In last month’s article “In a World Often Scary, Why Being Vulnerable is Essential”  I wrote about how critical courage, compassion, and choosing to be vulnerable is for realizing happiness and success in your relationships and contemporary life. In this fourth and last article on the art and science of contemporary life, I share how learning to discern, decipher, and delight in wisdom, guidance, and support from more than our 5 senses, is essential as well.

Multi-sensory intelligence is the information we receive, transmit, and process through means other than our 5 physical senses. Here in the West, we consider our 5 physical senses the means for gathering and distributing information, whereas in cultures older, sensory intelligence includes information from the heart, the soul, and what is encountered in the physical environment.  Shamans, medicine women and men, and healers of many traditions know we are more than our minds, and use their knowledge and skills with multi-sensory intelligence to create results not thought possible.

Every client-man or woman-I have worked with had multi-sensory experiences, yet has been reluctant to trust them although sheepishly admitting to them.  So what is difficult about trusting information from other than your thoughts? Habit, belief, and conformity.....the habit of not trusting yourself, the belief in only thoughts being real, and the conformity to what has always been as what is possible. As my clients will attest, only when they trusted themselves and the information they were receiving from within themselves did they realize they had Lymes disease vs imaging symptoms, did they realize a happier marriage than ever before, did they realize their happiness through clarity in their choices.

Learning to expand what has power in your world, what informs, guides, and supports you, is essential for living in a world awash in information yet lacking essentials for all people. Your mind is fabulous yet it is but a fraction of the intelligence you have at your disposable as a human being-an alchemy of physical matter and infinite spirit.  Accessing the greater range of your intelligence and creativity requires your willingness to trust your experiences,  to discern your body’s wisdom, and to decipher important wisdom within your emotions.

Honoring the power of your multi-sensory presence (from Latin meaning “being at hand”) is essential in a world where technology is often confused for solutions.  Your power of presence is not only your physical presence; power of presence is becoming conscious your presence is an essential (Latin meaning “in the highest degree”) part of wherever, with whatever, and with whoever you find yourself in life. For life is not what happens to us as much as realizing life is a dynamic we are co-creating...an essential update for contemporary live.

"In a World Often Scary, Why Being Vulnerable is Essential"

In my first article  “The Trojan Horse Opportunity, Change, and Transition Offer Us”, I wrote about challenges offering surprising gifts and invitations for increasing happiness and satisfaction in yourself and your life. In the second article “Learning to Trust Yourself and Life Again; Balancing Inner and Outer Authority”,  I wrote about how balancing the authority you give others with learning to call on your own (inner) authority, increases your satisfaction and integrity in life.  And here is my new article "In a World Often Scary, Why Being Vulnerable is Essential”:

Whether you subscribe to “leaning in”, “leaning out”, or “love will heal all”, contemporary relationship is emerging as more than a role or a status. Contemporary relationship is a a powerful means for transforming conflict, a petri dish for self-discovery and healing, and an essential dynamic for pivoting the out-dated power over of position, privilege, and possessions into contemporary power with our challenges, courage, and creativity. Contemporary relationship embraces the power of our mind as well as the power of our heart and soul, with scientific research showing our health and sense of well-being is in part a reflection of the health of our relationship with ourselves and with others.

Relationships take a lot of wear and tear in a world which can hold everything as up for sale. When we pick up our courage for honoring the sacredness, the nobility of ourselves and an other, our relationships begin to offer us what we all long for…..to be safely seen as imperfect as we all are. Our relationships offer us opportunity after opportunity for healing family patterns which create pain, for tending to our self-love and care, and for developing trust and faith in ourselves and with another. Honoring your relationships requires your courage for allowing the vulnerability (From Latin meaning “wound") essential for transforming the scary into compassion (From Latin meaning “to suffer with”) with yourself and an other.

Choosing compassion when a relationship challenges your inner security is not overlooking the need for change in the relationship. Responding with compassion to emotions which scare you is courageously choosing to honor your relationships as powerful vehicles for tending to the fears and insecurities we all carry. Choosing compassion is not for wussies; compassion requires courage, honestly examining your feelings, and not blaming another for not being the way you want them to be. Choosing compassion is essential for living life less through fear and more through trust of the wisdom of heart to lead.

Extending to “the other” what you usually demand of them, begins healing wounds of the past, making room for the destiny of the future. Choosing to extend your compassion, your curiosity, your courage to when another triggers you, allows you to pivot fears into learning and allows the vulnerability necessary for true intimacy. When you choose to communicate more for understanding and less for making certain you are heard, you choose connection with vs power over another. Powerful powerful steps for the peace and joy we all long for and I believe, we were born able to create.

Coming next week is my fourth and final article in this series on the art and science of life contemporary.  I am excited to share with you how learning to discern, decipher, and delight in the abundant guidance and support life offers us each day, provides support and guidance in a world demanding more than simply the facts of our physical senses. Sensory intelligence is essential for meeting a world awash in fact and figure information, yet challenging us to create solutions to what our minds believe is impossible.  Great stuff!

“Learning to Trust Yourself and Life Again: Balancing Outer & Inner Authority”

 In last week's article "The Trojan Horse Opportunity of Change, Challenge, and Transition",  I wrote about updating beliefs, habits, and choices for staying contemporary in your life and world. One of the updates I touched on was balancing the power you give authority outside yourself with the authority you allow your own self when crafting your happiness and life. Learning to trust yourself and life is crucial in creating happiness and satisfaction in life.

You've been taught to defer power to authority outside yourself-parents, teachers, experts, ministers, etc-and to adhere to common answers vs your own answers, as to what is right and what is wrong. You are taught to defer to the (mostly) masculine norms Western civilization is constructed upon, women feeling this imbalance most personally, and the potential of all people impacted. So it is any wonder you may not truly know yourself, trust what you feel, or have faith in life as on your side?

In time, your soul will initiate a process for evaluating your life, often through a crisis (from the Latin word meaning "to decide/decisive point) in your health, relationships, or happiness. This evaluation brings to light the balance between the facts of your outer authority and the truths of your inner authority. We are taught to fear change, challenge, and transition, yet the process of claiming more integrity and soul in your life only enhances the integrity of your relationships, happiness, and fulfillment in life.

In life contemporary, we make everything important except learning about ourselves. In response, life will often trigger events in life as opportunities for learning about more about yourself:

1. You live life by "shoulds, need to,  have to's" in your roles, your relationships, and your choices.....building resentment you blame others for, when you could be learning to respond with compassion for yourself and learn more about your feelings!

2. Your intimate relationships begin to experience escalating conflict, conflict based on expectations of what the other "owes" you....treating your relationships like commodities when you could be learning to trust sharing your imperfect self with another imperfect self!

3. Your body lets you know it is unhappy and demands your attention in ways painful or scary..... so you feel betrayed by your body when you could be learning how to discern and decipher it's wisdom!

4. You realize you are spending your days simply trying to get through to the end of the day, day after day......indulging in drama or distractions when you could be committing to support, wisdom, and guidance on the skills, ways, and delight of self-discovery!

Contemporary life includes few traditions of mentorship or apprenticeship, yet our need for the care and guidance of wise community is more than ever.  Power (from Latin meaning "be able"), secular or spiritual, historically passed through a conscious community tending to the awakening and learning of power. With the dismantling of traditions and the diminishing of institutional authority, we are being called to claim more inner authority yet challenged by not knowing how to do so, alone with only our facts.

"Learning to Trust Yourself-and Life-Again"

My clients entrust me with helping them update their beliefs, habits, and choices for creating more joy, integrity, and health in themselves and their relationships.  We begin by building a foundation for learning to trust (again) themselves, life,  and their dreams.  And once they have done so “well enough”, there is little in life they cannot meet with confidence, creativity, and courage.  

One of the passages engaged when in the process of change, is realizing much of what you have been taught (or concluded) about life, needs updating. Not unlike how operating systems need updating for computers to serve contemporary needs, your operating system-your beliefs, your habits, your choices-need updating as well. Updating your operating system not only increases your satisfaction and fulfillment in life, it is a critical component to living your power, purpose, and your passions in life.

One of the software updates I teach people is learning the difference between a conscious/pro-active choice and and a default/reactive choice.  There is much confusion, even with people who are committed to being conscious (from Latin meaning “knowing of oneself or of others”) of just where IS the line between acceptance and response-ability, between being passive and surrendering, between going with the flow and being in their default (from Latin meaning “failing, deceiving”) comfort zone. 

The answers you seek for crafting a life of purpose, lay not only in the facts you’ve been  taught about life, the answers awaits your living the truths within yourself as well. When you learn to trust your inner authority of knowing, you learn to trust yourself and life again, bringing balance to the authority of the facts outside. Challenging?  Perhaps, yet not as challenging as feeling you are living a life false of yourself, or devoid of truths your own.  Honoring your personal (inner) authority carries the price of sacrificing (from Latin meaning “holy”) the false comfort of your defaults in life for the delight and power of your living spirit in flow.

Finding your balance between outer authority (from Latin meaning “giving power and control”) you default your power to, and living the wisdom of your inner authority, is a process rewarding and a process requiring community and containment.  Awakening to more of your power-as is told by myths young and old-carries with it risks and dangers teachers, guides, and mentors shepherd students through safely.  (Think Gandolf in Lord of the Rings). The Western mythology of the solitary nature of coming into wisdom and power, is simply that....a myth, not a truth.

Look for the second in this series on learning to trust yourself and life again. Human life is an elegant art and science, with delight (from Latin meaning “with light”) and integrity easing our journey.Or as ee.cummings put it so eloquently, “to be nobody but yourself,  in a world which is doing it’s best, night and day, to make you everybody else, means to fight the hardest battle which any human being can fight”. 

Do You Love Yourself as Your Beloved?

Today is Valentine’s Day, a day inviting us to share gratitude, appreciation, and love with those who delight, love, and support us....and a day to offer ourselves our love, our support, our delight as well. For while we may become masters of tending to others, happiness requires we master tending to ourselves as well.

I am gifted by working with amazing women and men who are not only intelligent, successful and engaged in serving our world, they are committed to living their excellence and elegance as human beings as well. Often my clients will share their amazement at what they are realizing; how with all the education and experiences they have accumulated, how much of what they were taught about relationships and life is just plain wrong! We laugh and then pick up our process of discovering the wisdom, compassion, and strength that lies within them innately, my service of presence being to remind them this is so.

Within us is wisdom and courage which does know our answers to life’s questions, which can bring a healing touch to our anger and pain, and which holds us as our tears fall. And, to learn to hear our soft voice of wisdom through the busy-ness of our days, takes our choice, our commitment, and our compassion for doing so. Insisting we be able to heal generations of patterns of anger and pain in solitude is simply a belief reflecting a lack of compassion and kindness for ourselves, for as humans, we love and evolve with each other.

To love another and to seek love from another, is to invite loving and learning about ourselves. What we seek in an-other...their support, their patience, their strength...we can called to remember lives within ourselves as well. When we learn to love ourselves enough to tend and care for our self as not a luxury but as wisdom and strength, not only do we realize more love in life, we will love more those in our life as well.

In the Orient, the poets of the sacred speak of “The Beloved” as being what our heart longs for and what we search for in our life.  When we erroneously insist our Beloved lives only in others, we will find ourselves angered and disappointed by others, believing them lacking. The poetry of Rumi, Tagore, and others reminds us how The Beloved we seek lives within what we call our soul....a soul that needs our tending and conscious relationship for sharing it’s infinite and lovely jewels in our life as humans.

January's Promise

January offers promise....of renewal, of realizing new dreams, of experiencing more joy, delight, and awe in the adventure we call life.  When we respond to January’s offer with a burst of resolutions targeting areas we feel are lacking-be it in our life or ourselves-we often find ourselves discouraged and judging ourselves lacking even more so. What gives? 

Without tending to how we apply our promises, our resolve, what often results is the derailment of a resolved goal of change or creating something new. In “the how” of a promise is caring for what might need tenderness or compassion as we take up the actions of change. For change to occur outside of ourselves, change is needed in how we are with ourselves.

One of my January joys is going through my possessions-clothes, books, files, closets-and winnowing out what has served it’s time and is ready to move on. I used to find it very difficult to part with my possessions, fearing the possession I let go of might be useful or missed in the future. In short, I did not trust myself to know myself, nor did I trust life to provide more in the future, resting instead with believing life’s uncertainties are best met with control.

The word promise comes from the Latin word “promittere” meaning “to send forward”. When I realized the heart of my resistance to releasing my possessions was fear,  I made the choice to replace the fear with happiness for stewarding my possessions to it’s next place of service. Now others seek my aid in their process of letting go as well, for as I tell my clients, when you resolve something painful or harmful in yourself, you help others as well.

To take up January’s invitation to move forward, here are some suggestions: 

1. Apply compassion first. When feeling the defensive emotions of shame, anger, blame, etc, apply compassion to yourself, to the other, to the situation. Not only will you change what has power, you will feel what is asking for your care underneath the defensive emotions.
2. Your reactions are your gift of a mirror.  We judge in others what we have yet to resolve within and about ourselves. Demanding perfection-how we justify our blame and shame-harms not only our relationships, it harms us as well. Learn to receive where you blame or shame as your invitation to care for what is calling for tending within yourself.
3. What you feel you can heal.  Books bring us information, talking with friends brings ease, and feeling our emotions offers us information for resolving what is causing us pain. Because we are taught to be afraid of our emotions, I do not consider getting guidance and support for changing an indulgence, rather a caring and loving action on our behalf.  When we are scared or in pain, it is just plain unkind to insist on bootstrapping it alone!
4. When we trust ourselves, we love ourselves and our life more. So many people know life is precious and they are blessed, and still happiness and satisfaction elude them. They have not learned to trust themselves to take action on what has heart and value for them.  When we do not honor what we know in our heart and soul,  through actions in our daily life, happiness and satisfaction become elusive.

The gift of a human life is not a task to be completed-it is a magical and mystical journey, where courage, curiosity, and compassion enjoin our trust and passion for living our purpose and with joy. When we learn to trust ourselves, we learn to trust our life and how to trust others. When we learn to trust ourselves, we trust we will keep the promises we make, moving us forward with joy and delight in our adventures of life.

If you would like some help learning how to trust yourself and honor the promises you have made for this new year, then what are you waiting for?  Getting support and guidance for changes you desire is not a luxury....it is a decision to care for yourself and your dreams. Send me an email for scheduling a no cost 30 minute consultation with me...whoohoo!

"Navigating Turbulent Times"

We are getting ready for my children, their pets, and their partners, to join us for Thanksgiving.  I love family "home for the holidays" and when they bring company-animal or human-even better!  Our house benefits from a thorough cleaning, the gourmet cooks confer for menus, and the fall flora shares it’s beauty in floral arrangements.

I am grateful for a holiday that reminds us to offer gratitude for the gifts of life. Life can be overwhelming at times and it can be tough some days to stay focused on the positive. Taking a break to enjoin with community in celebration, is restorative and taking time to be with loved ones in celebration is critical for balancing out life's challenges.

Whether it's the weather, the economy, the environment, the age-old conflicts, life is turbulent these days.  There is no doubt heavy lifting is being demanded of humans and my personal experiences with challenges have me optimistic about humans being up to the challenges....challenges requiring our faith, trust, and understanding of ourselves, our infinite possibilities, and each other.

Here are some tips and tools for navigating our turbulent times:

* Learn to embrace "different"....different choices, different beliefs, different conclusions.  When we long for our life to be different yet continue to choose the same as always, we are simply doing what I call “circling the drain”. Begin to make "different" your BFF and fasten your seatbelt for how quickly things in your life begin to change!

* Lead life more through the wisdom of your heart..... and less through your mind's desire for control. Become honest with yourself where you rationalize and compromise your integrity, stop doing so, and watch your self-respect will take off!  Living with integrity to your heart and soul is priceless, and living with integrity creates faith in yourself and life!

* Discern, decipher, and delight.....in the abundant guidance and support being offered by your heart and soul for challenging times. Life will brings you both challenges and the means for meeting your challenges. When you learn to tune into-and trust-the wisdom and guidance of your body, your emotions, and what shows up in your day, life goes from scary and random to delightful and amazing!

* We all need a village.... to be healthy, to be happy, to realize our infinite possibilites. The myth of the rugged individual is just that.....a myth. The lie of strength through independence is being updated by the truth of strength through honoring your interdependence with others. The presence of others-whether by choice or "coincidence",  not only helps you get by in life,  relationships bring learning your staying "safely in control" cannot deliver!

Knowledge alone cannot meet the challenges and changes your life is bringing to you; there is more information available than ever before in human history and our world is in crisis. Learning to honor the deep wisdom of your heart and soul is no longer optional, it is the new normal of smart, safe, and able. Creating a dynamic relationship with the resources and wisdom of your infinity will deliver what your mind alone cannot......the miracles your life and your world are awaiting.