief, not for love.

True love has its origin in the Self.  This kind of Self Love connects us to our divine origin. Self Love is a recognition that not only are we enough, but we are more than our human condition. We are unlimited beings born of the stardust of the universe. There is no void to fill, no emptiness to frighten us into the arms of another. When we recognize our own divine origin we are able to see the same in others who reflect back to us our essence.  That reflection in another tells us that we are alive and present in life, a vital, creative force that is beyond our mental limitations.

So what causes us to fail at love? 

We seek to become one with our divine origin and that is singular, very personal and an individual lifelong process. As each person strives for wholeness conflict inevitably arises. It may show up as not feeling valued by the other partner or feeling resentful that the other is not present to us in some way. It has less to do with the other person than our feelings about ourselves.

This resentment of not being valued originates in not valuing ourselves enough to get our needs met so we can continue growing and evolving toward wholeness. It means we must address those issues hiding in the shadows. We must shift to interpreting our discomfort as a learning edge.

A lack of awareness about our own shadow projection may pull a couple apart if left unaddressed or misunderstood. Knowing that every relationship has the imminent potential for destruction makes us pay attention to the quality of that relationship and thoughtfully and purposefully serve the relationship to avoid that destruction.

It may seem like I am saying that the fear of the potential destruction of the relationship holds the relationship intact. That is not what I mean.

It is the awareness that the individual drive for unity and wholeness puts us in a position to destroy the very thing we love if we do not understand that our impulse for individuation is at play.

Understanding this keeps us from blaming our partner as we see in him/her the projection of what we are seeking to gain that wholeness. The outside world also imposes its influences on us pulling us away from our essential selves and from each other. We must recognize the pull of these inner and outer forces. To be in a true relationship means to respect each person’s individuation process, to serve as a mirror for one another’s process and to nurture the connection that is a partnership of two people. This lack of awareness of our own individuation process is the root cause of countless failed relationships.

“Love one another, but make not a bond of love:  Let it rather be a moving sea between the shores of your souls.  Fill each other's cup but drink not from one cup.  Give one another of your bread but eat not from the same loaf.  Sing and dance together and be joyous, but let each one of you be alone, Even as the strings of a lute are alone though they quiver with the same music…  And stand together yet not too near together: For the pillars of the temple stand apart,  And the oak tree and the cypress grow not in each other's shadow.”                       ~ Kahlil Gibran, On Marriage, The Prophet

THE KEY TO TRANSFORMATIVE RELATIONSHIPS

In The Invisible Partners: How the Male and Female in Each of Us Affects Our Relationships the author, John B. Sanford, writes about an ancient Greek myth where the original human beings were round and spherical with two faces looking opposite ways. The gods acting out of fear split the spheres in order to reduce their power. The spheres fell apart into two halves, the masculine and feminine.

“Ever since then, so the story goes, the two severed parts of the original human being have been striving to unite.“  He goes on saying, “…each man contains the reflection of a woman, and vice versa…"

Carl Jung referred to this quest for wholeness in his writings on individuation.  He refers to these opposites as anima (feminine) and animus (masculine).  These are the invisible partners in a love-based relationship. They reside within each individual, reflected back to us by our partners. This reconciliation of opposites assists us in our personal quest for wholeness, a quest to return to unity and our divine nature. 

When we begin to see each other as a reflection of ourselves, we acknowledge both our feminine and masculine aspects regardless of our gender. 

We are able to be in relationship with another supporting each other towards wholeness.  We no longer blame one another instead we begin to see our conflicts as projections of our shadow in the other. We can engage an inner dialogue with ourselves to evolve and transform and an outer dialogue with our partner for understanding and support.

This transformation moves us out of a desperate need to be loved back to our path of personal evolution towards wholeness. We can begin to experience a deeper love based on Self Love – together. Through our relationship with our partner we can engage the conversation with our true nature, bringing sacredness into the partnership as a foundation for our mutual conscious evolution.

FINDING THE RIGHT PARTNER

How do we find the right partner to help us evolve? Essentially, we must first learn to partner with our opposite within.  If I am a woman, I must first engage a conversation with my masculine aspect.  If I am a man, I must engage a conversation with my feminine aspect.  To find the right partner we must get acquainted with the opposite aspect, nurturing and loving that aspect of ourselves that has been diminished when spirit becomes embodied in a human being with a particular gender. We must seek the strength that is found in creating harmony within.

One way to think about this is to view this as an energetic exchange.  The masculine energy can be interpreted as an active, forward moving energy.  We see this in our culture as a bias for action, decisiveness, and assertiveness.  The feminine energy can be interpreted as a receptive, inviting energy.  In our culture this shows up as listening, nurturing, and empathy. Men can nurture their feminine aspect by practicing empathy.  Women can nurture their masculine aspect by standing up for themselves confidently.

To find the partner that can support you on your quest for wholeness, look for someone who is in touch with their opposite aspect and can engage the outer dialogue that supports you on your journey.  You’ll notice if they are comfortable with their opposite aspect in their language and in their actions. If you have done the inner work on reconciling your own masculine/feminine aspect you will energetically attract someone who senses this in you. 

Self Love is generated by this inner harmony. You are enough. There is no need, wanting or deficiency. You are ready to invite a relationship based on love, not relief.

“Even after all this time the sun never says to the earth ‘You owe me'. Look what happens with a love like that.” ~ Hafiz

FIVE PRACTICES TO EVOLVE TOGETHER IN LOVE

1. Continue on your quest for wholeness, seeking the harmony between the masculine and feminine and human and spiritual being.  Take a stand for your personal evolution and ask for your partner to support you in your quest as you commit to supporting your partner.

2. When conflict arises, change your questions. Ask, “What disowned part of myself am I projecting on my partner?”  “Where am I not being compassionate with myself?”  “What do I need to accept and transform within me?” “What do I need from my partner to support me in my individuation process?”  Express your feelings and questions openly with your partner, without blame of judgment, and make a specific request for support.

3. Strengthen the qualities associated with the masculine and feminine. Find ways of being more loving without being controlling or dependent. Find ways of being more assertive without arrogance and dominance.  Everything is on a spectrum. Finding your place within that spectrum supports your journey towards wholeness.

4. On a daily basis practice Self Love.  This may take the form of self-care, maintaining your wellness and health.  You can practice being less critical of yourself and more compassionate.  Put yourself at the center of your Universe, committing to your well-being first before committing to others. On a daily basis, allow time for meditation or reflection or solitude. This creates the space for your spirit to whisper its wisdom to you.  I find that being in nature is a spiritual practice for me, healing me and inviting me into deeper conversations with my soul.

5. My partner and I have a practice that has made a huge difference in our relationship.  Every morning we ask each other, “What can I do today to support you on your journey?”  Sometimes we have an answer and most days, just asking the question generates a high quality of attention to our individual needs and to our needs as a couple.   Most days, the question is received with a kiss and embrace of appreciation and that is enough.  Sometimes the most simple, tender moments are the ones that carry the greatest weight.

As I recall how far I have come from the day I was told that relationships are doomed I have to smile.  The most important lesson you or I will ever learn is the lesson of Love. 

If there is a purpose to our lives on earth, this must be it, for grace, courage and compassion for self and others originates in a Love that transcends anything the human condition can destroy. 

 

The Wisdom of the Fishermen

It’s difficult to write today. I’m overwhelmed.

I’m overwhelmed by the news of what is happening in the USA and its effects on the world.  I am not sure I can log into Facebook any longer when each morning I am greeted by one word - “Trump” - instead of finding a welcoming word or being greeted by news of friends and family.

Today I feel like running away, hiding, closing the laptop and shutting out the noise.

Do you feel like that too? I imagine many of you do as well.

But there is no running away or hiding. And there are no easy answers.

So I did what I do when I feel disoriented, when I can find no grounding in the normal places of my life.  I find refuge by the ocean as if the ocean might provide me with an answer to the breakdowns I am witnessing from a distance.

Fishing boats at sunset in Puerto Lopez

From the shore I see the fishermen going out to get their catch.  The fishermen stay out for days and weeks encountering all kinds of weather and adversity. Most of the time they return filled with a bounty of seafood. But there are other times when the sea punishes them for the audacity to venture out beyond the horizon.

There is something noble and courageous about these fishermen. They don’t complain to the sea when their catch is small.

They never demand that the ocean change to make them more comfortable or to make their lives easier.

They don’t decide to stop being fishermen because of the seasons of scarcity or even the loss of one of them.

No, they keep fishing generation after generation. They confront what is present and they adapt.  They respect the vastness of the unknown while working tirelessly to engage the life giving resources of the ocean.

They learn to accept what is in front of them and they never give in or give up.

They learn to navigate within the storms. They know that in the middle of the ocean where the horizon seems endless and infinite, where there is no land in sight, the only safe harbor to be found is the one within them.

I sat a long time on the beach watching the fishermen and listening to the ocean.  Like them, I have my own work, the one that demands I engage my life fully regardless of those days when I am not feeling all that courageous or wise.

And so I return to write this post to share with you the wisdom of the fishermen.

Life is what it is and there is wisdom to it that we cannot understand because it exists on a time continuum much longer than our human lives. This ocean may be here long after I am gone – and it may not. I cannot change that because it belongs to the unknown like the unknown beyond the horizon the fisherman watches from his boat. I know there is something beyond but I don’t know what that is.

But I’m here now.  And here in this present moment I can find my grounding by connecting to what is true for me.

From that truth I can take action understanding that my results may be fruitful or meager but what counts is that I maintain my purpose and not give in or give up.

For those of you feeling weary, tired, frightened or confused, pause and breathe into your truth and know that here within the soul of your humanity you will find your ground no matter what is happening around you. And then you will know what you have to do.

First There Is A Mountain

First there is a mountain. 

But you don’t know it. 

You don’t even see it.

At first you stumble around hitting your head, stubbing your toes, tripping over yourself as you try to find a path.  

Then one day you notice the mountain and you notice that you are at the bottom of that mountain.  Through the clouds you can barely distinguish a light shining at the peak. You know that someone is there waiting for you.  Everything in you knows this. 

And you begin to climb.

With each step forward you clear a path.  As you climb you experience heartbreak, longing, confidence, strength, grief, joy.  As you move up the mountain you reconnect with the whole of your life.

You begin to ask new questions, questions you never thought of asking before.  What is this teaching me?  What do I not see?  What is possible that was impossible before?

You hear yourself say things you never thought you would say.  You feel things you never thought you would feel.  You see things in ways you never saw before. You begin to relate to life in a completely different way. 

You discover that you are more than your thoughts, that you are stronger than you believed.  As you climb the mountain you rewrite your story, expanding it, integrating all of your life experience into a new narrative.

Every once in a while you pause to rest and enjoy the view.  You notice you have come a ways up the mountain but not as far as you had thought.  You start climbing again, one foot in front of the other, one step then another then another as you move up the mountain. 

Again you pause. 

You appreciate the view and you know you still haven’t come as far as you had hoped.

You turn to face the peak where you can see the light.  It is familiar, like a distant memory calling to you. You know that your quest is to join with that light.

Gradually you stop paying attention to where you are on the mountain. 

It no longer matters. 

You just keep climbing. 

Because really, you don’t know if you will ever reach the peak. 

What matters are the journey and the faith to go on; to believe that the possibility of reaching the peak is and always has been at hand. 

And so you climb.

10 Lessons For Living An Authentic and Empowered Life

“To be yourself in a world that is constantly trying to make you something else is the greatest accomplishment.” ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson

Growing up as a child, I was shy, bullied often or ignored because I couldn’t stand up for myself.  

My parents, immigrants from Colombia, South America, bequeathed me an inheritance of brown skin, brown eyes and a language full of emotion. Nothing like the world I was thrown into. 

I started kindergarten not knowing a word of English, trying to find my place in a sea of white faces.

I stood out like a fly in milk. 

I was teased and ostracized in class and recess until the nuns stopped the torture. I grew up smart and pretty and over the course of my life that got me by. I learned to hide my self-doubt behind my looks and mind. 

For years, I tried to adapt to a world I felt I didn’t belong to. I felt like a chameleon, turning a different shade of color based on the situation. The pressure to fit it was greatest after college. I bought into the ‘more is better’ philosophy. Status and material possessions became my goal. I became successful playing a game I thought I was winning while losing my individuality and creative spirit. 

A SHIFT TO AUTHENTICITY

Over time I have learned a few things about being authentic. My outlook on life changed after the birth of my son, and the two years I spent as a full-time mother. I no longer craved attention or felt the need to belong. The playfulness of my childhood returned to my life through my son.

Reflecting back on this critical phase of my life, I realized that what brought me into a mature assessment of my values was a combination of three things.

First, I spent time in meditation and quiet reflection, often in nature. Being in nature connected me to a spiritual source within me, and that became the origin of my personal power and confidence. 

Second, I remembered how to play. It may sound frivolous but play is learning.  When you play, you tap into joy and creativity, uninhibited by judgments and criticism. Play opens the imagination, and this is the beginning of manifesting your dreams.

Third, I began to spend more time on what I cared about and less time on what I call my “shoulds."  I can always tell when I am out of harmony with my true nature by asking am I doing something because I feel I should do it or because it inspires and energizes me. 

How to Create An Authentic Life

I now make choices that align with my values even if it displeases someone else. I continue the practices I began when my son was young to stay attuned to what matters most to me in the present moment. 

I learned that unless I place value on myself, no one would value me. I've become less tolerant of ignorance, unkindness, and victimization.

I have been able to identify a set of practices that sustain and nourish me. These practices lead to an authentic, empowered life.

Because I practice these lessons, I live an extraordinary life traveling between two countries, doing work that is location independent and having the flexibility to express myself creatively in ways that benefit others too.  

Ten LessonsLesson 1 – Find a partner and tribe that reflect back your strengths and greatness.

I read a quote recently that says, “You are the average of the five people you spend the most time with”. You’d better be sure that they are ahead of you on the journey.

Having a tribe, and a partner, that reflects back to you your gifts, talents and greatness is the only way for you to see this in yourself. If you’re around people who love drama, complain all the time and sap your energy, move on and find people that energize and inspire you.

Raise the quality of your relationships with others and you raise the quality of your relationship with yourself.

Lesson 2 – Seek out challenges to all your perceived limitations.

Stop telling the “I’m not enough” story. You are enough if you define enough on your terms. Comparing yourself to others causes anxiety and diminishes your self-worth. The images you see in our culture portray an unattainable perfection that will sabotage your potential. You will know you are enough when you look within and value your talents, skills, and gifts regardless of cultural messages.

If you want to challenge yourself to grow in certain areas, get support to break through your perceived limitations not because you want to prove something. 

Do it because you have a genuine desire to develop yourself.

Do it because you recognize your potential.

When I learned to kayak, I did it because I was afraid of the water. I wanted to prove to myself that I could overcome this fear and the little voice that told me I wasn’t strong enough. I learned how the mind creates fear, which in turn creates limitations. I tuned into the bliss that happens paddling in nature and riding the waves. I challenged limitations I thought I had about being strong and taking care of myself on the water and found joy and power in every stroke.

Lesson 3: Begin to see yourself as more than what you have allowed yourself to believe.

Spiritual activist, Marianne Williamson wrote, "Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure.” I see how true this is for me.

Reach beyond your comfort zone to discover the hidden potential within. Have the courage to test yourself. Do whatever you find difficult to do and discover that you possess more power than you had allow yourself to believe.

I learned this lesson walking through the rainforests of Ecuador with a family of shamans. There I was, sweat pouring down my face, frizzy hair and mud all over me, trying to keep up with five native shamans on a “walk” through the Ecuadorian rainforest.

I would never have believed I could do this. I always thought I wasn’t strong enough or brave enough to go into a raw and natural setting and survive. I came out of the experience transformed, asking myself, “If I can do this, then what else am I capable of?” That lesson helps me tap into my power to overcome the challenges that I face every day.  

Lesson Four:  Make a commitment and life hands you the curriculum required to meet it.

It takes courage to commit to something larger than yourself. You may be committed to being a change agent or building a business that has a significant social impact. You may be a community activist taking on the politics of making change happen in your community. You are thrust into a leadership commitment that exceeds your capacity, but because you have the vision and the drive, you step up to the challenge.

These larger commitments force you to adapt to the challenge and to bring forth all of your creative potential in service of a larger vision. Life becomes the classroom, and the commitment becomes your coursework.

For years, I dreamed of building a retreat center in Ecuador, a haven for individuals to reflect and renew their lives and to resolve the unresolved questions of their lives.  Every time I thought of doing this, the daunting nature of such a project made me take a step back. After years of dreaming, I decided the time was now to commit, or this would always remain an unfulfilled dream. 

I could not remain the most comfortable version of myself, the one that played it safe, and succeed at this project. I had to develop my capacities as a leader, a project manager and a visionary to manifest this dream.

The project became my curriculum, and Ecuador became my classroom.  

Lesson Five: Courage is the active engagement of fear.

Fear is the one thing that stops you from living an empowered, authentic life. You wonder what people may think of you, or you fear losing acceptance and relationships if you are vulnerable and authentic.  You listen to the gremlin telling you that you are not enough. You stop trying and growing.

You have three choices. You can allow fear to stop you, ignore fear or you can engage and transform fear into the energy that propels you forward.

Think of fear as a message to pay attention, telling you that there is something you need to address. Engaging your fear positively allows you to anticipate problems and find solutions. It causes you to focus on the essentials to achieve remarkable outcomes. Distractions fall away, and you can accelerate your goals.  Courageously engaging your fear allows you to transform its negative energy into the positive energy of movement.

Lesson Six: Become the Center of Your Universe.

I get teased for saying this all the time. What does it mean to become the center of your universe? It means you make a choice for your wellbeing first and foremost. It is a conscious choice for self-care. It is a way of loving yourself.

You begin making healthy choices such as choosing to get enough sleep instead of staying up all night. You choose to eat healthy and nourishing food instead of skipping meals or eating junk food. You choose to have life-affirming, respectful and loving relationships.  These are all ways to express how much you value yourself.

This expression of self-love is the foundation for self-esteem, self-confidence, and self-care. Without it, you cannot create an authentic and empowered life.

Self-love is the cornerstone of an authentic life.

 Lesson Seven:  To grow, you must embrace the fullest expression of yourself.

If you let others define you, you will never know yourself, and you will never find peace and happiness. You will always live someone else’s version of your life story. You will never know your beauty and greatness by being someone you are not.

The incongruence between how you live and who you are will cause dissonance, distress and disease. Seek out people and activities that bring forth that creative expression of your heart and soul.

If you want to go on a cross-country trip or spend a month taking cooking classes in Italy, find a way to do that. If you want to stay close to home learn a craft, play a musical instrument or attend literary lectures. These all have the potential of sparking your creative potential.  

These are not frivolous pursuits, although some may claim that they are. These are ways of opening yourself up to the inspiration that leads to an authentic life. 

The things that inspire you will attract the right relationships, the right work, and the right life for you.

Lesson Eight: MYTH: You have a purpose in life.  Wrong!

Most people don’t like it when I tell them to stop seeking their purpose.  It just doesn’t make sense to me.

Seek self-knowledge; discover your true nature and purpose will find you.

As you age, what you care about will change. That’s how you grow and evolve. You will discover that there are many ways, not just one way, to express yourself authentically.

Be attentive of when you feel depleted or when you feel yourself struggling. Notice when you feel energized and inspired, when your passion is ignited.  These are all clues to what you want to include or exclude in your life.

Asking, “What is my purpose?” leads you through a maze to nowhere. Stop looking for your purpose and start looking deeply in the mirror to know yourself first.

Purpose is the result of being authentic and living in harmony with that.

Lesson Nine: Engagement coupled with reflection brings clarity.

I was having a conversation with a good friend when a fundamental idea about how to make changes in life was born. We were having coffee, and she asked me, "How did you decide to move to Ecuador, even part-time? I'm trying to make some changes in my life, and I don't know how to begin."

I thought about it and realized I had combined two ways of being that seem to be in opposition of one another but together they form a powerful method to go through transitions.

I thought a lot about what I wanted and I spent time observing myself here and in Ecuador to find the truth about what I wanted out of my life now. I tried new things like living in Ecuador for three months and leveraging technology to be able to work remotely to see how I could design this new life that was calling to me.

This combination of reflection and action is like creating the journey one step at a time as you’re walking it. Simply reflecting on a change doesn’t work any better than thoughtlessly moving from one activity to the next. 

Taking one action, reflect on it, adjust and then take another action to create the steps to living an authentic life. Eventually, you will arrive at your destination.

Lesson Ten:  Make curiosity your greatest ally.

Being curious is opening yourself to something new.  Leading an authentic empowered life means learning new things about yourself and the world all the time. 

It requires a high level of self-awareness and an enhanced quality of attention to gathering the insights that teach you how to design your extraordinary life.

Curiosity is the way you engage life as the adventure it is.

#aliciaisms

I believe that until we become authentic in the way we work and live, we will not be able to find real joy, fulfillment, and happiness.  It is only through an authentic life that we can empower ourselves to do the work we were meant to do in the world.  

If you feel like you are leading a stranger’s life, you probably are. You can change that. It takes courage and being around the kind of people who appreciate and love you.

Everything you believe about yourself holds the possibility of being less than the truth.

What if those beliefs are the source of your unhappiness? Consciously choose to believe something more empowering, and it will change your life.

You deserve to be YOU in your fullest expression. You deserve to wake up each day feeling confident and healthy and loved. It starts with you.

Start now.

~~~~~~~~~~~~

Note: A version of this post was published online at Tiny Buddha.

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How to find the answers to everything that matters

Life is constant change. Everything is moving all the time whether we are aware of this or not.  We see this in Nature and if we pay attention, we notice this in our lives.

In the face of change we still hold on to the past, to what we think is safe, to what we think we know.  We hold on to what has seemed true to us.  That tether keeps you from being all that you are capable of being.  It anchors you to an idea of what you should be in order to be successful by external standards. You use the external point of reference of who you should be because, frankly, you don’t know who you really are at this moment in time.  You feel disoriented and uncomfortable. You have lost your familiar ground.

If you feel an “inkling”, a subtle feeling that there’s something amiss but you don’t know what it is, pay attention.  That is the wisest part of you speaking.  It may come as a whisper but if left unattended it will wreak havoc in your life.

This inner sage has the answers to the questions your mind doesn’t even know to ask.  

There is transformation happening and it may not conform to what you’ve been told you should be or do. The outer world will present you evidence to the contrary.  It will speak to you of what may happen if you dare listen, if you dare act out of love instead of out of fear.

You see, that inner sage knows nothing of fear from the external world. It is a source that is far beyond the level of consciousness where we operate.

The inner sage only knows limitlessness.

It knows creativity, inspiration, passion, desire – and love.  It does not concern itself with the petty ruminations of the ego mind. It knows that there is more than the ego’s attachment to affirmation from the external world.  The inner sage knows itself as more than the ego mind allows.

We talk a lot about authenticity but it’s much more difficult than it appears. True authenticity isn’t only about committing to aligning with your essential nature. It’s far more than that. Real authenticity requires extreme courage to make choices that fly in the face of evidence and what we call reality.

It doesn’t play nice.  It plays true.

The poets, the musicians and the artists know the inner sage well. Their inspiration comes from a deep well of grace. For writers, you know how it feels to stare at a blank piece of paper (or computer screen) and fret about whether or not your writing will be read.  Still you write, taking dictation from the inner sage who speaks the truth of the moment unabashedly.

The musician hears the notes inside herself before they are ever played on an instrument. The artist looks at a blank canvas, a block of marble or a lump of clay and sees into the creation that is about to be born and courageously calls forth a loud yes to its manifestation.  She has seen what could only be seen with the eye of the soul.

Redefine success as being fully authentic, passionately in love with your life and work, fully expressing the inner sage from a place of Self Love and therefore love for others.  There is no requirement for acceptance because once you are fully present to your life the frequency of your being brings forth the work and people who need and value you and your expression.

This is the ultimate act of rebellion – to be fully yourself in a world that wants to make you someone you’re not.

When A Dream Is Worth Fighting For

The soul appears speaking in silence and provides the compass to act in the world.

Every New Year a mantra reveals itself to me that serves as a compass for my decisions and actions and that challenges me to go beyond my limitations of ego and mind. The mantra is more than just words.  It’s an invitation to break a hypnosis that quietly runs aspects of my life.

Each year that goes by I get closer to the center of my being and become increasingly intolerant of things, relationships, work and habits that only serve to keep me stuck in a kind of suspended animation. I become more aware of the “shoulds” that I have integrated from the outside world that deny my freedom and authenticity. This year I realized that to protect the essential Self requires a stepping in and stepping up. It requires me to be fierce in my determination to keep evolving and to take a stand for my own truth.

This holding up a mirror to myself is difficult work. Sometimes I don’t like what I see. Sometimes I see how I can project my fears on others and how others project their fears on me. The world will want to put me in a box, to label me, to define me, and often with the best of intentions. As soon as I allow someone to define me I lose my true self and that means I lose my compass.

If I do not know myself I will not understand my relation to the rest of the world. If am denying the true relationship with my Self I will not be able to co-create with others from a place of inspiration.

I am fiercely claiming my right to name myself from the inside out, not the outside in. It keeps the projections of others from intruding. It maintains my truth as my compass. I am making a choice about who I am in the world and how I am choosing to interact – from my center not from the projections of the outer world. That choice is inner freedom. From there I generate aliveness and energy that is the foundation of any endeavor I undertake.

I want to see my life as the generative flow of the universe that manifests beauty and love. The rest is transactional.

We so often focus on results and outcomes, the concrete elements of our work and lives, and so we create things that hold no inspiration, no life force, no magic. I have come to understand that there is work that must be done before the work is done.

I know that if I am to write from my center, I have to feed my soul first. I must first remove the worldly distractions that keep me focused on the external mechanics and compromise the internal life-giving dream that is at the source of my work.

So I must take long walks in Nature, I must attend to my health and well-being, I must be present and available to share my love with my partner. Ultimately I must fiercely protect my soul from harm for that is the source of my truth and only when that soul is nourished and my heart is open can I manifest my unique beauty and truth. I must begin at the point of zero from where my true masterpiece will emerge.

The enemy is fear and I have become intimate with fear so that I can transcend it. I recognize where that fear is within me and explore what inner forces trigger that fear. I name them, look at them and ultimately transcend those forces so they become energy that is generating life, not fear.

When I allow the world to define me I feed the inner forces. When I surrender my truth to anyone or anything I grant it power over me. I lose my way, I bow to fear and I am no longer in right relation with myself or with the world. I am therefore no longer free.

I am at a cusp in my life, a defining moment. I cannot look to the outside world for its approval or allow projections to intrude tainting the spiritual longing I have for my life to be truly an expression of my soul. There is something so much more to do here that is beyond an end result or outcome. It begins with the internal work I do intentionally before the external work. That internal work includes the work that is done in silence.

The soul appears speaking in that silence and provides the compass to act in the world. I simply cannot create anything worthwhile from any other place.

As I embark on this year of transcendence I journey holding fast to my own truth so I can see the true nature of things. With the eyes of a newborn I see the “other” clearly. When I know my true nature I am poised to know the nature of others. This generates the life giving energy to co-create new things in the world.

I am able to serve as a reflection for others to see their own true nature. Everything depends on my journey to see myself clearly, truthfully and as a larger possibility than my ego has allowed.

Everyone and everything has its essential nature. It is not my role or responsibility to change that but to learn to dance with what is true.

When I know my true nature I can then recognize the true nature of others. This takes courage and a ferocity of spirit. It requires a release from attachment to any rote plans of how things should be done or how people should be.

This requires fierce presence to co-create beauty and magic. My partner calls these collaborations “encuentros” or encounters. Encounters occur when the full power and creative force of two or more beings are at play. Since there are no scripts, no instructions, there are also no assurances or guarantees in playing full out. These encounters hold the life giving force of stars when they meet with their full force exploding into a new nebula of light and energy.

This is what makes life worth living. This is what I wake up for every day. This makes dreams worth fighting for. And this is my declaration for 2017.  To allow for whatever wants to emerge without the need to control it, becoming an observer of my own life. 

My 2017 mantra encompasses so much right now. “Allow for Emergence”.  That will be my compass, my true north this year. What will it be for you?