Nothing stops her...

"Our deepest fears are like dragons guarding our deepest treasures."  RilkeToday is Katharine Lillie Dearing's 27th birthday.  My daughter's courage amazes me.  How many things she has done for the sake of her career in acting.  She continually has faced down each of her fears for the sake of this career.   Fears like, rejection and whether or not she could make a living in a big city AND still create time and space to fill her life with things and people that bring her wonder and joy.   And as we speak she is now challenging some of her deepest fears.  So, I write this to remind her that her deepest treasure is barely a breath away.  AND to remind us all that it is worth the grand quest.  It is worth taking on that which we are most frightened by because (as is true in the realm of myth and magic) it is in those moments the great transformation occurs.  The frog becomes a prince.  In Phantom of the Opera, she kisses his ugly face and he frees her.  We must prove ourselves worthy or our deepest treasures, before they will reveal themselves to us and drop their costume of our deepest fears.  We must prove to our sweet souls that we won't let their deepest treasure be co-opted by the strategic mind, the ego.Yes, it is true, that which you resist most or fear most, you will one day discover this to be the source of the greatest healing and comfort.  You will say things like:  "O, if only I had known, that what I most wanted and longed for all my life, was actually in the thing I most despised."   Let's say your greatest fear is being unaccessible, not there for others, unavailable and/or self-consumed.  Yet one day for strange reasons you risk  being that one who is unaccessible and unavailable to others and find the greatest peace you have ever known, the peace that surpasses understanding.So, Kate as I sit on the sidelines of your life watching you take on, challenge after challenge, always rising to the occasion, and always overcoming your fears...I realize that you are my teacher.  Your dream is much harder to be faithful to, than many others.  The path less clear and so many examples of those who tried and failed.  Yet, nothing stops you, angel girl.  Who would have guessed that angelic little easy going, baby girl who entered the world 27 years ago would turn out to be an amazon warrior for her right to have a life that takes her breath away.  It will be so angel.  It will be so. 

Earth's crammed with heaven

"Earth’s crammed with heaven, And every common bush afire with God;" This could have been written by Elizabeth Barrett Browning about my son Zachary Robert Dearing who is celebrating his 23rd birthday today.  Since his arrival he has grabbed for this earth as if it were indeed crammed with all things divine.  At age 2 in the grocery store checkout, he would stretch away from me to watch the cashier, mesmerized.  (He received a toy cash register for his next Christmas).  At age 5,  he pursued T-ball, basketball and any other sport with such focus and determination that he was typically the coach's example to the other five year olds.  At early as 3 years old when he was giving his new birthday roller blades a trial, he fell.  Then promptly picked himself up with "Good fall, Zac" and went back after it again.Zachary has treated this world as if it truly is sacred, as if it were indeed created by God, (whether in 7 days or via the big bang and evolution), matters not so much to him as loving planet earth well. Loving it though, not with a mother's or father's love, but as lover.  He devours this world and is the most present person to each of his experiences I have ever known.   He expects to fall in love with all aspects of earthly life and so he does and has; now for 23 years.  You know with all the focus on saving this planet I wonder if we are really present to  it?  Do we truly experience it?  Do we love it and more importantly our own precious lives as if they will never come again?  Because each moment will never come again.  Somehow Zachary, from the moment he arrived (he slept only 10 hours a day as an infant... until he was 14 years old) has intuitively known how to love this world and his life here as if he had only this one shot at it.I know something about loving one's life.  I was raised by a man who truly loved his life.  Zachary's grandfather, Robert Wonders loved all the days of his life.  But more quietly than Zachary.  Zachary's enthusiasm for the world can take one aback, especially in his younger days.  He takes up space.  He has big ideas and pursues them and most importantly he does not focus on outcome.  He focuses on the hunt.  He celebrates each achievement, mourns his losses but never for more than 24 hours, then on to the next pursuit.  It is clear that victory is not the point.  The point is life.  The point is being "all in" his life.  The point is being truly alive.What does this have to do with you and with me?Ask yourself,"Where am I concerned with outcome?"  or"Whether something makes sense enough to give it a shot?" or"How will I look doing it?" or"What so and so might think of me?"or some other form of doubt that is distracting you from channeling your inner Zachary Robert Dearing and simply loving this "earth crammed with Heaven?"  Happy Birthday, Tiger boy!

Obama & Christie: Out of tragedy, new possibility emerges ... Part 2

Now let's look at the same phenomena on the other side,  President Obama.  Jungians might say that Obama's leadership shadow is exemplified in Governor Christie (and vice versa.)  Obama makes space for others to speak and be seen.  He tries deliberately not to take up space or call the spotlight to himself.  He possibly sees the Christie directive, passionate, emotionally expressive style of leadership as "old school" and not 21st century.  He prefers the servant leadership or the participative leadership model that has been catching on in the last two decades.There have been signs that some other kind of leadership was needed from Obama in addition to his preferred style.  Even his supporters have called him out for being too cerebral, for not wanting to truly fight for what matters.  For not saying directly what he wants, for not taking charge.  Take health care: Obama gave it to the Congress and Senate to work out without clearly saying what he wanted.  Christie would have told them what he wanted.  There are other examples of Obama refusing to find his inner Christie, but my point here is that most of us refuse the call to change ourselves in a new direction,when it is against our "winning formula" or the identity that has got us where we are today, or when we have held our way as better than or superior to other ways.  It is scary to give up what always worked.However, when we are called to change and refuse the call, something (Fate/Life/God) steps into to help us.  Sometimes through adversity or pressure and sometimes through offering us an example of our refused capacities in all their glory!  For Obama, enter Governor Christie dealing with Sandy and for Christi, enter President Obama supporting him and the people of his state.AND so  we get to glimpse another way to lead and to work together through their interaction.  We  saw that Obama had to ensure through his direct actions and calls to Christie that the government he believes in delivered for Christie.  He couldn't sit on the sidelines.  He had to get in the game and direct it when necessary.  He made sure the red tape that everyone hates in bureaucracies didn't get in the way of FEMA delivering the way he knew it could.  We witnessed what a working across the political divide could look like.  Now it is our turn to do the hard work of insisting we get it.To my eye, both men glimpsed their "golden shadow" in the other man in the aftermath of Sandy --the next level of greatness for each of them as a leader if they will take the journey of embracing their opposite style.  An Obama who takes charge and takes up space when necessary.  A Christie who recedes and makes space for others views and leadership or who leads via supporting others leadership.  Neither may know this happened consciously. But their unconscious is probably a little less frightened of being their opposite kind of leader.And so too, you and I.  Ask yourself:  "What it is I am most afraid of becoming?".  Now ask yourself "And where in my life could that way of being actually be useful to me?"   You will discover that "Our deepest fears are like dragons guarding our deepest treasure." Ranier Maria Rilke 

2012 is the year to learn how ...

2012 is the year to learn how...to put fear and anxiety behind you and keep possibility and the larger meaning and purpose of your life, in front of you...e.e. cummings said it is the privilege of a life time to become who you are.Or something pretty close to that.  There was a recent cover on Newsweek that said "Heaven is Real".  It went onto describe a Neuroscientist's experience while in a coma.  According to him his journey could not just be attributed to the strange firings of the brain (as he used to believe) because the part of his brain that could do that was out.  He journeyed to another dimension and was met by a feminine guide.  She had a message for him that he in turn is offering to us.Her Message:You are loved and cherished dearly and forever.You have nothing to fear.You can do nothing wrong.So, today is Halloween or Samhain as it was called in ancient times.  It is said to the be time in the calendar of the year where the veil between the manifest or visible world and the invisible, unseen world is the thinnest.  This is why there are Day of the Dead celebrations at grave sites in Mexico.  It is time to commune with your most dearly departed, because it is said to be the best time for this.The moment I read the message in Newsweek I knew I would blog about it.  I am asking myself, my clients and now you the reader ; "What would you do differently if you 100% believed the message given to this doctor?" In another such experience, an Indian woman was dying from a body riddled with cancer that was miraculously cured right at the end of her life.  she was in a coma for 36 hours and she had a near death experience during that time.  She wrote a book "Dying to Be Me".  (on Amazon) describing what she learned. You can hear her discuss it at length on you tube.http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7jFN9XQeEn4But the message is similar.  We are here to be ourselves.  Our whole authentic selves.  And these authors don't say this but I would add, and help others do the same or at least allow, make space for  others to do the same.  So on this ancient holy day, when the gods are able to best hear you, what do you want to tell them that you are ready to begin?  If you truly believe that in the eyes of the Eternal you cannot make a mistake, you have nothing to be afraid of and that you are loved beyond your wildest imagination...how would you lead your life?  What bold action would you take now?    

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.