Strength AND vulnerability...

I feel like the oak tree on the north side of the caddy shack at the city golf course I walk each morning.Fragile...beautiful...broken and bare branched in places, yet graceful and lovely on the whole.My mind like the leaves rustled by any breeze, yet my core, my trunk and roots are sturdy and strong.Strength and vulnerability, my existance.Strength and vulnerability our world.Strength and vulnerability, my home.At last.

Psyche (aka your unconscious): Holds all the trump!

More and more neuroscience is demonstrating the limits of the logical and the rational.  Thus proving C.G. Jung, (Jungian Psychology) to have been a prophet.  The power of the unconscious, the mysterious and unfathomable, within each and everyone of us is truly breathtaking.  AND it is efficient!  How does it get better than that?!I write about this because there are tools that one can use (many of which I have practiced for almost 2 decades) that help us actually hear the voice of our own psyche.  AND why that matters is because it turns out ..that it is not "Father who knows best" but Psyche.  (Yes, I am that old!)Our own sweet souls are what will make the best and happiest decisions on any and all matter of preference for each of us.  Whether it be the next car we buy, the person we live with or career path we take...or which pair of shoes to buy and where to go for dinner.    Psyche (soul) always speaks to us in the language of feelings, energy, moods and dreams.  She is always letting us know what will make us happy in the long run.So why aren't we happier?  Because our Strategic Mind generally overrules her and so quickly we often don't hear her at all.    She says, "I want light and space."  Strategic mind jumps in with "We can't move, we don't have time and where will we find....blah, blah, blah."  Conversation over...except it isn't because Psyche will now start to disturb our peace with ennui or discontent or weird dreams.  AND she won't stop.Our distrust of her is part and parcel of our inherent distrust of joy and happiness.  (See my post:  Trusting Joy).  Most of us trust suffering and struggle more than we do joy and happiness.  That is why we mostly change through the school of hardknocks.   What would happen is when Psyche whispered "I want light and space." we would respond with curiosity with "Tell me more"?Maybe we allow Strategic Mind (SM) to register it's concerns immediately...but in the spirit of a brainstorm, instead of control.SM:  "Look, the easy way would be to change our exisiting space if that is possible, but why is it you want light and space and are there other ways we could achieve that, because moving is a a big chunk of time and money?"And then the ideas surface.  The brainstorm is on.  Strategic mind doesn't have to and should not just say "yes" to Psyche, it is meant to be a true conversation between the rational and irrational within us.  We can learn how to stay in the tension of the conflicting needs within our own minds, knowing that one day something greater than either "move or stay here and ignore the need for light and space" will emerge.  Einstein said, "you can't solve a problem with the level of thinking that created it."  I say, ask yourself where you are stuck.  AND put those two opposites together and ask "how can I have both X and Y?"  Then settle in and wait, trusting that an answer will come.  Stay open.  Wait for what is fresh, new and alive to arrive.  

The Connection between Art and Vitality

Art isn’t pretty.Art isn’t painting.Art isn’t something you hang on a wall.Art is what we do when we’re truly alive.…But art is who we are and what we do and what we need.  Seth GodinOkay, so I have been in a funk.  By that I mean not really inspired to blog anything.  Yet, somehow still inspired by life.  This may sound trite but Michelle Obama's bangs and her and the girls attire on inauguration day are now my wallpaper on facebook, they inspire me.  I don't know why but I smile every time I see them.  Maybe because the colors are so beautiful and the lines of the clothes, elegant. But I may be making this up.  My strategic mind HATES the idea that it can't explain everything. ;-)  What I know for sure is the image of them makes me smile.   Something else that inspires me:  the comings and goings of the chickadees at my bird feeder.  AND right now, I am really jazzed by my I  brand new elegant red metal dining room table to launch valentine's day week.  All of these makes me happy, grateful and young in spirit.  Yet, not inspired to blog.When I started this blog I understood that the muse comes and goes.  And accepted that, but I didn't expect the fickle girl to disappear for almost 6 weeks!  AND I committed to not write because some voice in me said, I had better write something or...  In other words I wasn't going to let my strategic mind take the my love of writing and connecting things and turn it into just another thing on my "to do" list.   This blog that bears my name would be filled from a place of possibility and abundance.  I would write  because I get to, not because I have to.Trusting this path was part of my emergence as an artist.  Yes, I did say artist.  Not because I think my writing is actually worthy of the word art.  But because I think how I am in the world is.  My definition of art and making art is similar to Seth Godin's.  It puts me on an edge.  It asks me to begin and not know where I am going.  Hmmm, that sounds like motherhood, marriage, most jobs, most projects doesn't it?  I think so.  Godin says we are all artists.  We must make a world we want to inhabit.  So ask yourself:What can I make in my world today, given all the things already scheduled and required of me, that would make me come alive in the making?  That would give me energy?And of course ... go do that! 

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.

Part 1: Moving from one year into the next ...

Let my history then, be a gate unfastened to a new life and not a barrier to my becoming.  David Whyte   We humans are such funny creatures.  We have stories about everything and everyone ~ even ourselves!  Maybe especially ourselves.  And unfortunately, we ~ I ~ stick like crazy glue to that story.  Think about it.  When was the last time you surprised yourself by allowing some otherness, some unknown frontier to rise up and … arrest you?  Alter your path?  Carl Jung called that God.  We often think it is the devil!  How dare life deliver anything but our expected results, right?What is also true of us, is that most of us have a story that often differs in small or large ways from others’ stories about us.  Today, on the eve of a new year, we invite you to step outside your story about your history and who you are and who you can be.   Who exists beyond that story?  Discover your unknown, your unclaimed otherness, your becoming.…not known because not looked for…(T.S. Elliot)  So, why not consider seriously aligning with the call of 21st century life?  To trust and welcome the unknown, rather than resist it.  “To learn to love the unknown for itself, to take it gladly like a lantern to help you see where ordinary light will not go.”  For me this line suggests we align ourselves with a positive expectancy, similar to what we felt on Christmas morning as children.  What would be under the tree for us?  Our most cherished desires or something else, yet still wonderful?  Maybe more wonderful?  You are leaders, whether you are leading just yourself, into authenticity or an organization of hundreds.  You are leaders.  And you are 21^st century leaders, living in challenging, uncertain, and unpredictable  and terribly complex times. Now, how do you find your way to say YES to that fierce embrace?

EVERYTHING IS POSSIBLE.

AND

EVERYTHING IS AT STAKE.

What an amazing time to be alive and part of history.  If anyone needs to become comfortable in the unfamiliar, the unknown, it is us: we rational planners and doers. I invite you to place, who you think you are, what you think you love, and what you think is possible for and through you, on your right side.  Set them down.  And allow your left side, your own dear unknown, to offer, to reveal, to announce itself to you.  As you move from this year passing away, it matters to name what is done and complete for yourself so that you can create the space to invite new growth and imagination into your life in 2013.  Consider using these questions to help you become clear about what needs to recede or die back in your life:

1. What is finished, complete in your life now? 
2. Where have you achieved substantial mastery and need to allow that particular gift to recede in order to create space for your next level of growth?
3. Where in your life might you be taking a strength of yours and over using it, or applying it to something that doesn’t need it?   For example, let's say you are a good idea generator.  You have most of them at meetings.  But what if NOW it is time to develop discernment.  The ability to pick between ideas, the one that will really hit it out of the park.    That means listening and observing and reflecting.  Opposite of the idea generator mode.  But if you keep going to the “creative” idea generator, it will actually become a liability.    This is an example of over-doing a strength so it becomes a liability.