The Power of Small For All

I am blessed to have studied with teachers and healers both Eastern and Western for almost 4 decades, learning ancient wisdom and technology about women, men, and relationships. One pivotal learning has been understanding how power for women initiates from within, from a dynamic relationship with her soul and grace. And, how different the world would be if women honored their power to create change in their world.

Understanding women's capacity and caliber initiates why women are considered crucial leadership our world and times need. Women in essence inspire and uplift others to their capacity and caliber in life as well as offering their own creativity and infinite resources. The challenge to women’s essential nature (and power in service) comes when women believe their impact too small, in lives already so busy tending roles and relationships.

One of my favorite reminders about power and impact is the saying “small contains all”. What your mind calls small is not, for your choices come from your desires, your values, your beliefs, your creativity, your power to create. When you live as though all your daily choices contain power and impact, you begin to create more of your desires in your life and the world.

The changes and challenges of life can feel overwhelming and you can doubt yourself and your power to create your desired life. When you honor your daily choices as powerful and sacred, your life, your relationships, and your world will change in ways both delightful and magical. Small does indeed contain all.

So how can you realize the power of your small?

Show Up. Wherever you find yourself in life, show up. If you are less than thrilled with where you find yourself, commit to becoming more aware of how you talk to yourself and what you are telling yourself as you choose your words and actions. Never doubt the wisdom of where you find yourself in life. Life is for learning about yourself and as you honor your learning and make different choices, life will move you closer to your clarity of desires.

Stand Up. Your presence is powerful and sharing your values, your integrity, your service is critical for realizing your happiness and impact in life. Believing your life will change when you finally get the courage to make that one big. radical. sexy choice which will change everything you don’t like about yourself or your life is magical thinking. But when you stand up for what makes you happy, when you stand up for your deepest values and dreams, you'll realize your life is aligning itself with where you stand up for yourself and your dreams.

Speak Up. Learning to speak up in your roles, in your relationships, in your daily life is not small at all. When you speak up, it may appear tnothing changes... time will tell. Yet choosing not to speak up vacates your power and your presence for making a difference life and world. More than once I have been surprised how words I spoke-sometimes reluctantly-came back as the inspiration or example another person needed to have the courage to speak or act. Never doubt that your truth spoken is powerful, for you inspire not only change but others as well when you speak up.

It is in the small choices we make every day that we create the life we are living. Never mistake small for less than all powerful. Daily choices of heart and soul create a life full of heart and soul....a life we are all meant to live big every day.

Lost in the Confusion of Experts?

Growing up in the Midwest, I saw things that as a kid just didn’t make sense with what I had been taught. Two-headed baby cows, pieces of straw driven through the trunk of a tree by a tornado, and people driving trucks across a lake to roast bratwursts over the fire in their ice shanty. What I had been taught about life certainly did not square with what I was experiencing in life. Confusing.

Now grown up, I’ve come to understand how we are taught about life is not unlike learning English. First you learn rules for how each letter sounds, then you learn rules for how letters behave with another letter (play nice now), and then you learn how many many exceptions there are to the rules you just spent a lot of time learning. Arghh! As people who work with me come to appreciate, paradox is the presence of the sacred messing with the rules we are taught for how life works. Paradox.

Life is like learning English-first you learn the rules, then exceptions to the rules, and then how not following the rules creates the poetry that is your life. As Rumi offered “Out beyond ideas of wrong-doing and right-doing, there is a field. I’ll meet you there. When the soul lies down in that grass, the world is too full to talk about ideas, language, even the phrase ‘each other’ doesn’t make any sense’. Beautiful.

Having joy and peace in your life require you replace the habit of making yourself wrong with the habit of living what you know to be true for you. We become confused about life when we listen to the conflicting advice of experts instead of using the sacred GPS already within us. And, we all need help remembering how to use our sacred GPS for navigating our life with joy and ease. Yup.

The confusion, insecurity, and despair so common in our contemporary world springs from confusion, insecurity, and despair about how to trust yourself and life. Modern technology-like your powerful mind-are great tools for contemporary life, but not so good for being in charge of our life. Happiness and peace in contemporary life requires breaking rules you've taught about life, remembering again to trust your sacredness, for navigating your life on purpose and with delight. Awesome.

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.