Become Who You Are, Coming Alive, Destiny or Become Who ..., Energy, Passion, Vitality, Wholehearted Become Who You Are, Coming Alive, Destiny or Become Who ..., Energy, Passion, Vitality, Wholehearted

Part 2: Moving from one year into the next

 “Don’t ask yourself what the world needs.   Ask yourself what makes you come alive.  And then go and do that.  Because what the world needs is people who have come alive.”  Howard ThurmanThis Part 2 of "Moving from one year into the next..." is an invocation or a "call".  You are invited to glimpse your unknown future, to look into your heart and the year ahead and petition God/the gods to release you to your destiny, to your bold angels.  To the part of  you that is courageous, even while fearful, and that is joyful and grateful even in the face of loss.  To the part of you that is ready to "come alive".In this part of this reflection exercise, you are invited to notice what may want to emerge in your life and in you at this time.   When I celebrate the beginning of a new year, I ask myself:  "What is the quality or energy that I want to bring into my life in this brand new year?"  Consider taking  the wisdom of Howard Thurman’s words to his black congregation in the middle of the civil rights movement.  His congregation, some would argue, needed everything, but listen to what he said to them:“Don’t ask yourself what the world needs.   Ask yourself what makes you come alive.  And then go and do that. Because what the world needs is people who have come alive.”So at the dawn of 2013, why not consider answering the questions below and see if you can glimpse what your bold angels might want for you this year:

  1.  What makes you come alive now? 
  2. What would fill your life/your world with "lovely"?
  3. If you knew you could not fail, what might you do or pursue?
  4. Where in your life do you want to live or need to live fearlessly?
  5. What could you get truly excited about bringing forward in yourself?  That feeling of “really, really I get to do this or be this?”

Now set this aside for a day or so and come back and reread your answers.  What is the new future you declare for yourself in 2013 and why does it matter to you?  See if you can write that in a short sentence, maybe in the form of a declaration:I am a commitment to ________________________________for the sake of _________________________.The secret in making a declaration an incarnated reality is to keep it top of mind every day.  Make a daily habit of creating 3 small steps you can take toward your declaration.  Do this every day.Happy New Year.  Happy New You.

Read More
21st Century Leadership, Destiny or Become Who ..., Energy, Passion, Vitality, Strategic Mind/Ego, Wholehearted 21st Century Leadership, Destiny or Become Who ..., Energy, Passion, Vitality, Strategic Mind/Ego, Wholehearted

Purposeful, Wholehearted Living

To be purposeful is not to be goal oriented, but to seek to reconnect to the source of one's life.  Michael MeadeThese past few months I have seen so many example of this with my clients.  When we make something a goal, we make it a thing or an object and typically we make it a reflection on us.  We achieved the goal or we didn't.  More specifically we make it about our ego/identity.  If we achieve the goal "we" are successful and talented people,  if we do not achieve our goals we are somehow less.  Less smart or talented or whatever.  In a sense the goal lives in the control of our strategic minds/our egos.But Meade says living on purpose, being purposeful is NOT goal directed but instead it is the desire to reconnect to the source of one's life.  For Meade that would be what he would call our soul.  Some of you might call it the true self, or wise self, or essential self.  That which is second nature or true to the pattern that is authentically you.  It is a relationship you enter, when you choose to live purposefully, a conversation between you and the source of your life.  This has little to do with achievement or success (although those may well happen) but they are not what your actions are about, the conversation is not controlled by the vocabulary measurement and numbers.One of the tools I use with clients who want to live wholehearted lives is a declaration, a declaration has two parts: It declares a future, who we are becoming and the second part is why it matters.  That is called the For The Sake Of or FSO for short.  A declaration is not a goal.  It is a conversation, a relationship between you and your becoming.  This is important because if I treat it as a goal, a thing, I hand it over to my strategic mind/ego which somehow always manages to suck all the joy and energy out of the process of becoming.I think Meade's statement might make a good description of being wholehearted.  Wholehearted living appears to me to be connected to be in some kind of internal conversation with the source of being or life that resides at the core of each of us.  So, ask yourself right now:"How connected am I to the source of my life?  And if the answer is 'not very', then ask yourself what are three small steps I could take today that would reconnect me?"  And go do them.  Do this everyday for 3 weeks and watch your life transform itself.  You will be running your life rather than it running you.

Read More