Alicia M. Rodriguez's Blog, page 8

Making A Deal With Heartbreak and Loss

Listen to the Blog post here if you wish.  

I’m keenly familiar with loss.

Heartbreak and I have an ongoing relationship and over the years we’ve come to a compromise. I promised to invite heartbreak to every conversation of loss and heartbreak agrees to teach me gratitude and perseverance. 

For some strange, unexplained, karmic reason…it works. 

Loss is something everyone experiences but we don’t use it as a springboard for a new possibility.

We tolerate it, we grieve, we complain.

And then a moment arrives where we must choose to move on intentionally with an aspiration to something MORE than was before. An expanded more conscious way of being in the world that can hold loss and gain, grief and joy, comfort and challenge.

I’m not quite sure when it was that loss became conscious. Was it the little things in childhood, like when I brought my teddy bear to school and someone stole it? (Many tears)

Or was it later in the big things that shook the foundation of my world? Losing homes, losing massive amounts of money, losing loved ones, losing marriages, losing myself?

Every single loss has had a hidden purpose, a renewal, as if I were shedding skin that no longer fit around the aura of my being. 

Every single loss brought a deeper connection and honoring of Self that would’ve remained unconscious, sublimated by the daily interactions of an ordinary and busy life.

Sometimes I wonder if in some way I cause this to happen, this dance of extremes, so I can jolt my complacent ass out of the stupor of our human condition. 

It hurts. Like ripping off a bandaid of a not yet fully healed wound.

Just exposing the wound to air becomes the healing. Nothing to hide behind. No darkness or shadow to mitigate the truth, to make it sound nice and happy and pleasant and acceptable.

When life sucks is exactly when courage you never knew you had shows up. 

I’ll grant myself a time of grieving my losses. It’s necessary. That’s part of my deal with heartbreak. Engage the pain, don’t run away, don’t bury it behind all sorts of -isms.

As much as I’d love to say I moved on there are still days when the pain seeps into my day, a slithering demand for tears and self-pity. And then it quickly departs fully satiated and leaving nothing behind. 

In his poem, A Time for Necessary Decisions, the poet John O’Donohue writes,

 Often we only know it's time to change

When a force has built inside the heart

That leaves us uneasy as we are.

Perhaps the work we do has lost its soul

Or the love where we once belonged

Calls nothing alive in us anymore.

We drift through this gray, increasing nowhere

Until we stand before a threshold we know

We have to cross to come alive once more.

There will be a time for necessary decisions, the ones that purge your life of the heaviness that holds you back from engaging your life. You are standing on that threshold between what was and what will be.

Truth: No one evolves in comfort. 

Outside of comfort and niceties lies your truth whether others agree or not. This life belongs to you. All of it. The victories, the defeats, the losses and the gains.

Heartbreak and loss are companions. You’ll find them on every road you travel, every adventure you embark on. They will inevitably invite themselves into your life.

Just know that it’s so and make your deal early. Unbeknownst to you, they are the evolutionary masters.

Don’t underestimate them. Or yourself. 

O’Donohue continues his poem,

May we have the courage to take the step

Into the unknown that beckons us;

Trust that a richer life awaits us there,

That we will lose nothing

But what has already died;

Feel the deeper knowing in us sure

Of all that is about to be born beyond

The pale frames where we stayed confined,

Not realizing how such vacant endurance

Was bleaching our soul's desire.

You will always find your way to the other side of loss when your heart opens to a new possibility born beyond the shadow of heartbreak. There, quietly awaiting you, is love.

Yes love. 

Love will be the salve that heals every wound and helps you come alive once more, pulling you in the direction of the life you were meant to live. 

Love will be the midwife to your rebirth so you can continue living your soul’s desire.

Even if at that moment, you don’t know what that desire is.

 

Poem: A Time of Necessary Decisions from To Bless The Space Between Us by John O’Donohue

Photo by Andressa Voltolini on Unsplash

If you’re ready to heal and move forward in your life, join me for a personal retreat at my home in Ecuador. Click here for info.

How To Be Purpose-LESS And Still Have A Good Life

I live on the coast of Ecuador surrounded by beaches and beauty and the natural world.

Life here is simple.

Most days I watch the fishermen as they go out to the sea armed only with the faith that they will bring in a catch.

I watch the women in the market as they arrange their fruit and vegetables to appeal to the passerby concerned only with how they might feed their family.

I watch the children playing in the street with simple things; a ball, a stick, and with each other never noticing anything beyond the game and their playmates.

Life here is uncomplicated.

The other morning I woke up with a deep feeling of emptiness within me.  I felt that my life had no purpose and like a child who had been abruptly abandoned during the night, I was alone.

I stayed in bed and simply experienced this feeling of not having a purpose, of not being able to connect to the meaning behind my life.

I stayed with that feeling the entire day. I didn’t push it away. I didn’t judge it. I simply allowed it to be and observed myself with curiosity as I went about my day feeling like I had no purpose.

I discovered a few things that surprised me.

1. In my interactions with others I was so much more present. I listened differently. I engaged my activities without any attachment to how well I was conducting myself. I simply allowed a natural flow to the interaction and activity without any inner conversation about it.

2. Nothing I engaged was about the end result. There simply wasn’t an end result to get to. There wasn’t anything attached, some achievement or goal or result at the end to be able to say I succeeded. There was simply the moment after moment flow.

3. As I worked with my clients, I completely focused on them, what they were saying, feeling into the story they told. It’s not that I don’t do this already. It was simply a more profound focus that allowed me to listen closely to my intuition. It was so much clearer enabling me to suggest possibilities that I may not have imagined otherwise.

4. I took more breaks aware that my body was asking me to move, to get out of the house and walk around to the beach, to play with the dogs, to enjoy a cold glass of water on the patio.  So often I go hours without moving or without a break but today I could hear and honor the messages my body was sending me.

5. I was more curious about the world around me. I was simply curious, like the curiosity a child feels when she begins to explore her world. There was nothing to measure anything against so I experienced things as if they were new to me.

I remember thinking that small children at play never ask themselves about their purpose.  They engage the world from a place of curiosity and wonder. They’re not concerned about achieving something meaningful or significant.

Was it possible that the need to achieve something meaningful, to have purpose or significance, might actually be getting in the way of enjoying life fully?

In the first moments of the day when I woke up feeling I had no purpose I felt alone, abandoned and anxious.  In staying with that feeling, engaging it with curiosity, I discovered that it’s possible to be happy and have a great life without the need to seek meaning, significance or purpose.

Why does this matter?

Because I think we believe that unless we can point to “a purpose” we feel deficient, empty and lost.

Maybe what we really need is to receive all of life with gratitude, grace, curiosity and wonder, just as it is, like a child exploring her new world, without any inhibitions, assumptions and limitations.

Less struggle, less anxiety. More inspiration, more creativity.

That evening as I watched the sunset, I simply focused on the colors the sun painted across the sky and reveled in the dancing waves of the ocean meeting the beach. Simply being and breathing filled any emptiness that I experienced that morning. I felt joy and peace.

Nothing else was required.

 

Photo by Pedro Lastra on Unsplash 

How More Than One Passion Feeds Your Soul and Wallet

Not long ago I discovered a new word and a new dimension to my identity. 

I discovered that I am a “multipotentialite”. 

I didn’t even know that such a thing or person existed until I watched a TEDx talk by Emilie Wapnick, Founder of Puttylike. 

On her site she writes,

“I want multipotentialites to stop beating themselves up about being unable to find their “one true calling” or fit into a box. I want them to see that their diverse background and insatiable curiosity isn’t some huge failing, but that there’s a very good reason for it… you can actually use it as fuel for your life and income. Once you stop fighting your scanner nature and embrace it, you’ll find yourself working on projects that are deeply meaningful. You’ll feel a sense of purpose that you never thought possible.”

I was actually thinking of my son when I first saw the video on her talk.  Joseph is multi-talented and very creative.  He had difficulty fitting into his very conservative school (I say proudly).  He is drawn to skateboarding, art, photography, music and writing.  Some have called him lazy, not motivated and rebellious because he didn’t conform to traditional ways of learning.

His passion is creating music – beats – collaboratively with friends with a variety of strange electronic equipment that I don’t even know the names of.  He taught himself and pursued his passion like a hummingbird is drawn to nectar.  No one that can spend hours perfecting a beat or a flip can be called lazy as far as I’m concerned. And his photography has taken off; now he’s featured in different art shows too.

MY LIFE AS A CREATIVE

After hearing Emilie talk about how she would be inspired by something, then dive deep into it only to eventually tire of it and move on to something else, I began to reflect on the course of my own life.  I noticed similarities in her personal narrative and mine.

I have always loved storytelling, writing and travel and helping people.  It is at the intersection of all these things that I do my best work and that I feel most joyful.  When I was very young I directed and produced many dramas and fairytales in my own backyard with neighborhood children as actors in my plays.  I have always been a storyteller, starting from very young. 

Children like me are told that we have vivid imaginations – and often that is not a compliment. 

I was fortunate to be immune to the condescending tones of well meaning adults who would’ve caused me to deny my imagination.  My parents encouraged it, throwing us out of the house to play and conjure up more stories to enact.

In middle school a teacher told me I couldn’t write.  I came home crying, slain by the words that would cut me off from my lifeline.  My mother in her wisdom asked me one simple question.  “Do you believe her?”  The answer arose immediately, “No.”  “Then what’s the problem?  Keep writing for those who love your writing,” she encouraged.  And I have done just that.

The travel bug bit me in college fueled by a love of languages and reading.  My books were full of adventures in far off places, locations I longed to visit.  In college I spent a month in Mexico and a year in France traveling through Europe whenever I could and honing my language skills.

After college I worked at a hotel in Boston.  I was hired because I could speak to the kitchen staff in their own languages – Spanish, Italian, French and Portuguese.  There in that hotel I developed a love of food and cooking, taught by the very kitchen staff that I worked with.  Food became a way to interpret cultures and build understanding of other ways of life.

During my time at the hotel a travel agency hired me to escort American tourists to Europe, South America and the Caribbean.  I fit in wherever I went because I could speak or understand the language and culture and because I look as if I belonged in those countries. 

During this time I discovered my entrepreneurial talent.  I created small businesses wherever I went, whether it was selling T-shirts in the Caribbean, designing evening events in Europe or finding out of the way tour locations in South America.

I moved to Colorado to work as a sales manager with a hotel in Denver and discovered I preferred the client side of things.  I returned to Boston and began my fifteen-year career in meeting and event planning, first working in a large corporation then starting my own business. 

During that time I learned I could teach and so I began to teach meeting planning courses.  From there I learned about something called “coaching”, sold my business and went back to school for a Masters degree in the only thing that inspired me – Interdisciplinary Studies – because again I couldn’t make up my mind what I loved more. During that program I worked with a published author and wrote poetry, studied transpersonal psychology and wrote papers on women’s development.

That year I went into the woods with a famous tracker who taught me about the interconnectedness of all things and introduced me to a teacher of phenomenology.  Imagine that dinner conversation! 

It was truly life changing! Could these things be any more unrelated?

Maybe, but for me it fed my passion for learning and my curiosity about the world and our place in it.

Moving to Annapolis to begin anew and to start a family I took a hiatus from work while my son was very young.  My most important lesson yet – motherhood.

While my son was very young I started a telephone-based life coaching business that eventually morphed into leadership coaching and Sophia Associates, Inc.

And now here I am living another iteration of my life.  I’ve published two books, I’m writing a memoir, I write for Medium and Thrive Global and I built a dream in Ecuador that is Quinta Oasis.  My life here in Ecuador is the culmination of all my work – languages and culture, teaching, social entrepreneurship, coaching, writing and travel.  And soon there will be another re-invention (stay tuned).

What I’ve realized is that each step in my life has led me to the next, often unexpected, step in my life.

Life itself provided the curriculum for my evolution. 

What if I had limited myself to only one passion? What if I had gone the traditional route of a 25 year career in the same field? What did I do to get here?

I followed my intuition, my curiosity and my inspiration. 

I listened to the voice inside that told me how to unfold myself even when the world tried to keep me small and limited and afraid. 

I surrounded myself with people who challenged me to be more that I thought I could be.

I created the challenging circumstances in my life that forced me to be more resilient, courageous, effective and fulfilled. 

I made choices based on what I was drawn to in the moment. I did not follow the crowd. 

I did not listen when the culture demanded that I be defined by one thing and forsake the whole person.

PASSION AND COMMITMENTLife shows us its impermanence, it’s dynamic movement and yet we strive to limit and control it. 

We are part of that movement so it makes sense that if we are the type of person to be drawn by our curiosity to things that make our soul sing then why try to remain hunkered down in dead end jobs or relationships that just suck the life out of us? 

Yes, I know. You need to make a living.  But that’s not enough.

You need to make a life! 

By following the flow of your curiosity and your inspiration you can not only make a living, but also make a pretty fantastic life.  I have. Emilie Wapnick and others have. You can too.

So no, you’re not crazy.

You’re simply a creative force to be reckoned with!

***********

Want to know what my new passion project is? Find out HERE!

Photo by Agence Olloweb on Unsplash

It hurts to be human

“It hurts to be human. It hurts like hell. And all the exploring in the world doesn’t make that hurt go away. Because being human and being hurt are the same damn thing.”

- The Kominsky Method, Chapter 2: An Agent Grieves (1:48 sec in) 

I’m late to the Netflix trend. It isn’t until recently that I decided to subscribe since I watch virtually no television. But every once in a while I feel the need to relax my mind hoping that something on television will inspire my thinking or writing without stressing me out.

And so it was with The Kominsky Method…

The show is about two friends in Hollywood; Sandy Kominsky, played by Michael Douglas and Norman Newlander, played by Alan Arkin.  The storyline is about friendship, aging, life and death and how what matters changes.

Since I’m not doing a review of the show I’ll let you look it up. However, this post is about one scene and the quote above.

It simply hit me squarely in the heart.

Every day we watch our humanity, the best and worst of us, play out in the news, on television, over the internet and in our daily lives.  There are villains and heroes. There are moments of joy and scenes of tragedy. There are defeats and victories.

Life is complicated.

We can’t solve our human issues thinking our way out of them.  We can’t connect to another without allowing our vulnerability to show.  We can’t unfold our best selves without suffering and struggle and healing.

That is what it means to be human. And it hurts.

If you’re truly engaged, it hurts like hell.

But let it stand for something.

It needs to matter for you to evolve as a human being and as a spiritual being.

For the sake of what do you fear or suffer or fight?

It has to matter so much that it stops actually mattering.

No, I’m not confused.

Let me explain.

Here’s an example. 

I care deeply about my work and my clients.

So deeply that in order to be at service I must remain non-attached.

What does that mean?

It means that I empathize but I’m not in it; I’m not hooked by someone’s story or even the desire for a specific outcome.  And this is how I can ask the question that unhooks them so they can see new possibilities in their lives.

So that despite the hurt of being human they can go beyond that to a deeper identity of Self that is limitless.

It matters so much that it doesn’t matter.  It doesn’t trigger fear or remorse or suffering any longer. 

Judgement ceases. Clarity surfaces. Truth appears.

It becomes the right lesson at the right time, the one that will take you beyond who you thought you were and what you believed you were capable of.

There smack in the middle of the hurt and the story you created lies the touchstone of your personal evolution – consciousness.  

“To be fully alive, fully human and completely awake is to be continually thrown out of the nest. To live fully is to be always in no-man’s land, to experience each moment as completely new and fresh. To live is to be willing to die over and over again.”

~ Pema Chodron

Every human experience holds the nugget of consciousness. Every time you hurt, you are being thrown out of the nest.  Every death is a rebirth.

As you engage your life, remember this…. 

Every moment of life is a gift whether it brings you joy or pain. Being conscious is the only way to fully understand and to allow suffering to transform itself into light so you continue to step into the flow of each human moment until you return to your spiritual identity again – limitless.

Deep bow to you, dear friend, as you continue exploring your world.

Photo by Joshua Earle on Unsplash

 

Emergence

My greatest fear has been that when I finally show up for my life, I disappear.

That I will no longer exist, when the truth is that when I truly show up, I become more than I ever imagined, limitless and true. 

How was I to know, I was faking it for so long and finally, when I lose myself, I find my SELF?  

Through the nights of terror and the days when ridiculous words flowed out of my mouth as if I were drowning, there was something deep inside me waiting to emerge if only I would get out of my way.

There it was all along waiting to breathe the air of inspiration and feel the breeze of life ripple through the light body so the sun could shine and there would be no turning away and hiding. 

The shadows cast by the light no longer frighten and the earth holds its ground under me while I float through the stars, nothing lost to the universe but embraced in a joyful welcome of the newborn.

~~~

Photo by Denys Nevozhai on Unsplash

Why Hope will never get you where you want to go

Hope is not a strategy.

Recently a personal retreat guest asked me in one of our sessions, “I’ve read your book and your posts and I noticed I never see a particular word in what you write. I never see the word “hope”. Do you believe in Hope?”

I had never considered this question. I had never noticed that I don’t write about hope at all. I loved the question. And as I answered it became clear that for me, I never hang my hat on hope.

It’s not that I don’t believe in hope. I just don’t believe in it as something that generates movement or a generative process. I view hope more as an emotion but an emotion I’m not attached to.  The example I gave was, “I hope it will be sunny today.” (It’s been cloudy here for months due to the season.). And if it is not sunny today, it’s not going to have a major impact on how I conduct myself during the day.

What some others view as hope I view as aspiration and commitment.

I never ask,” What do I hope for?”

I ask, “What am I committed to?”

And the question I ask myself when I’m looking into the future is “What do I aspire to?”

And yes, I am attached to those answers even when they keep changing, which they do change over time.

The question “What am I committed to?” helps me focus my actions and decisions and moves me towards my aspiration.

I don’t expend energy on things that I’m not committed to or on things I can’t influence or control.

I love sunshine, but I can still move forward on a cloudy day.

I’m committed to developing myself and others so every day I intentionally live my life doing something that aligns to that commitment.

I aspire to bring peace and wellbeing into my life and into the life of others.  My commitment is a way of creating a path to that aspiration.

But it’s not Hope.

If there is hope in this, it is in my hope that I will stay conscious, that I will do the right thing by me and others, that I will walk my talk.

I don’t always achieve this. I’m imperfect like every other human being. I have let people down. I have been selfish. I have hurt others. I have made mistakes.

And it is hope that helps me forgive myself when I do. Hope that I will be better than I was yesterday and realign to my commitment.

And that I will learn the lessons that life is teaching me because Life provides the curriculum for our development. I hope that I will continue to be a good student.

So I want to thank JF, my guest, who inspired my inquiry into hope and through this question helped me understand clearly where hope, commitment and aspiration fit into my life and work.

It is these kind of conversations that find breathing space here in Ecuador. I’m so thankful to do this work.

And thankful to those who come, courageously exploring their own inquiry, and allowing me to reflect back to them their courage and beauty.

Photo by Ron Smith on Unsplash

 

Moving On Beyond Grief, Loss and Failure

I have moved 17 times in my life. (Just counted. I surprised myself too!)

Down the street. Across town. To another state. To another country. Alone. Together. Alone. Together.

Each and every time I left something behind. Not just stuff but a piece of who I was.

I remember saying one time, I’m not moving, I’m moving on.

Before the joy of traveling lighter sets in I experience a sense of deep loss and failure. I failed at marriage. I failed at being a good daughter, a good wife, a good mom. I failed at having my dream house. I failed at running a once successful business. 

Each time I thought I’d failed, each time I moved on, I had to ask myself, was I quitting, taking the easy way out? 

Or was I healing myself, waking up to a more enlightened version of myself who wanted to be born through me?

Sometimes it was fuzzy, I wasn’t always sure which one was true.

I know this about myself. I am not a quitter. Sometimes I should quit. Sometimes I should step away sooner than I do from places, work, relationships. It isn’t until hindsight that I can see that.

So no, I’m not a quitter. I just keep waking up from one illusion and another illusion as I strive to create a reality that keeps me expanding and amplifying each and every experience my life presents me. When I do this grief, loss and failure are replaced with gratitude and grace.

I keep outgrowing the labels and boxes that limit me until I become a stranger unto myself.

Over and over again.

I find my grounding in a place of groundlessness. I have to. That’s what life demands of me.

Another rebirth. Another personal star blowing up to create a new constellation. Another level of light, wisdom and a deeper sense of a Self that keeps transforming over and over. 

I can never get comfortable with myself because my Self keeps transforming into something I would never have imagined. That is life itself drawing me closer to my soul and away from limitations. 

Not just moving. Always moving on…

(Photo by nibras al-riyami on Unsplash)

The Question You Should Never Ask Yourself And The One You Should

I’ve been working with people on improving their lives for about 20 years.  I’ve also been mentoring coaches who work with people on improving their lives.

So I’ve heard and used a million questions to help my clients achieve that AHA breakthrough moment that shifts their perspective opening up new possibilities and solutions.

And there is one question that I hear coaches and others use that may be one of the more useless questions I’ve encountered.

“What do you want?”

Typically, the look on the face of the person being asked says, “Hell if I know!”

The sensations of overwhelm, doubt, fear, anxiety even anger swell up when asked this question.

“If I knew I wouldn’t be here.” Usually follows.

Take a step back

 When you’re at a point of making a change in your life, it’s easy to default to what you know. It only makes sense.

But the answer lies in the unknown. A possibility that doesn’t yet exist.

There’s only one way to access this emergent unknown. 

IMAGINATION

You have to imagine something new.

And that is why asking the right question is so important when helping someone enter into this unknown and emergent space of possibilities. 

The right questions narrow the field of possibilities to what might really matter which equals less confusion.

The question I use, which has been very powerful for my clients is…

What do you want to CREATE?

Because that is what they are about to do….

They are about to create something new and more in line with where they are in their lives today and in harmony with what truly matters now (not three years ago).

People first want to look outside themselves because it’s a difficult question and it requires deep honesty and the ability to hold your personal shadow and light together non judgmentally. This exploration may cause some anxiety at the beginning because you are getting re-acquainted with yourself in a whole new way.

It’s easier to look outside and ask the external world, to take cues from what society says matters rather than risk discovering that you are not what they told you were. And that it’s possible you’ll need a significant course correction to find your present true path.

3 SIMPLE  (but not so easy) STEPS

Here’s a simple three step process to help you think through what you want to create in your life.

1. This is who I am now.

It’s useful to assess where you are in your life today. How did you get here? What skills, qualities, characteristics, experience, resources, etc. do you now have that define who you are today. What are the watershed moments in your life that sculpted who you are today? What might you have wanted early in life that is showing up now? You may be surprised how all of this comes together in a gestalt you did not expect.

2. This is what I care about.

Now ask what really matters to you today. If you’ve experienced the “inkling” that something has to change, it’s likely that what you valued before is not what you value now and you’re out of sync with that. Identifying what matters most to you today is important in making decisions about your next steps. Your answers may not jive with what the outer world tells you they should be - and that is just fine.

3. This is what I want to create.

Once you’ve explored the first two steps you’ll be ready to answer the question, “What do I want to create?” You may find that you have several answers that match how you see yourself and what you care about. Consider this process an experiment or an adventure and don’t become too attached to one option or the other until you’ve dug deeper into what those realities might be.

Now you have options you can explore that allow for a new creative expression of the “who you BE” today.

Life is CREATION.

Every moment you are changing and rebirthing yourself on so many levels.  You’re just not conscious of this all the time.

It’s only when you begin to feel bored, anxious or uncomfortable that you realize that you’re ready for a change.

Change your questions and change your life.

 What do you want… to create?

 Now that’s a far more interesting conversation….

The 5 Secrets To Creating Mantras and Affirmations That Actually Work

I used to think that mantras and affirmations were for sissies. Well, not quite, but I did believe that they were superficial and used by people who simply weren’t ready or didn’t want to do the deeper work that would actually make a difference in their life.

I was wrong…

At least partially wrong…

The way mantras and affirmations are promoted as self improvement techniques is what keeps them from being effective.

Simply writing down a mantra (a bit cliché) or an affirmation (#QOTD) feels good but doesn’t do what it claims to do…

…shift you into a more positive mindset so you can actually manifest what really matters to you.

Many of you may not agree with me and that may mean you found the secret to using mantras and affirmations in a powerful way.

For me it took years to embrace the use of these simple statements until I discovered what to do BEFORE the mantra.

No one talks about BEFORE the mantra exists. (Secret #1) 

That’s where the real work begins.  It’s the deep dive into your naked self, faults, wrinkles, limitations, mistakes and regrets. 

Combined with your brilliance, your inspiration, creativity, gifts, dreams and aspirations that will drive those simple words into the universal melting pot of possibilities.

Integrating and embracing both the shadow and the light, those things which cause you discomfort or that you’d like to hide, with the unique gifts that you bring to the world, where you shine and feel most alive, is Secret #2.  

You can’t be one or the other. You have to be both and find the gift and lessons in all aspects of your life even the painful ones. Everything that has ever happened to you contributes to who you are today and will lead you to full self-knowledge.

(Secret #3) Self knowledge leads you to Purpose. 

Once you understand and embrace all of you with self love, purpose stares you in the face asking, “What took you so long?”

Of course you’d love to keep these pithy statements to yourself because your inner critic is likely to jump in with both feet telling you how silly they are and why aren’t you stronger than that or chastising you for not living up to others’ expectations of what you should be and do.

The only way to make that little gremlin go away, and maintain the power behind your mantra or affirmation, is to …

…make it public. (Secret #4).

Tell your friends and those people who you know will support you and encourage you. Your tribe is there to help. And if someone diminishes you, time to let them go their own way. You’ve got places to go where they cannot follow.

There’s one more Secret. Without this last secret your mantra and affirmation will lose the power you’ve instilled in it. 

Repeat it over and over and over again. (Secret #5)

Read it out loud in the morning when you rise, mid-day when you’re feeling overwhelmed and before you go to bed at night.  Consistently saying it to yourself creates new thought patterns in your brain. It’s even got a scientific term: neuroplasticity.  It’s a way to rewire your brain to increase your happiness.

Every thought you think and feeling you feel, strengthens the circuitry in your brain known as your neural pathways.  Neural pathways are the basis of your habits of thinking, feeling and behavior.

There’s a saying, “Neurons that fire together wire together” (Donald Hebb, 1949). Changing the pattern of your thoughts and feelings changes the neural pathways that affect your life. This is what makes a mantra or affirmation effective.

That’s why this last secret, voicing your mantras and affirmations OUT LOUD and consistently, is SO important in rewiring your brain, shifting your mindset in ways that change your perspective, your relationship to the world and others, and your habits.

And I used to think it was only words….

Mantras and affirmations can be used to empower yourself to achieve your dreams but only if you know the 5 Secrets to making them work. 

I’d love to hear how this works for you. Leave a comment here, share this post with others who need a mantra or get in touch and let me know how it works for you.

Photo by Heather Schwartz on Unsplash

Creating Community In A Disconnected World

As a society we are on a precipice.  We are at the edge of an evolutionary leap, a potential rebirth that is predicated on how enlightened we die (figuratively and literally).

The fairy tale is over and the wizard behind the curtain is the one staring at you in the mirror.

We are focused on the superficial of our lives, only seeing what can be observed, the concrete, the tangible.  The news outlets spoon feed us what they believe is important – or simply anything that will trigger an emotion no matter how negative. We can no longer tell truth from fiction. We have forgotten why we came here and who we really are.

We cannot explain the feelings we have of loneliness and aloneness despite living in a hyper connected world.  The internet has become our café where we meet to exchange information, to share our trials, to throw a bit of humor into each other’s day or to demonstrate what we believe by a simple, non-committal click of LIKE. When we feel helpless we send prayers over Facebook appeasing our guilt or distracting us from our sorrow.

Little wonder there is emptiness. We have forgotten how to have real conversations. We are disconnected not only from each other but from the earth and everything in it and beyond it.

We have lost sight of what is only visible to the heart.

In Mark Nepo’s book, More Together Than Alone: Discovering the Power and Spirit of Community in Our Lives and in the World he writes:

The word community derives from the Latin, commun, meaning “common.” The same root informs the word communicate (to share our understanding, to have understanding in common) and communion (to share our experience, to have experience in common). It’s not by chance that the word community contains unity.  Our possibility is rooted in the very word. For community is an ever-potent seed waiting for our effort and care to animate what we have in common, so we can share our understanding and experience in our time on Earth.

A Deeper Conversation

As I sat on my balcony overlooking the Pacific I reflected on my work of last week.  I facilitated a personal retreat for a woman who came to reconnect with herself, someone who’s job is global and challenging, requiring her energy, time and commitment in what is often dangerous circumstances.

When she first wrote I was struck by her honesty – perhaps more accurate words should’ve been vulnerability and courage. She came with a burning question around her future and her purpose, how to grow into the potential she knew lay dormant inside the shadows of her being, longing to be aroused and brought to the light. She could see that spark within herself even as the space around it was shadowy and dark.

These are the significant conversations that take place here in this refuge we built with Nature as the container for essential life questions. Our approach - Convivencia – means to be in community with or as I prefer to say, to be human together. Mark Nepo in his book speaks to a shared experience that unifies us, it connects us to one another. “It’s not by chance that the word community contains unity”, he says. 

We are no longer sharing our stories. We are only sharing our opinions, our biases and our ideas, but not our stories.

Stories create a sense of community. I see myself in your story and you see yourself in my story. Our individual and collective stories emerge like a hologram, one an element of the other transforming into a misplaced puzzle piece when not held as the larger human story (community).

When we experience ourselves in community we lose the fear of the “other” who may not be like us but nevertheless holds experiences that can nourish our life and help us grow. These are what I call “encounters” – this synchronistic joining together to share the elements of our lives so we can all generate more life, more growth and more purpose.

Nepo goes on to say:

Trust, courage, and the ability to listen are the agencies of heart that allow us to rejoin. These are the qualities that each soul has waiting within it like golden seeds to be watered by the strength of our kindness. This is the purpose of community: to water these seeds and to join and rejoin. 

Only by looking into the mirror and beginning a dialogue with your Self will you begin to open to a deeper conversation with the “other”.  Yes, it’s starts with you, and me, and each of us, watering the seeds within to move through this dying experience into a renaissance of light and consciousness where the strength of the individual becomes the thread weaving the tapestry of community.

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My Invitation to You

If you’re a social entrepreneur or someone committed to a deeper conversation with your Self, join me for a personal retreat to discover how your potential, talents, experience and passion might serve to ignite the changes needed in your community.

Learn More

 

Photo by "My Life Through A Lens" on Unsplash