Wed, 27 June 2007  Welcome back! I hope you enjoyed last week's heartfelt episode called "How is love?" I'd enjoy hearing your thoughts about that podcast and welcome your feedback on my toll-free line 1-866-374-8539. Before I dive into this week's topic, I want to let you know that I'll be offering two workshops during July based on my book entitled 'The 4 Most Important Words To Success: Even If You Never Say Them Outloud'. The first class will be offered through DiscoverU on Wednesday, July 11th at their Now, on to this week's question "Do you have genius?" This is a very interesting question as it relates to the correlation between intelligence and success. As one who's personally and professionally committed to healing the epidemic of scarcity consciousness, I know all too well that the "not enough" syndrome is evidenced in countless ways. And it most definitely shows up with the thought that "I'm not SMART enough to succeed." So, the game of getting more, leads people toward the never-ending pursuit of knowledge. Don't we all do that? Don't you and I buy books and cd's and any other thing that promises us the answer? The point is that claiming your success in a lasting way does not demand that you first solve the mystery or learn the secret. To finally claim your prosperity and to fully embody that wisdom, means acknowledging that there is nothing lacking about you. There is no distance between you and the success to seek other than your choice to give power to illusion. Here's an example of what I mean: When I was in elementary school, I failed to gain entrance into a gifted learning program. I missed a passing grade by just a few points but I missed it all the same. I was the only one of five children in my family not to be allowed into that program. One day while fighting with my younger sister, she told me in no uncertain terms, that because I hadn't passed that test that I was stupid. The fact of the matter was that I wasn't stupid at all. Despite that I believed her. And the great untruth that I swallowed that day was absolutely toxic. Sadly, it took me decades to rid myself of that poisonous lie. Even while I wasn't stupid, I was being ignorant. And there's a fundamental difference between the two that I want you to understand. First of all, stupidity is a judgment; an assessment of one's capability and a very restrictive condemnation of what's actually possible for their life. You don't even need to call anyone stupid to inflict the limitation it brings. In fact, just thinking that you're stupid affects the same result. So, whether you say it out loud or internalize such a judgment, the impact is equally negative. On the other hand, being ignorant is not a value statement. Rather, ignorance is a behavior. And as a behavior, ignorance involves choice. When you choose ignorance it means that you're consciously or unconsciously ignoring a critical knowing. Ignorance is avoidance. So why do you avoid? What do you not want to know? And most importantly, what could possibly happen if you stood up in a room and declared "I'm a genius!" Are you laughing yet? Or are you feeling anxious imagining what that would be like? My guess is that you would never, ever make such a statement. And I'll venture to say that the reason you don't make such lofty claims is for fear that someone might just ask you to prove your genius. But you know what? You don't have to prove it because everyone has genius. How do I know that? The word 'genius' originates from the 14th century and means "a guardian deity or spirit which watches over each person from birth". Notice that the definition doesn't say some people, it says each person. And each person includes YOU! So true genius is not exclusive. It's a spirit, a wit, and a natural talent incarnated by you. By the mid-17th century, the word 'genius' took on a second definition which is 'a person of natural intelligence or talent'. So now you understand that genius is not acquired but innate. You came into this world with it and so shall you leave this life with it. Therefore, the question is not IF you have genius, but HOW you will use it. How will you exercise that beautiful mind of yours? How will you make your own talents and gifts available to the world? How will you wake up each day and choose GENIUS over IGNORANCE? It's a matter of allowing your natural intelligence the space to be; to deem it worthy of speaking through you in whatever form it chooses to take. In the end, the shape and size of your genius is irrelevant because all genius is the stuff of the creative life force we often call love. It was famed composer Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart who once said: "Neither a lofty degree of intelligence nor imagination nor both together go to the making of genius. Love, love, love... that is the soul of genius." Here's my 7-day challenge for you: Over the next week, become aware of any occasions in which modesty prevents you from acknowledging what is fundamentally good and true about you. When you notice your self waving off a compliment or diminishing your contribution, simply stop. Allow your genius to receive what is being offered without restriction. Just know that it's your birthright to affirm that "Yes, I am!" Say it like you mean it. Say it because it's true. Please join me next time when I ask "Is that all there is?" Until then, I leave you with abundant peace. Comments[0] |
Wed, 20 June 2007 Welcome back! I hope you enjoyed last week's special episode on part one of "How is love?" I'm looking forward to taking you directly into the conclusion of this revealing and personal two-part podcast. And if you haven't listened to part one yet, please take a few minutes to review that episode as it provides important context and gives dimension to what I'm about to share with you. This is my own private story about how I came to find love and how it came to find me in a way I could have never imagined in my wildest dreams. Ever since I was little girl, I had a strong capacity to experience life and relationships on a very deep level. And if you're familiar with me through my past writings, then you know that my natural inclination is to perceive my world in a very colorful and emotional way. My ability to feel things intensely has a direct correlation with my level of sensitivity. That sensitivity, as I now understand it, is an innate quality that somehow makes me different from most of the people I encounter. Looking back, I've come to a significant shift in perspective where sensitivity is concerned. In my past, being sensitive was very much a double-edged sword. With it, I could sense many things on very subtle levels. And while that provided me with some valuable information in terms of guidance, it also left me feeling rather exposed where other people were concerned. For the most part, I'd regarded my emotionality and receptivity not as the gifts they were, but as a major liability. I so often felt misunderstood and mishandled. It seemed that since childhood I wanted to be loved in such a way that others simply could not understand and therefore, couldn't satisfy. That began a series of long-term relationships in which my emotional, physical and spiritual needs were largely unmet. And, after an 11 year relationship that ended in divorce, the false belief that what I wanted was simply too much to ask for became affirmed in my thinking. It was a self-fulfilling prophecy of epic proportions. So I learned how to separate myself from what I really needed in terms of connection and decided just to live with what was. The two years following my divorce was a time of intense healing. I really worked at it. I actively exorcised myself of old belief systems and the outright poisonous lies I had swallowed as a young girl. My family history included rather painful infidelity which had a pronounced effect on me throughout my developing years even though I was often unaware of its impact. As a result, my fundamental inability to trust men touched almost every aspect of my life. My healing was a path to discovering that I was indeed capable and worthy of having the priceless gift of a genuine intimacy with another human being. That new found awareness was the pivotal point on which my relationship with love began to shift. For the first time in my life, I knew absolutely that to be in love did not require another person. It only required that I commit myself to experiencing and expressing the pure energy of love regardless of who else might care to join me in those healing waters. And from that point on, swimming with the current of love energy brought me stillness and wholeness and the faith I had lacked all my life. I finally understood what it meant to have integrity. No longer would I compromise myself. No longer would I pretend that I couldn't have all the goodness and kindness and connection that was already mine if I only could muster the courage to name it as my own. But to name it, how? How is love? How on earth can I or you bridge that dark chasm between doubt and unwavering trust? All I can tell you is how it happened for me. All I can give you is what came to be in my own experience. I suppose it begins with a core belief. And by that I mean something that you know to be true or even just hope is true, despite all the history of circumstances surrounding you. For myself, I'd never seen an unbreakable bond between two souls. I had no real examples of a kind, soft and intimate commitment of a man to a woman. And despite that, I always wanted to believe that this life might offer me a sincerely gentle and profoundly loyal relationship. I really didn't know how that might come to be, I only knew how much I wanted it. You see, THAT is the power of intention. To have intention is to have purpose. It means to be attentively occupied in holding your dream as an internal reality even though it may not yet be manifested in your outer experience. In order to hold intention, you're required to be a dreamer and a fool for love. And to keep your dream alive, you must protect it with your life. To keep what is unborn within you, no matter what it is, is to be in powerful integrity; uncompromised and resolute. So what does that look like in real life? Here's an example: about a year after striking out on my own, I decided to begin dating again for the first time in about a dozen years. Good God I was nervous! I so badly wanted to make a good impression. At the time, I was living in a very small town with a lot of retirees and meeting eligible men was virtually impossible. So, being a forward-thinking woman, I decided to take the technology plunge and explore the mysterious world of online dating. That experience was like being in a series of not-so-great movies. Some were horror stories, others were science-fiction and even more were just dark comedies. After a few months of that, I commiserated with another single friend of mine. Basically she told me that I was attracting the wrong type of men because I hadn't gotten really clear about what it was that I wanted. So she encouraged me to do a writing exercise in which I was to the list very specific characteristics and qualities of the kind of man I wanted to meet most. I'll be honest with you in that I thought her idea was pretty lousy. I told her that I didn't want to do it because it seemed that by narrowing down my criteria of the perfect man might make me too focused on something that didn't exist. I didn't want to limit my options and I didn't want to wait around for the impossible. But, you know what? I did it anyway. I wrote a list of exactly who I dreamt of spending my life with. And one of the unexpected results of this exercise was that once I had it all on paper, I could see that the qualities that I wanted in a man were the same qualities I wanted to express myself. So I filled out two sides of 4x6 card and set it aside. Over the months it became buried among my stacks of paper and I forgot all about it. I continued to date rather fruitlessly until the point at which I discovered a pattern in my experience. The men I had been seeing were strangely falling into the same type of behavior, one after the other. What I mean is that, to some degree, each one of them failed to show up fully in my life. It meant that there was a noticeable disconnect between what they said and what they did. And the more I tried to figure it out, the closer I got to the realization that there was one common denominator in each subsequent situation... ME! Oh shit, it was me. My failure to show up fully was now being powerfully reflected back to me by each of the men I encountered. So I stopped dating. I had to solve the mystery. I had to figure out where it was that I wasn't showing up for myself. I decided that for the next six months that I would enter into a relationship with me. The process began by first listing those elements that I believe constitute a healthy and growing relationship. Given the background of infidelity in my family history, I decided that that would be my starting point. I looked up the word fidelity and discovered that it means to hold steadfastly to an idea or person. Where had I'd not held steadfastly to myself? When had I been guilty of compromising me? The more I asked myself those questions, the more clearly I saw how I had been cheating on myself for years. I put others first and accepted being the last person on my list. I gave and gave and served men without even considering how I might also serve the needs of my mind and body and spirit. So for six months, I decided to make time just for me. I would take myself out to movies and dinner and bookstores. I spent time writing and listening and giving a voice to the beautiful and unspoken aspects of myself that had so long been hidden away. And you know what? It was a blast. I didn't miss dating at all. I didn't go out of the house wondering who I might meet that day because I knew that I was meeting myself in a way I never had before. I had authorized myself to provide me with deep recognition, knowing that when the right person did enter my life, that I would not be relying on him to give the reverence only I could provide. I wanted to savor all the delicious elements of a loving relationship in such a way that I might finally be able to recognize those elements if they were to later enter into my life. And then, out of the blue, out of the magnificent darkness, came magic. Magic is everything we can't explain. Magic is the unexpected and to see it, you have to be paying attention. And, at that point in my life, I had been paying attention like never before. Late one night as I stood at the sink brushing my teeth, I had a thought that changed my life forever. And the thought was "Go to your computer right now!" It wasn't just a normal thought but an intuitive command. How do I know the difference? I'll tell you how. With practice. This thought was not just about going to my computer but to go online immediately and not just anywhere but to the Internet dating site that I had quit five months before. You see I've been intuitive since the time I was a little girl. It was a gift passed onto me by my mother that I've learned to hone throughout the years. And one of the things that distinguishes a normal, everyday thought from an intuitive knowing, is that my intuition doesn't always make immediate sense. In this case, that lack of logic was demonstrated by a mental tug-of-war. One part of me was hearing "Go to your computer!" while the other part was arguing "No! I'm not dating right now." I've learned to recognize that this type of internal dissonance is a telltale sign that my intuition is at work. This conflict is normal because the brain always looks for what's logical and linear. On the other hand, the intuitive or clairvoyant capacity comes from what is largely the irrational or etheric realm. It can't be explained and so it sets up the mind to engage in battle for the mind wants to make sense of things; to categorize and label all that it encounters. So after years of experiencing this type of scenario, I knew better than to ignore the intuitive command. Sure I was tired but I didn't dare refuse to comply because past attempts at doing that only makes the message more pronounced. And so I listened, really listened. I fired up the computer, logged on to the dating site and up popped my list of preferred criteria. The page loaded with search results and immediately there were a pair of gorgeous blue eyes that looked into me with an openness and a depth that were both powerful and immediate. I read his profile and with each new sentence my anticipation grew. His writing was honest and direct; displaying a command of language that thrilled me completely. I took it all in and could feel myself expand with hopefulness and confidence. He seemed to be everything I had been seeking. And here it was approaching midnight and this Cinderella had let her membership expire and had hidden her own profile from view the year before. In other words, he'd never be able to find me if I didn't make the first move. So... with just a single click of a mouse, I sent a message to this mystery man. I had a sense of completion knowing that I had fulfilled the commanding sense of obligation to my own inner guidance. I slept that night not knowing the pivotal action I had undertaken with just one push of a button. In the morning, I awoke to a delightful response to my message. His words touched me absolutely and served to only increase my growing sense of excitement. Little did I know that I was standing on the precarious edge of infinite possibility. One e-mail grew into another and then a dozen. Within a couple of days we'd spoken for the first time and are first date was set. I wish that I could share those first amazing moments of our meeting but words will never adequately convey their magnitude. It was nothing short of electric. The moment we first laid eyes on each other, silent fireworks began to ignite. It was pure energy and pure light. Within six days of meeting we had fallen in unmitigated love. I'd never even thought that was possible. And now, more than a year later, we are continuing to close the divide between the impossible and the sweetest, juiciest, most passionate love affair I could have never imagined. In the end, I realized that he proved to be every thing on the list I'd written and forgotten. But, he is so much more than that; more than I dreamed I could ever receive from this life. And, there is so much more to tell about our love story but there is really only one thing you need to remember. The how of love is unimportant. How love finds you doesn't matter. That you are deserving of love's vastness is all you have to know. And you must know it, right now, for all you have is now. Only you can liberate the power of love. Only you can agree to its terms which are absolute and unyielding. When you know that love is your nature and your truth, the how will invent itself; burrowing its way to you and through you beyond reason, beyond evidence and disbelief. That is my gift to you and it is so. I'd like to conclude with a poem I wrote for my beloved on the occasion of our first anniversary earlier this month. I've entitled it Medicine Man. There is a wee voice within each of us. And late one night, as spring melted into summer, it called to me.
It was strong and insistent, giving me no choice but to listen. This voice had led me on a winding path within, to a wisdom that wore the ancient dress of memory.
I peeled away the layers, thread by thread, revealing the joyful truth of a pure and brilliant light; a light disguised only by the withering shadows of fear.
How long we had each navigated the darkness. Our separate paths leading within and through the nighttime
of isolation, until all at once colliding with such force as to form a new life, united and radiant.
Our remembering is absolute, our love spilling uncontained over the edges of our lives and beyond.
We are at work with each other, at play with the other and growing with each step... together.
Our roots tangled in a lover's knot, bound by infinity for more growth, more blossom and fruit.
You are my home and my heaven. You are my wholeness and healing.
You are in me like magic, like a healer who knows not the power of his medicine.
Please join me next time when I ask "Do you have genius?" Until then, I leave you with abundant peace. Comments[0] |
Thu, 14 June 2007 Welcome back! This episode begins a two-part podcast on the question "How is love?" So please join me for a revealing look at my own lifelong search for the answer to that timeless question. This is a story of hope and faith, of desire and determination. It's a love story; the kind that inspires the heart to open in the face of fear. It's a tale of my life and my private pursuit of a profoundly nourishing connection to another soul and to my own. What I'm about to share with you is but a brief glance at only the most recent chapter of a real-life history that spans nearly four decades. This experience demands a voice because its power has a purpose. And the purpose of love is simple... love wants to live, to expand and create more of itself. That's what we're here to do. Yes, that includes you and me and everyone who's struggled to receive love and express love in an ever widening wave of passion and compassion. The purpose of your life is to be the embodiment of love in your own supremely unique way. For you possess the capacity to express what distinguishes you from every other being on the planet. Expressing and illuminating your true self in totality is a recipe not just for success, but for MAGIC. It reminds me of the saying "Where there is great love, there are great miracles." And so I'm setting out to share my great love with you, without restriction or limitation. I'm doing that because I understand, at the core of my being, that giving love is the principal on which transformation takes place. I've done it and I know it as the divine truth. And having love means I have it to give to you without the fear of judgment or loss because love and fear cannot share the same space. Love, once given to others, is never diminished, but multiplied. When your love is received by another, it creates an opening through which YOU then receive more love, from more directions, and in flavors you have never known before. You see, the giving precedes the receiving. And love, true to its expansive, uncontainable nature, begets more love. To love is a verb, not a noun. Love is not a thing just as success is not a thing. In fact, what is the difference between love and success? What is one without the other, and can you really have love or success exclusively? No! Love requires a host. It requires action in order to be. It needs you as much as you need it! It needs you to foster its expression in the face of rejection and doubt. To really BE LOVE means allowing love to move through you and because of you in spite of all the evidence you've collected to prevent that from happening. Love is your nature and therefore thwarting it leads to frustration and anger. What would it take for you to say "Yes!" to love under any circumstances? Perhaps sharing the miracle of my own "Yes!" will be the sweet elixir that brings your heart to life. The history of love for me cannot be fully brought to light in this brief time, but there has been a common thread tying each significant relationship to the next. My experience had been one that could be referred to as holistic hunger; leaving me fundamentally dissatisfied and under nourished. The rumblings of loneliness and deep emptiness only grew louder with time. Throughout my life, I've craved to be recognized in my entirety: body, mind and soul; to be loved beyond the need to control and embraced as an equal, capable and powerful partner. And yet, each attempt to connect with another was limited by the level of intimacy it could reach. Those restrictions were born of a lingering mistrust on my part, which was only compounded by a series of men who didn't know how to share power but only how to perpetuate the too common power-over paradigm. That pattern pervades our culture and gives way to dominating behavior in politics, in business and most certainly, in matters of the heart. The-power-over paradigm in my experience took many forms. It included men who withheld affection in order to influence my behavior. It included criticism and the enforcement of many conditions that, once met, would result in my getting attention and that distorted thing mislabeled as love. If my experience resonates in any way with yours, then you know that AUTHENTIC love is not an object. It can't be taken or stolen, purchased or sold. Instead, love is an energy whose purity is life embracing and all high. True love is not dispensed as some reward because it cannot be kept. You can't hold it in your hands and yet you know it's real. Love is like the wind blowing softly over you, clearing away the debris of suffering and doubt. And sometimes, love gusts overhead like a wild Tempest that carries you to places you've never, ever been. And so, the deep wisdom of love is in its allowing. It means that love is all around you, knowable yet invisible. And getting out of its way, permitting love to be in you and through you is the secret. You see, in my own challenges with finding love, it was lost the moment I tried to possess it. In the end, I didn't get the love I wanted because I didn't have to. Rather, I discovered it as it discovered me. I recognized it and it recognized me. I honored it as omnipresent and, what do you know, love became present in my life; manifesting left and right, with perfect timing all because I finally said YES. Yes is magic. Yes means no longer pushing love away. Yes means you can allow it to reside in you completely because you finally understand that no one and nothing can ever make it go away. For love doesn't abandon us but we can indeed abandon it with judgments and conditions and grasping to those we think control it. The desire to secure love is the call to let go. Let go. Let love. In the words of Mother Theresa, "I have found the paradox that if I love until it hurts, then there is no hurt, but only more love." Please join me next time for part two of "How is love?" when I share the wonderful tale of my date with destiny. Until then, I leave you with abundant peace. Comments[0] |
Wed, 6 June 2007 Welcome back! The theme for this week's episode is one that I hope you'll pay special attention to. So, let's explore the question "Are you vulnerable to success?" And while my question to you is perplexing, I want very much for you to consider the role that vulnerability has played in your life. About three years ago, I had the chance to do just that. I had just left a very unhealthy and abusive marriage. I left my job, my home and my beautiful garden sanctuary. But above all, I left behind my identity as a wife and caregiver. Aside from my most meaningful role as a mother, the rest of my life was stripped away in a matter of days. The end of that decade-long relationship was both dramatic and traumatic to say the least. That was a time of annealing; my life in the raw and my painful realities completely naked for all to see. The annealing process is one by which glass and metal are exposed to intense heat and gradually cooled in order to free the material from internal stress. This is a very necessary process that produces a stronger and more resilient product able to endure the inevitable pressure of external forces. I invite you to think about how the profound challenges of your life have delivered you unto this same process by which you have been fortified and prepared for what awaits you. For what awaits you is greater learning, and a bigger, broader, and more impactful life. That my friend, is but one perspective on the myriad definitions of success. But in order for you to grasp that success with both hands and really own it fully, it's imperative that you be able to make the following critical distinction. That's the distinction between being vulnerable and being open. And it wasn't until I finally had the courage to venture out on my own that I ever understood the difference between the two. In fact, I hadn't even known that is was possible to separate vulnerability from openness. Striking out on my own for the first time in my life meant leaving behind who I thought I knew myself to be. With those definitions suddenly gone, my life in all its bare glory, was totally available to the loving support of many powerful women who entered into the void of my life almost immediately. I consider these women to be earthbound goddesses; divinely appointed as my guides and sacred sisters. And it's my deepest conviction that their presence in my life was the result of my willingness to step courageously toward the dark emptiness. One woman in particular proved to be of great significance in my healing. She was and is both a trusted ally and nurturing mentor to me. It was she who brought me to the awareness that the deep suffering I had endured could be attributed to the ways in which I made myself consistently vulnerable to others. The word 'vulnerable' originates from an ancient Latin word meaning 'to wound'. In my case, my woundedness came about through my own tacit consent. In other words, I had exposed myself to unnecessary pain through seeking the approval of others. Most of my life, I had been driven to serve, to please and to accommodate the needs of others even when that meant compromising my self. I did it so often for so long that eventually I did it without even knowing it. That pattern had been my unconscious formula for getting the love I so desperately wanted. I held on to that way of being regardless of how much suffering it involved. And I did that because I never knew how to be my own source of acknowledgment or appreciation. If you live by the false assumption that the love you want exists beyond your control then you'll naturally feel out of control. Giving away the supreme power to love and revere your self in all your flawed humanness constitutes a commitment to vulnerability. To be vulnerable is to interpret the actions of others as though they reflect upon your own value. It means assigning meaning to what happens out there and forfeiting your responsibility to provide yourself with what is absolutely necessary to your forward progress and success. By stark contrast, you may knowingly set vulnerability aside in favor of openness. To being OPEN is to be uncovered, evident, and available. Are those not the very same qualities you seek from success? By remaining open, what you desire from life also becomes uncovered, evident, and available. What I'm suggesting to you is that if who you are is hidden, then what you desire is equally concealed. Being open is like acting as a doorway. When you are a doorway, the affects of what others say and do are allowed to pass through you and beyond. It means that you repeatedly choose to provide your self with acceptance and encouragement in spite of all the circumstances and conditions that exist in your life. For when you make that choice you enter into the domain of unconditional love. That is a place of healing and wholeness. That is the destination we call heaven. And now I'd like to invite you within my own private domain by sharing a very personal piece of poetry I wrote in deepest gratitude to the friend and healer mentioned earlier in this episode. This is for Dori: I know a place where wholeness lives; where the fullness of autumn meets a thousand gentle happenings of spring. And in every moment between your becoming and unbecoming, sweet life and the possibility there dwell. I know the one who can take you there, on a winged invitation to the unmet self. Hers is the touch that illumines the ineffable and unseen. She is the painter and creator, gently weaving the formless into being. She holds and heals as only the fruit, full and ripe does. She is both giver and gift. Hers are the hands of friend, mother, ally and sister; raising the summons to alchemy, to heart and light. She gathers a harvest of blazing fire and funeral pyre, bidding you "set free then embrace" in quiet refrain. She gives ending and beginning, dimension and meaning to the infinite, perfect NOW. Her gift answers softly the call to bring us sweetly and tenderly home. Here's my seven-day challenge for you: Over the next few days, pay attention to those situations in which you notice yourself to be at the affect of others. Use what you now know to identify aspects of your life that currently fall within the definition of vulnerability and then apply your creative intelligence to knowingly shift your self into the position of an open door. Notice your reactions and attachments and also your unyielding power of unconditional love and how that love may transform every single part of your life. On a special note I'd like to share with you that one year ago today, I met the man of my dreams. Our phenomenal relationship is both an illustration and culmination of my lifetime of learning. So please join me next week as I begin a two-part podcast that reveals my own private story of finding real passion and trust for the first time in my life. Be sure not to miss out on this intimate look at success through the lens of the heart's most profound wisdom when I answer the question "How is love?" Until then, I leave you with abundant peace.
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