How Do You Support the Wisdom of Your Group?
Every so often, I come across a gem of a book that validates ways of seeing, thinking, and knowing that I hold so dear. The Power of Collective Wisdom and the trap of collective folly by authors Alan Briskin, Sheryl Erickson, John Ott, and Tom Callanan is such a book.
The Power of Collective Wisdom validates the special knowing that can arise when we attune ourselves as a group to deeply appreciate the innate potential that exists within us individually and as a group.
To be healthy requires us to attend to the health of the social groups that we participate in. When our social groups are healthy and allow wisdom to emerge, so too do they support are individual health and allow us individually to grow in our own ways of wisdom.
This book speaks to the ways in which collective wisdom emerges and ways in which it is suppressed.
Wisdom emerges when there is space to speak our individual truth, when we honor the diversity and truth that others speak, when there is respect for the innate potential within the individual and the group. We cultivate wisdom by cultivating our skills of deep listening, suspending certainty, and creating space for knowing to emerge.
Folly emerges when we choose fragmentation and create the “other,” the not us. When we disallow for diversity and insist that all think alike. We cultivate folly when we do not speak our truth and when we collude with false agreement, when we make nice, when we go along with the group to get along.
We all have the innate potential for wisdom and for folly. And, our social groups all have the innate potential for wisdom and for folly.
Which do we choose? What we choose individually informs what we choose collectively.
Cultivating our individual wisdom presents its own challenges. Engaging with our social groups to cultivate the collective wisdom within the group presents additional challenges. Feelings of safety, belonging, and appropriateness are just a few of the questions that emerge for me when I look at the groups I belong to. So many groups are hierarchically organized, be it implicit or explicit. Appropriate actions are often dictated by social standing within the hierarchy. Overstep that hierarchy – no matter how innocent your intentions – and you may see yourself on the outskirts of the group.
Who am I to suggest that a group change its way? And yet, by my silence, I disengage with my wisdom and I disengage with an opportunity to serve the group, and the group’s potential to engage with it’s wisdom.
The last chapter of this book provides several practices and suggestions for cultivating collective wisdom. Among them are:
- Creating safe spaces for inquiry
- Deep listening
- Moving from individual experts to group expertise
- Asking essential questions
As I explore this book and my own quest to create a community for and of energetic wisdom enthusiasts, I desire to employ these practices and release impediments to engaging more fully with the collective wisdom that is seeking emergence.
Run, don’t walk, to read The Power of Collective Wisdom and the trap of collective folly.
How do you support the wisdom of the groups that you belong to?
What challenges have you encountered?
Do you find it easy to contribute to the wisdom of the group? or difficult?
I’d love to hear about your experiences.
Partnering Potential at Play
I’m in the process of engaging with Partnering Potential at Play – a vision, a dream, a movement I’m exploring. Some of the underlying concepts are captured in the following image (created using Wordle.net).
Partnering Potential at Play - A Vision in the Making
How do we partner ourselves and each other to bring forth our innate gifts and talents to manifest our deep dream of the world? Partnering Potential at Play is my quest to find out.
Are you on a similar quest? If so, I’d like to hear from you. Leave a comment below.
Hello to 2011
This is my first Energy map for the new year. One ritual I’ve kept for the past 15 years is to draw an energy map – saying hello to the energies that I want to experience, play with, have more in my life. I’m really excited about the energies that showed up in this map. Click here for more info on energy maps.
How does my Energy want to play in 2011?
Hello Map 2011
For me – the orange represents healing and pink represents a level of light-hearted playfulness and amusement. Overall, I feel the energy of celebration – to be in celebration and play. The green spirals represent new growth and connections. THe energy strands of pink with pink dots and blue dots feel like confetti – just party, party, party. Yahoo!
I’m So Excited About 2011!
Some of the phrases that came up starting from the top right are:
- Crafting inner awareness – one note, one thought at a time
- Sparking new growth and connections playfully
- Micro Play Activities
- The essence is play – is always Been Play
- Connect to Your Inner diva of Play
- Healing Wholeness
- Let my light shine
- Take my Healing information to a whole new level
- Transformation
- Transformative Connections
- Free-up your Energy to Play!
- Moving out of Achiever Identity into Play
- It’s all Play
- Allow Your Wisdom Self to Shine
- Dance with Divas of Play
- Mindful Playfulness
- Consciously connect to the enrgy of play – moment to moment
- When not in Play – Return to Play
- Celebrate the Play
- Be in the moment with play
- Love the Play
By way of contrast – here is the first energy map, Hello Map, I did back in 1996.
Dwell in Potential
This is the first post in the series: 10 Strategies and 30 Practices to Engage Your Energetic Wisdom. In each post you will be introduced to a strategy and three or more micro-practices to support you in engaging with that strategy.
To dwell in potential is to exercise your energetic ability to access the depths of your spiritual truth, your unique focus and information, personal and collective consciousness, and creative core. When you dwell in potential you automatically connect to your energetic wisdom – that part of you that connects you to your source of inspiration.
“Sometimes I’ve believed as many as six impossible things
before breakfast.”
– Red Queen, Alice in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll
When you open yourself to what is possible, rather than focus solely on what is present or past, you automatically enage with your energetic wisdom. Your energetic wisdom exists, in part, to inspire you to the next level of your being.
Energetic wisdom governs your inner world of feelings and senses, and at a fundamental level, actively regulates your energy level, your sense of vitality and engagement with life.
As you engage with personal growth and spiritual practices, you deepen your engagement with your energetic wisdom and your energetic abilities. Your ability to connect with what has heart and meaning grows and your desire for more knowing, more clarity, more creativity, and more connection grows.
Your energetic wisdom is both the fountainhead and guide to your sense of wholeness and well-being.
What might happen as you dwell in potential? Perhaps one or more of these …
- Discover a path that brings you greater joy and aliveness.
- Awaken a long forgotten and cherished dream.
- Increase your ability to see and to be open to new opportunities.
- Encounter the seed of an idea – one that holds much promise and potential for future work or creative endeavor.
- Increase your energetic receptivity to have what you most cherish.
- Transform apparent obstacles into strengths.
To dwell in potential is to access your potential – the unmanifested dimensions of your being. Your potential is not a static thing. Your potential is something to cultivate, the more you cultivate it the more it expands and evolves. The more you cultivate it, the more it cultivates you. It evolves and you evolve. At one level of experience, you and your potential are one.
Dwelling in potential is one of several strategies to engage with your energetic wisdom. To avoid endless daydreaming, or a constant focus on the future, you want to have some rhythym and flow to dwelling in potential. You might set aside specific times of the year, month, day, or week that you devote to this activity. Having a start and end time is useful to frame the activity, and acknowledge your engagement of this special time of connecting within. If you are constantly dwelling in potential, but not taking care of business in the present, it may be indicative of how much you want to make changes in your life.
A Few Things I’ve Learned About Dwelling in Potential
As part of following my bliss, I’ve spent a lot of time dwelling in potential. I’ve done a lot of journal writing and intuitive inquiry. I’ve learned to hang out in not knowing and watched as revelation and clarity began to take shape and form. And, more than anything, I’ve realized that the engagement was part of my unfolding my potential, unfolding my path. Through inquiry, I gained what I was seeking. No one could have told me that, or convinced me that I would find my way, just by engaging with the questions that arose from within.
I found that knowledge about my potential and the work I wanted to do came out in bits and pieces – some times in big bangs of creative inspiration, and at other times, a whisper or a hint here and there. More than anything, I’ve learned that …
Not knowing is a prelude to profound knowing.
Seed moments are moments to treasure.
Play, don’t think. Let it be creative! Let it be fun!
When I open to potential, to possibilities, new outcomes, and new ways of being, I open to change. That change can bring some measure of discomfort. Transformational change pushes me out of my comfort zone and into some level of discomfort and disorientation.
For some, there are learned patterns to fear change. Change is hard. What if I don’t like the change? What if I’m no good in this new space? Fear of failure closes doors, closes down the ability to see and act on opportunities. These patterns need to be released, reframed, repatterned.
For others, change is something to embrace. They love the newness it brings. They love the challenges it poses. Change is refreshing. Change opens doors to the future they seek.
And for others still, change is acceptable – but only on specific terms. It is like bargaining with the change. It represents a desire to control the outcome.
To fully open to potential, to allow the greatest unfoldment of the possibilities and new outcomes I seek, there is a space to move into of trust. I’ve learned to …
Trust the potential. Trust myself. Trust my potential.
Trust my ability to adapt, grow, engage, and gain clarity.
I’ve learned that if my mind is full of a lot of thoughts, worries, and fears – than there isn’t a lot of room to connect to something new. I must have inner space to give birth to new ideas and receive inspiration. Cultivating inner space supports my ability to connect to my potential and be receptive to creative inspiration. Taking time to meditate and shift my focus from the day’s events and concerns helps bring about the inner space. I’ve learned that …
I need to cultivate inner space and receptive frameworks for inspiration to surface.
Micro Practices for Dwelling in Potential
Here are a few 5 to 15 minute practices to play with:
- Write out what your ideas are about potential. This is a meta-creative practice, to think about what you think underlies this whole area of inquiry. What have you been taught to believe or think about potential? What are your beliefs about your potential? What are your beliefs about dwelling in potential. And then ask yourself, do these ideas and beliefs serve you? Do you need to expand your ideas or beliefs in this area?
- Brainstorm outrageous outcomes. When planning any project, you naturally have a specific outcome or outcomes you are focused on achieving. Many times, given our pragmatic natures and the environments we dwell in, we often restrict our focus to what we believe is reasonable to expect. In your next project – play with expanding your focus – get outrageous and think of at least 5 outrageous outcomes that might be fun to achieve. You don’t need to commit to them – but just allowing yourself to move beyond supposed preconceived limitations – may spur more creative ideas and lead you to areas of growth and awareness that you wouldn’t have ventured into.
- Invite your potential to become more present within your awareness. This is an adaptation of mindfulness practice. Mindfulness is a calm awareness of your body, feelings, and content of your consciousness – and the gently bringing your focus back to the present and what is happening in the present moment. Claim inner space, inner vistas of expansive clarity. Imagine within these inner vistas you can see as far as is possible. That the clarity of your vision increases with the level of trust and openness that you claim. Prepare your inner world for a new expansion of possibilities. Ask your conscious self to become more aware of your potential self, your creative gifts and talents, your path of being and becoming.
Consider doing this practice upon awakening, upon retiring for the evening, and at random moments of the day – just set the intention that you will grow in capacity and awareness of your potential and possibilities. - Ask meta-creative questions when journaling. As you journal (you do journal don’t you? – it is such a great tool for dwelling in potential) Consider asking yourself one or more of these types of questions when pondering how to approach an area of inquiry:
- What questions should I ask myself to explore this area in more depth?
- What areas are calling to me to explore in more depth?
- What are the qualities of the experieiences that I’m seeking that I need to acknowledge at this time?
Play with this area and see what arises for you.
How Have You Practiced Dwelling in Potential?
Most of us are practiced on some level of dwelling in potential. Simple activities of daydreaming, playing what-if, or envisioning possible outcomes – are ways of dwelling in potential.
More active practices might include creative visualization, crafting a vision board, and focused brainstorming – either by oneself or with friends or colleagues.
- What are some of the ways that you actively connect with your potential self?
- How often do you consciously dwell in the realm of possibilities?
- How often do you challenge yourself to step out of what is, particularly what is that you don’t like, and envision what might be?
- What benefits have you experienced by dwelling in potential?
- What challenges have you encountered when connecting with your potential?
Please Share What You’ve Learned and Practiced!
I’d love to learn what practices you use and what has worked best for you. How has your time spent dwelling in potential engaged your energetic wisdom?
Sharing your insight and wisdom supports others in connecting more deeply with their wisdom. Please feel free to comment in the space below.
You have your own wisdom.
You access it through your energetic and intuitive dimensions.
Power of Story
This is the 2nd post in the series: 10 Powerful Practices to Engage Your Energetic Wisdom.
We all tell stories. And, we are all told stories.
Many stories become embedded within us as truth, even when they were never true, or even when whatever truth they contained has long since eroded away.
Stories have the power to connect and disconnect us from our truth. Stories have the power to engage and disengage us from our wisdom.
In the field of co-intelligence, stories are more than dramas people tell or read. Story, as a pattern, is a powerful way of organizing and sharing individual experience and exploring and co-creating shared realities. It forms one of the underlying structures of reality, comprehensible and responsive to those who possess what we call narrative intelligence. Our psyches and cultures are filled with narrative fields of influence, or story fields, which shape the awareness and behavior of the individuals and collectives associated with them.
Story-reality is the reality that we see when we recognize that every person, every being, every thing has a story and contains stories — and, in fact, is a story — and that all of these stories interconnect, that we are, in fact, surrounded by stories, embedded in stories and made of stories. When poet Murial Rukeyser tells us “the universe is made of stories, not atoms,” she’s describing story-reality. Ultimately, story-reality includes any and all actual events and realities, but experienced as stories, not as the more usual patterns — objects-and-actions; matter, energy, space, time; patterns of probability; etc. Story-reality is made up of lived stories. – from the Co-Intelligence Institute
From the point of view of story-reality — we are embedded in a field of stories. We experience our lives through stories, we make up stories, discard some stories, but mostly, we followthe script of stories in which we are embedded, the stories that we have bought and sold.
Stories Define Your Identity
How often have you answered the question: “And what do you do?”
And, as you answered, on the inside you were shouting, “But I’m not that, I’m so much more than that. That’s not really me. That’s not what I really want to do. That’s not really what I want to be.”
The Story of I Am
I am a butcher, baker, candle-stick maker …
I am an engineer.
I am a teacher.
I am a waitress.
I am an astronaut.
I am a writer.
I am a singer.
I am a scientist.
I am an artist.
I am a poet.
I am an accountant.
I am a philosopher.
I am _________
… and so on and on and on.
From the time we were little, we were encouraged to proclaim “What do you want to be when you grow up?”
Who among us said “Everything!”
Why at such an earlier age are we encouraged to pick a define-and-limit-who-you-are-or-will-become-career-work-identity?
Why at such an early age are we asked to conform to a specific role in life?
A story within a story. Our social DNA responds to this as comfortable, as giving us a place in the external world. But in our inner world, it often feels very uncomfortable, asking us to be something we are not, limiting us in ways that don’t make sense, and crushing our energetic wisdom that wants to leap, soar, expand, and explore.
Stories Can Abort or Give Birth to a New Story
What stories do you tell yourself that begin with the words:
“I don’t know how to ____. ” or
“I’m not good at ____.”
These stories tend to stop you in your tracks. You can’t get started, because you’ve already set the stage that you won’t succeed, or you won’t succeed as well as someone else who does know and is good at whatever it is you’d like to know or be good at.
I always loved this quote:
Argue for your limitations, and sure enough they’re yours.
- Richard Bach
These stories shouldn’t be story-stoppers. These should be story-beginners. Why not re-frame these stories to:
“I’m learning how to _____, or
“I’m so excited to learn how I’m going to _______ ! ” and
“I’m exploring _________ to find what creative dimensions interest me!”
What you don’t know how to do is just the starting place for you to learn and grow. A beginning place to grow in knowledge.
What you aren’t good at is a place to explore. If you have a genuine interest in an area, it is a signal that there is something within that area to explore, that beckons you.
Stories Have the Power to Limit You or Set You Free
The stories you tell yourself consistently tend to become invisible, they simply become your “truth.” Not necessarily a substantive truth, but a truth that influences how you live your life, a truth that can limit your thoughts and actions, or a truth that can create space for you to think and act in new ways.
The stories you tell yourself about where you come from, where you’ve been, and how your life should be – these stories inform what you believe your capable of, the possibilities that you can perceive, and the challenges you can undertake.
The stories you tell yourself in response to the five universal questions inform your future self:
- Who am I?
- Where am I?
- Why am I here?
- How did I get here?
- Where am I going?
Stories hold tremendous power to engage or disengage you from your personal truth and energetic wisdom.
Energetic wisdom governs your inner world of feelings and senses, and at a fundamental level, actively regulates your energy level, your sense of vitality and engagement with life.
As you engage with personal growth and spiritual practices, you deepen your engagement with your energetic wisdom and your energetic abilities. Your ability to connect with what has heart and meaning grows and your desire for more knowing, more clarity, more creativity, and more connection grows.
Your energetic wisdom is both the fountainhead and guide to your sense of wholeness and well-being.
In short, stories shape the reality that you seek to give shape to.
Stories determine…
- What you can and can’t believe.
- What you can and can’t do.
- What you can and can’t be.
- What you can and can’t have.
- What you can and can’t experience.
- What you can and can’t feel.
- What you can and can’t think.
- What you can and can’t speak.
- What you can and can’t write.
- Where you can and can’t go.
- Who you can and can’t talk to.
Three Things I’ve Learned From the Stories I’ve Told
Stories about identity need to be constantly refined and expanded!
How I define myself limits what I believe I can do, is permissible to do, or what I believe others will allow me to do or will accept me doing.
I’ve worked through mega fears about having the wrong background, the wrong education, and too much education. What I have found is that most people, and in particular – the people that are open to hearing what I have to say, don’t focus on those elements. Rather than focusing on degrees and certifications, people are intrigued by the story each person tells as they are intrigued by the journey, the choices made, and the life it has shaped.
I’ve learned …
I’m so much bigger than any story I’ve ever told, bought, or sold.
Many of my stories arose out of comparison.
At an early age I found myself telling whopper stories which were to stay with me for many, many years. These stories all arose out of comparison. I would look at someone else and compare myself, and always found myself lacking. So and so was good at X, I’m not as good, therefore I’m bad at X.
Some of these stories were so embedded within my being – I didn’t even know I was telling them.
You might recognize a few of these stories…
- I’m not creative.
- I’m not an artist.
- I don’t know how to write.
- I’m ugly. I’m not pretty. I’m not beautiful.
- I don’t know what I want to do.
- I don’t know what I’m passionate about.
Before I even gave myself a chance to explore or discover, I’d already labeled and limited myself.
I’ve learned…
Comparisons are deadly. They disconnect me from my truth.
Stories I repeat are ones I want to discard.
The stories I repeat over and over are ones that I want to shed. These are stories that emerge into my conscious mind – over and over again. These are stories that are lies masquerading as truth in my inner world. They arise out of the depths of my inner world because they no longer support me.
These are stories that do not serve me in creating and crafting the world I’m interested in realizing today, while they may have served a purpose at an earlier time.
I’ve learned …
Stories that I struggle with are stories I’m ready to release, reframe, retell.
Story Practices to Engage Your Energetic Wisdom
You can’t get away from telling stories. You and I and every one of us are embedded in a story-reality. And, you can’t transform all the stories that you labor under overnight. Such things take time. Such is the work of personal and spiritual transformation. However, you can take simple steps to shed those stories that don’t serve you and embrace new ones that do.
To engage the Power of Story to support the engagement of your energetic wisdom, try one or more of the following practices:
- Take a Story Inventory
- Identify Stories to Stop Telling, Identify New Stories to Start Telling
- Cultivate More Fluid, More Playful Identities
- Re-frame Your Stories, Don’t Fight Your Stories
Take a Story Inventory
Consider doing this practice on a monthly basis. At the end of each month, make a list of all the stories that you tell yourself. If this is the first time you are doing this – make a list of all the major stories you have told yourself and the ones that you have discarded.
What stories of …
“I am/am not ___.”
“I must/must not ___”
“I should/should not ___”
“I can/cannot ___”
do you tell yourself?
Identify Stories to Stop Telling, Identify New Stories to Start Telling
Next, look to see which stories are serving you, and which are not. If a story doesn’t server you , how might you change it? Which stories should you discard?
Identify the stories you want to stop telling and reframe them. Recast the story so that it does serve you.
Identify the stories you want to start telling. Make them memorable. Write them out, and then distill them into a short, sweet sentence. Then, each day – remember them, recite them, allow them to come to life within you.
Remember – You are going to tell yourself some stories – might as well make them good ones!
Cultivate More Fluid, More Playful Identities
If we are known by the hats we wear, and we want to play in many arenas, have many experiences, and create in many, multi-colored, multi-dimensional ways, then it helps to be able to wear many hats – maybe many, many hats all at once!!!
In this practice, you want to purposefully and playfully abandon all known job and career titles – and make up your own titles – your own wondrous, creative, overblown, titles that speaks to your inner world of identity. Allow yourself to range far and wide.
Here’s one way to get started…
- Make several lists.
- Make a list of all the juicy words that beckon to you – rich words that you return to over and over, that have special meaning for you.
- Next – make a list of all the gifts and talents that you can claim or that you want to claim – that you want to express, own, and recognize.
- And last – make a list of “titles” – these might be titles that the world recognizes – such as writer, teacher, coach, manager, director – or ones that you make up – player, wrangler, guide, partner.
- Now – start combining words to make up titles. Allow ideas to flow. Don’t judge. See what emerges.
- Now – what lights you up? What really tickles you pink? What makes you smile inside?
How might these titles shape and guide you in crafting new stories of discovery?
What secret identities lie in wait within?
Reframe Your Stories, Don’t Fight Your Stories
Just one more piece – don’t fight a story that you find yourself telling. Fighting a story just feeds more energy into the story.
If you really want to gain power over a story that doesn’t serve you, re-frame it. Re-cast the story into one that serves you.
Please Share Your Stories!
I’d love to learn what stories you’ve told and then retold, adopted, or shed. How do you practice the Power of Story – crafting the stories that will bring forth your dreams and talents, gifts and visions, that will support you in bringing your whole self to your world?
Sharing your insight and wisdom supports others in connecting more deeply with their wisdom. Please feel free to comment in the space below.
You have your own wisdom.
You access it through your energetic and intuitive dimensions.
Power of Hello
This is the first post in the series: 10 Powerful Practices to Engage Your Energetic Wisdom.
So much in life starts with a simple Hello. When you make a new friend, you say Hello. When a new opportunity comes into your vision, you notice it, you say Hello to it. Taking a walk in a park, taking time to be in nature, noticing how the wind moves through the trees. These are also moments of Hello, moments of noticing. They are moments of being with yourself and being with what you have chosen to focus your attention on.
The Power of Hello occurs when you are fully present.
You can extend this presence towards someone else and it is a treasured gift. This is focusing your Hello outward.
You can also extend this presence inward and it is a treasured gift to yourself. This is focusing your Hello inward. The practice of saying Hello and focusing your attention inward is the start of engaging with your Energetic Wisdom.
The Power of Hello Extended Outward
We all know how to say Hello. We do it several times a day. But how often do we bring our full presence to bear when we say Hello to one another?
How often do you experience the full presence of another when they say Hello to you? These are treasured gifts of presence, connecting more deeply to one another.
Indeed, there is much power in the “Power of Hello” directed towards connecting with others, and much written on this subject. In fact, a Google search returns over 70,000 hits on the “Power of Hello,” all of which appear to be on the subject of the Hello focused outward, saying Hello to another. Indeed there is much power in saying Hello to others, to connect with others in a more powerful and present way. Mastering the art of saying Hello to others is good for personal relationships as well as business. For examples of this power, see Hello My Name is Scott, where Scott Ginsberg teaches people the art of being more approachable starting with Hello.
The Power of Hello Focused Inward
However, there is also an equal power when you turn inward and say Hello to your inner self, to your inner feelings, thoughts, and desires. When you connect inwardly, with the expectation, with an open space to receive communication. When you do this, you start a powerful practice of Hello. A practice that holds the promise of connecting you with your Energetic Wisdom.
Energetic wisdom governs your inner world of feelings and senses, and at a fundamental level, actively regulates your energy level, your sense of vitality and engagement with life.
As you engage with personal growth and spiritual practices, you deepen your engagement with your energetic wisdom and your energetic abilities. Your ability to connect with what has heart and meaning grows and your desire for more knowing, more clarity, more creativity, and more connection grows.
Your energetic wisdom is both the fountainhead and guide to your sense of wholeness and well-being.
What happens when you turn the Power of Hello inward? What can become known? What happens when you don’t dismiss or ignore a feeling, or an idea or thought that is working its way to the surface of your consciousness? What happens instead when you focus your full presence and attention on the feeling, on the thought? When you say Hello to it, and create space for it to say Hello back?
Shamanic traditions teaches that everything is alive, aware, and connected.
What happens when you start to act as if everything is alive, aware, and connected? That everything within your inner world is alive, aware, and connected? To act from that space – that everything has awareness that you can connect and communicate with? Simply by sending out a Hello?
You become more approachable to yourself. You become more engaged with your energetic wisdom.
When you practice saying Hello from that perspective, you open up to infinite more possibilities of connection and communication. When you create space within yourself to receive a Hello back, you open yourself to connecting and receiving communication. You open yourself up to receiving wisdom from within your inner world.
Three Things I’ve Learned By Saying Hello
I’ve said Hello to feelings, often vague, hazy, on the edge of consciousness feelings. In return, I’ve gained clarity on what I truly desired. I’ve learned that a feeling has something to teach me, something to uncover and discover, something that is nudging me toward realizing a greater sense of well-being. The feeling may be asking me to release something that no longer serves me, or pay attention to something that holds great meaning for me. I’ve learned…
A feeling is something to be felt and explored, not ignored!
I’ve said Hello to fears – many wondrous, difficult, convoluted, frustrating, sometimes hidden, often frightening fears. Most of my fears always appeared insurmountable at the start. I’ve discovered that by saying Hello to my fears, I could discover an answer, a way to banish the fear fully and completely. I’ve learned that underneath each of my fears was an answer that connected me to a way forward, one that I was able to hear and see as it emerged from within. I’ve learned…
A fear is a gift in scary wrapping.
I’ve said Hello to my deepest longing and desires, and discovered more of what I feel called to connect and create. I’ve discovered how uniquely my calling fits my gifts, talents, and temperament. I’ve learned…
A true desire, vision, or calling represents some aspect of myself seeking greater unfoldment.
The Art of Saying Hello to Engage Your Energetic Wisdom
Here are some practical steps to take as you start your practice of Hello focused inward:
- In a quiet space, gather together some pens, paper or a journal.
- Take a moment to get centered. Focus on your breathing and quiet your mind.
- Always start with consulting with your energetic wisdom for guidance. Pretend you know how to do this and have been doing it for years. That part of you that has guided you this far will welcome the opportunity to guide you further.
- Gather your attention and direct it to the object of your focus, that which is seeking your focus and presence.
- Pick what you want to say Hello to. Is it a feeling or a fear? Is it a dream or a calling? Is it a past experience you want to come into a different relationship with? Or, is it a desired future experience that you want to wrap your arms around?
- Name what you want to say Hello to. Naming it allows you to become more present with it.
- Treat what you have named as if it is fully alive, aware, and connected. Act as if it can communicate back.
- Focus your full attention and awareness on what you have named and say Hello to it.
- Open yourself to receiving a Hello back.
- Send another Hello and ask for a Hello back. Repeat this process until you feel the connection with the object of your focus strengthen.
- Gradually you will feel a stirring. You start to move into greater resonance with the object of your focus.
- Ask what you’ve named to communicate to you. Ask it a question. Ask it to communicate the wisdom it has to offer.
- Write. Allow your pen to become the instrument by which your wisdom can surface.
- Allow the words to flow.
This is a time to play, to engage your imagination, to allow whatever wants to emerge – to emerge. It is a time to suspend judgment, suspend expectations, and suspend the need to get it right or do it perfectly. It is also a time to suspend it happening in a certain time frame. As you open the doors to engaging more fully with your wisdom, you may receive answers immediately, or, they may come later – when you are focused on something else. Allow the communication to occur according to its time-table.
It is a time to allow, be open, be receptive. When you do receive that Hello back – don’t deny it, don’t suppress it. Don’t write it off as a fluke.
Celebrate it! Admire it! Revel in the wonder of it ! Allow the mystery of it to be and continue to connect with the Power of Hello.
Please Share and Say Hello Back!
I’d love to learn about how you experience this space of communication and connection. How have you practiced the power of Hello, of turning inward to communicate with your inner most self? How do you experience engaging with your energetic wisdom?
Sharing your insight and wisdom supports others in connecting more deeply with their wisdom. Please feel free to comment in the space below.
You have your own wisdom. You access it through your energetic and intuitive dimensions.
Announcing Active Insight Readings
I’ve been busy creating my first service offering in many a long while. They are called Active Insight™ Readings.
These readings evolved from my total love for performing intuitive readings combined with my insight on insight. Many years ago, during a guided meditation practice, I realized how different it is to have an insight, versus hearing the insight of another. My take is that when I get my own personal insight – personal and specific to me – I hear it, hold it, and respond to it differently, then when I am gifted with someone else’s insight into my personal process.
I can’t walk away from my own insight, discount it, or ignore it. It resonates at a deep level, and requires me to listen and respond to it.
Not so, necessarily, with the insights that others might have about me. These insights I can have a whole range of responses, from – “They don’t know what they are talking about.” to “That’s interesting, say more.” to “I’ll think about that later.”
I’ve been gifted with insights from others. And some I’ve been able to hear, receive, and act on. But probably many more, I haven’t known how to respond. While I might not have discounted them fully, I simply wasn’t in a place to do anything with the information. Later, when I was in a place, I remembered the insightful communication and realized how it applied to my current awareness.
My current quest is to take my love of intuition, energy coaching, and use them in ways that activate other people’s personal insight. I’m excited about this focus and feel I’m going into uncharted, but rich, rich territory.
To launch this activity, I’m offering 12 free Active Insight readings, between now and the end of September. If you are interested, contact me on the form provided here.
My Time at the Big Dream Cafe
At the end of June, I completed the Visionary Business Plan two-month program for women entrepreneurs offered by Cosmic Cowgirls University. Here are a few of my experiences from my time at the Big Dream Cafe:
- My dreams got bigger. They took on even greater, more expansive dimensions then they had before.
- My dreams got more focused and came into greater alignment.
- A new path emerged which feels more grounded and central to the path I want to forge.
- I awakened to where I was and wasn’t committed to making my dreams a reality, and was able to take action to take my commitment to the next level.
- I moved from planning mode to launching 3 specific offerings.
- I got to walk for a moment in time with other women visionaries, supporting each other in bringing our individual genius into the world.
- And, I was supported to dream big and dream practical.
A new Big Dream Cafe is starting at the end of July. I encourage all women of vision and spirit that have a dream they want to give birth to, to check out the Big Dream Cafe at Cosmic Cowgirls University.
Make your visions come alive!
Play Interrupted
About 3 weeks ago, a trip to the emergency room and a week of pain, trauma, and medication – knocked me out of my energy at play space. 
Once the pain subsided and the medication wore off, I found myself wanting to return to where I was before. I wanted to pick up where I was before the trauma. That seems reasonable. How to make that happen? My energy space moved into a new place, a different place.
My intuitive sense is that there is no return. That isn’t to say that I might move into a similar space or one that is of a kind and quality that I will take equal delight in.
The nature of spiritual quests, as I have come to understand them, is to play in the space that I’m in and see where that will lead, to continue to explore. And, so, that is what I will be doing.
The first step I took to reclaim my energy space, to take a step in a return to normal, was to reset my energy centers. I found that my energy centers had shut down or closed down as a result of the trauma I went through. After I had reset my energy centers, I felt much better, much more like myself.
My second step was to explore the nature of play, the energy space of play – in present time … more on that in my next post.
I’m off to visit and play with friends and family in the California Bay Area.
How to Stop Struggling with Your Inner Critic
One of the kindest and self-loving acts you can take is to reframe and repattern your relationship with your inner critic. I read a post the other day – Liberate the Critic – Empower the Muse – which inspired me to share some of the actions I have taken to quiet and cease my struggle with my inner critic.
My experience of my inner critic took several forms, but in the most recent past, it would take the form of my beating myself up internally. I wasn’t doing enough, I wasn’t ever going to achieve my dreams, I was messed up, and on and on. Basically the opposite of Stuart Smalley on Saturday Night Live – “I’m not good enough, I’m not smart enough, and dog-gone it, people don’t like me.”
During a conversation with a friend a while back, she related how she was learning that the inner critic was showing up because there was something that was important for her to do. Hmm. I don’t think we need an inner critic to be motivated. I do much better when I’m not beating myself up. I get a lot more accomplished, I feel better, and I’m more engaged and motivated to keep moving in the direction that I want to go in. I feel as if I’m on my quest and not succumbing to an endless to do list that is like a carrot on a stick, that I’m constantly persuing some idea of achieving.
I don’t, you don’t, we don’t need an inner critic to be motivated to do what we want to do and what we need to do in life.
Here are five actions and places I dwelt in that helped me to stop struggling and reframe my relationship with my inner critic.
I rewrote the mental tapes. I practiced a form of yoga at one time that introduced me to chanting and mantras. I learned that these were useful techniques to rewrite the mental tapes that tended to play over and over in my mind. I got into a habit of reciting a short mantra whenever I had unwelcome thoughts. After a few years – this didn’t happen all at once – and it was combined with a regular meditation practice – most of the unwelcome thoughts were quieted. I basically got to a place where I didn’t have certain thoughts unless I welcomed or engaged with them. This method of rewriting one’s mental tapes is steeped in some very old traditions.
I embraced amusement and kindergarten. After sojourning in graduate school, I found myself in a school that taught amusement – not too different than Laughter Yoga — and the importance of letting go of perfection and adopting a more kindergarten approach to life – one that didn’t demand making the grade, doing it right, not failing. Since then, I’ve returned time and time again to the very simple principles of lightening my mood by laughing – accessing my ability to move into an amused energy state as well as to let go of demands to be perfect and allow myself to return to kindergarten – where curiosity and learning were more important than getting something right.
I reclaimed my seniority from my little ego. At one point in my journaling, I gained the insight that the part of my inner critic that was still hanging around was tied to what is generally referred to as ego. Basically – I wasn’t living up to some idealized image of who I thought I should be at this time in my life. Ha! That was a good one. Once I realized that this impish part of my mind was on a one way track – I made a decision to let it go. The thoughts from that side of the aisle have been successfully banished.
I made friends with my emergent self - My most recent action – and the one that is feeling the most profound for me – however the above three actions were foundational to getting me to this recent space – was making friends with my emergent self – That aspect of myself that is always aware – what I have started to refer to as my Emergent Consciousness. This friendship began about a year ago – but only recently have I found myself making a profound pledge to stay connected to this self.
Now – as thoughts emerge – and the self-critical thoughts have mostly abated since I moved into an expanded play space – I look at them as gifts of my Emergent Self – I look at what emerges as either something I need to look at, reframe, take action on, or release. All self-criticisms are obviously thoughts that need to be released!
One example of this shift is how I felt after the healing meditation I led last weekend. Before, I would have got off the call and been aware of all the things I didn’t do, should have done, had planned to do but dropped out. And, I would have felt less than. But what I experienced after the call was an awareness of – yes, next time I would like to do this better or different – but there wasn’t that sense of having done it imperfectly and feeling less than as a result.
This last reframing has been very powerful. Since I have opened up to an expanded communication space with my emergent self, I’m not struggling anymore. I feel totally supported by this dimension of myself – and anything that emerges is again – something to look at, reframe, take action on, or release.
I invite you to start a quest to stop struggling with your inner critic. Also – please share any methods that you have used which have helped you to quiet or stop struggling with your inner critic.