Archive for the ‘personal sustainability’ Category
When opposing forces come together spirals ensue
Saturday, May 19th, 2012A Month of Refusing to Live in Fear
Tuesday, May 15th, 2012
A month ago..(gee it went fast)..I made a vow to no longer have fear rule my life.
Fear is not a bad thing. It is very good to have when you are being chased by crocodiles. But to have it become the background fabric of your existence is not very useful, or healthy.
I have often thought of Victor Frankl, author of A Man’s Search for Meaning, and survivor of Auschwitz. While I simply cannot begin to comprehend the type of environmental conditions he lived under, I use his life as an example of the ability to transcend pervasive, long term fear. I am guessing people who have been diagnosed with a very serious illness may know this fear in their own way. I am daily reading Mark Nepo’s beautiful “Book of Awakening” which is a day book written as a result of a ten year cancer challenge. Such great art and poetry often comes from the depth of fear and darkness. It reminds me that beauty is found everywhere, if we but look.
What I have learned in this process over the last month, in no particular order.
*I had to catch myself in the moments of fear. This required vigilance and the ability to self observe, to be witness to my own process. A constant practice towards personal mastery in any form. And personal integrity.
*I had to find something to switch to when I became present to my fear. After trial and error, I found the right emotion and feeling. “I feel so lucky” was the switch that worked best for me. Lucky is a feeling I am cultivating.
*I found myself feeling into ‘lucky’ as a mantra. It has had an immediate affect of lifting me to a lighter place. I say it maybe a thousand times a day…on some days.
*I also examined my fear by sitting in an inquiry of what I was afraid of…
Going down this rabbit hole lead all the way to a disconnection/abandonment by God/great spirit. And of course, this is not true. Feeling lucky immediate reconnects me. As does ensuring my heart is open and not contracted. Or the simple act of watching a bird in the tree in my courtyard.
*In my daily practice I have two small but key visualisations that I use. One, to imagine a stream of golden light enter my head and fill my body, my being, my every cell, and then flow through me, a constant source of infinite supply. I love this practice as it reminds me daily that there is indeed an infinite supply. When I was walking on the beach the other day, as the sun peaked over the Pacific, I felt the infinite supply of sunlight, and all of its contribution to my aliveness. There is no scarcity. Life affirms this when we truly see it.
The other practice is to remember who I really am. During a guided meditation with energetic coach Emily Gendron, she had me meet my essential self. Given that I am a highly visual person, I can see her now. She is light, joy and beauty. And did I mention, about 10 feet tall!!! I forget the truth of who I am most of the time, so remembering as a practice is a good thing, one moment at a time. She is definitely worth remembering.
*I have been in action. Fear is a good motivator. I would prefer a different motivation. The time is now to choose that I be motivated by desire and passion, rather than by fear. This is my next level of development. To this end I am really connecting to my deepest desire of expression. Hard to find this when fear has been the constant.
I have crafted 3 keynotes speeches, and landed 3 confirmed speeches to date, but likely 5 or more. I have been going to networking functions and meeting really great people. As an introvert, it is easy for me to stay IN. But I need to get out. Intuitively I know that I need to get out a whole lot more….this is the threshold between what we know is right, and our own smallness. In our internet age it is very easy to hide behind the web/social media etc.
My work is out/it is live/it is speaking and working with groups of people. I have resisted this for a long time.
I am, slowly but surely, stepping into my purpose and path, which is to restore integrity to humanity. I forget just how important this is.
I am working on a community project around kindness and plenty.
And a few other things…massive work on the Positive Deviant web site…crafting some new products…including a series of free audio interviews with Artisans of Integrity.
I do feel that something deep has shifted. I will not allow myself to fall into the dark of fear like this again. I know how to stop it.
I feel that the world has opened to me, because I have opened to it.
I feel lucky.
Thank you so much for coming on the journey with me. I would love to hear from you of your journey.
Drop me a note. Leave a comment.
Take a Full Time Role as a Garbage Collector
Friday, May 11th, 2012
Day 21. On feeling Lucky
Wednesday, May 9th, 2012
I feel lucky, oh so lucky…the words from this very memorable song play a constant mantra in my head.
As an exercise towards my own personal mastery and personal power I looked at what I want to feel on a regular basis…not what I wanted to have, or do…but feel. I recommend this exercise.
Here is my list, sitting above my desk as I write.
Deeply valued... check
Infinitely abundant in every way…. check
Free flowing …. check
Empowered from source … check
After I completed this exercise I caught the end of an interview of someone relatively famous. She said that she wakes up every morning feeling like the luckiest person alive. Yes, I want that feeling. Exactly that feeling.
So I am cultivating the feeling of being lucky. There is a playfulness to this that I find very attractive. It has a lightness as well as a positivity. It suits my dynamic energy.
I am lucky that I have 2 legs that work, 2 arms, my heart beats, I am alive.
I am lucky that I live in Australia, with the kinds of freedoms we have.
I am so so lucky that I have an amazing incredible, beautiful daughter.
I am lucky for my friends and family, all around the world
I am lucky for having 15 mins to sit in the warm autumn sunshine while eating my lunch.
I am lucky for all the opportunity that is at my feet.
I am lucky to have you guys reading this.
I am lucky for so many things…too many to list in one day.
While I have held a daily practice of gratitude, there is something about practicing the feeling of being lucky that sits very well with my psyche.
And in the hours I am not feeling lucky, if I am alive, I can still find something to feel very lucky about…no matter how bad the circumstance.
Of course, what we feel most is what we attract… lucky works for me. I am the lucky one.
How about you? What do you most want to feel?
Day 19. Ever finer distinctions on fear, toxic waste and enchantment
Monday, May 7th, 2012
Today, a public holiday in my state, started with the “super” moon lighting me as I lay in bed. Its quite lovely to be dozing/sleeping in full moon light.
Then a walk on the beach, there in time to catch the sun rising over the Pacific. One of those perfect days, hardly a cloud, warm autumn sunshine. The king tide however seemed to have purged all the garbage we humans had so recklessly thrown. I spent much of my time collecting rubbish. Every bit of plastic made my heart hurt…for the sure knowing that this was the death of some of the sea creatures, the birds, their exquisite ecosystem.
I just couldn’t walk blindly over the bits of plastic bags and countless plastic straws, knowing they would be the death sentence for some innocent creature.
After my walk I sat in the warm sunshine and reflected on life…on how our litter, our random throw away society, is harming so much. Not just physical rubbish, but our trashy thinking, our emotional and verbal toxic thoughts.
That to be vigilant of our toxic waste as individuals is such a full time job.
New job description…..What do you do? When asked at my next cocktail function. Well, I am a full time garbage collector. Forever catching my own and others garbage and transmuting it.
And my fear….the good thing about fear is that it can be quite a motivator to action. The pattern I am recognising is that when the fear is not there, I tend to waft along…with less focus. So the next level of learning is how to keep in sharp focus out of motivated passion and aligned intent…a moving towards…versus being motivated by moving away. Quite a big distinction.
Finally, when reflecting on the my life long patterns, and the patterns of my mother and her mother, I recognised that we have been carrying the DNA of ‘life is hard’. Quite a heavy little way of being.
That to break this pattern is not so much moving away from fear, but living in enchantment. Cultivating the enchantment, the miracles, the mystery, the beauty. In all things, in how I dress, what I read, how I write.
Revised new job description….Enchanted garbage collector...I can just see me now, stepping right off the pages of Midsummer Nights Dream, with wand and faery dust, collecting all the toxic residue and turing it into light. I like it. Its whimsical, and very positive deviant. With a twist of Puck.
Are you motivated by fear, or paralyzed by it?
Day 15. Commitment to vows, giving your all, integrity
Thursday, May 3rd, 2012 
Interesting thing happened in this little time of change. I have seen more of myself, which is the point really.
I need to up my own integrity, which is no surprise…if I choose integrity as my platform, then it will be where I am most challenged.
Specifically, to do what I say. Or don’t say it. To the minutia. Big stuff like making appointments on time..this is easy. But its the little agreements with myself I am making that need a new level of rigor. It lives in language, and the language is precise. It needs to be precise. When I am working with clients on their people skills as a leader, I teach a level of precision in communication that leaves no room for error, assumption, or misunderstanding. (For an example of this see this article ) There is a time and a place for this level of precision in our own personal interior comms. “I will do this. I won’t do that. I may do this. I would like to do that but I won’t.” To tell the truth about what is true. To not do so is self deception, and we are all masters at self deception in some way.
Its time for me to do some self deception house work. To up the anti on my own little games.
In this process of commitment to vows, I am also moving from a kind of ‘poor me’ disposition, which I suspect has been sneaking in to my space over the last few years, so subtly that I have not really seen it, to a place of simply being grateful every moment, even if I don’t like the moment. Now this is a practice worth practicing. Its not the denial of the emotion, or the experience, but the recognition in the moment that I can choose how I respond. Does my energy become heavy and stinky/sucky, like a black hole, (which is the direction I sense it has been heading) or do I observe the emotion/experience, and recognise that it is not true, and refer back to what is true about who I am.
Reading a piece by Caroline Myss yesterday, she quotes. Darkness is not despair or a punishment but an invitation to withdraw from thoughts, ideas, beliefs and inner patterns that are dead in me.
Finally in this last 24 hours of self reflection, I have observed that my own voice is not very strong. When we see a great performer on stage what makes them great is that you know they have left nothing of themselves behind. They took a huge risk and brought their whole selves to the performance. This is what gets us off our feet. It doesn’t even matter so much how perfect their voice is, or if they made a mistake. It’s that they gave their all. Every last ounce.
And the audience is wanting them to do this. Willing them. We want to get on our feet. We want the goosebumps.
So in closing this little epistle, this is my question. Are you bringing your whole self to your work/your art/your life?
And if not, why not?
Be present for the miraculous
Tuesday, May 1st, 2012
Day 10 Minus Fear, Goethe, Edison and Whyte
Friday, April 27th, 2012
Day 8 Minus Fear April 25th, ANZAC day in Australia
This is one of my favourite Australian holidays. My daughter and I have for many years risen early to go to our local beach to be part of the 5.15 am dawn service, in commemoration of the landing of the Australian and New Zealand soldiers at Gallipoli in Turkey. I find the experience of remembering all the men and women who gave their lives, their limbs, their hearst for us deeply moving.
Its hard to have fear on a day like today. Or to think about my petty worries. It goes to show how easy it is to move from self to other, if we really want to.
Day 9 Minus Fear, April 26th
I was noticing a small level of fear creep in…pushed it aside with busy~ness. The day was a blur of work on my business. Finished with a great client call that definitely opened new doors.
Day 10 Minus Fear April 27th
Oh dear…started with waking at 3.30 am…not so bad because I am up at 4.30. But I woke with foreboding. That foreboding sat with me most of the morning, through my swim session, which normally shakes the blues off.
While I lay awake I thought about my fear. What exactly am I afraid of? I wanted to go deep on this. Am I afraid of being homeless? No. Being broken? No. Of what people will think? No…I write about this stuff all the time for all the world to see.
I am afraid of not being loved by God and the Universe. I am afraid that I have been forgotten. That there is something wrong with me, that I just don’t seem to get. That I have dedicated years and years of my life to this, and still have not connected the dots, or found the path. Am I a fool? Or blind? Oh ye of little faith. It always comes back, for me, to trust. And surrender.
The Book of Awakening arrived in the mail. I turned immediately to the entry for today’s date. April 27th.
Let there be light
Just trust yourself
then you will know how to live
Goethe
And then the story of Edison and the light bulb…and did he ever get discouraged with all his failures. No. Never…he kept going, knowing that the light would come. Literally.
Hmm. What do you think? The Universe sending a direct message? Pretty direct. Powerful, potent.
I was feeling like I couldn’t keep my vows for even a week. That I was again failing. And then I get a visit from Edison and Goethe. Not bad.
I was planning to spend some time in contemplation, but actually just got down to work. Moving where the flow took me. Before I knew it, I had completed most of the projects that had been hanging over my head for weeks, plus written 3 keynote speeches and sent them out, called people, and wouldn’t you know it, completely shifted my energy.
By the time I sat down for my contemplation it was late in the afternoon.
On the way, spoke with a friend in Sydney on chat…he told me straight that things were changing for me in powerful ways. He is that kind of guy, plugged in always to the larger Universe. I trusted his words. Another gift.
And my daughter sent me to a link for an internet dating site…kind of interesting, my daughter…sending me this!!…posted this on Facebook and had all kinds of comments from people I haven’t spoken to in years.
Finally ended the day supporting a friend in need. Always good to do. Helping others.
Breathing again, into life. Trusting…relaxed. Feeling supported.
This, the rollercoaster of a day.
Going to bed now with the magnificent book, Crossing the Unknown Sea, by David Whyte. Now that is pleasure.
Minus Fear 30 day challenge, what is integrous marketing?
Tuesday, April 24th, 2012
Continuing the unfolding story following my dream funeral and fear funeral (read about how this started here) to live without fear and scarcity.
Day 3 Minus fear, April 20th
Well a little fear crept in. I must confess. And the awareness of just how much I think about money or the lack of it. Crazy thoughts like “I wonder how that retired rugby player makes his money?” Gruuuu…how silly is this? Just goes to show how my scarcity thinking has become like the air I breath. Definitely needs to go.
And to counter that, I get a beautiful email from one of my newsletter readers, Joan from Oregon, Reminding me that my writing inspires her and makes her giggle. Bless you Joan, I needed that.
Day 4 Minus Fear, April 21th
Doing really well. Fear levels low. Have not had to do much switching of thinking to non scarcity thoughts.
The practice of being grateful in the moment is requiring some work to embed. I usually scan my day before I sleep and go through what I am grateful for, but to do it on the spot, in the moment, to pause and really take it in, this is taking some work.
Feeling relaxed and calm.
A girlfriend invited me to dinner where we drank lovely french bubbles, and shared a beautiful meal. I am indeed blessed. How easy it is to forget.
Day 5 Minus Fear, April 22nd
Another good day. Not really aware of fear, many of the gripping thoughts have left.
Spent the day working like a crazy women on my strategy for change. Loving being creative. It also really reinforced my belief that I can do this, I can conquer the fear as well as come out the other side with my life a true expression of the fullest of me.
I was invited to participate in an interview on a blog. Lovely. Check it out here. Dr Amit Nagpal is doing great work. Very inspiring.
Day 6 Minus Fear, April 23nd
The mantra I am working to embed in my psyche is;
“I am so happy that so much money and resources come to me for simply doing what I love.”
I am also practicing being in the feeling of…”I have to pinch myself everyday in gratitude for the amazing life I have.”
Feeling very confident, certain, plus doing a lot of work to stimulate action. This is keeping my thoughts and feelings focused on the great vision I feel and hold.
That vision is about bringing integrity back to humanity. One human at a time. Or a hundred, or a thousand.
Day 7 Minus Fear, April 24th
Still staying relaxed and calm. Amazing. Actually feel very quietly confident.
On the weekend I shared with one of my clients the dream funeral ceremony I held for myself to start this process. (Inspired by Danielle Laporte in her great book, The Firestarter Sessions) She liked it so much she has asked a group of her girlfriends to come together for a weekend and go through the whole process, with me facilitating. Very cool. It is a powerful process. (Well here I am today, nearly a week into my post dream funeral, and I have had very little fear)
I also received a very encouraging email from a subscriber in Buenos Aires about how this series is inspiring them. Thank you…deep bow. They are working on a more integral, healthy life, so I do wish you the best of luck.
As part of the original intention of my blog, and all of my work, I have held my master teacher, Bucky Fuller as the model. Bucky took a really BOLD stand. His experiment did not allow any form of what we know as ‘marketing’.
Marketing is an interesting concept. On the one hand I know that my gifts need to get out in the world, and to not have this happen doesn’t support people in making the kinds of transformations I know they can make when they work with me. On the other hand, in our society, we have become masters at marketing through spin, seduction, spell casting…preying on the needy. One of my choices in my work was not to ever resort to the kind of seductive or spin marketing that is so common these days. You know what I mean, the long long long web page, all the bonus’s and special offers, all the scarcity based material…only available for the next 24 hours…this kind of manipulation.
Sure, it works….it really works. People buy. Of course they do. They buy because the marketer is appealing to their neediness (nothing wrong with being needy, although I would prefer not to be needy myself). However, the whole model is strongly rooted in our larger economic model of scarcity. If you don’t do this now, you will miss out. And while this is often true, if I don’t say yes to life I may miss out on life….the propagation of scarcity is a really serious disease in our world. I refuse to play this way. I hate it when it is played on me. Even more so when it is done so very well that its not until a few days or weeks later that I wake up and realise I have been had.
This then raises the question, and the tension, of how to get your gifts out to the world without resorting to the spin doctoring and spell casting. Anyone out there a master at this kind of marketing…integrous marketing? Wanna play with me?
Obviously my material needs to be super fabulous. This is a great place to start. And this is what I focus on. It also has to be wanted and needed…if its not wanted then no matter how good no one will buy, or read, or spread the word. Tricky thing is that many times we don’t know what we want until we have it…think ipad. So we do have to keep being innovative, but also take feedback really well and fast. And keep moving.
Bucky also refused to play competition…if someone else was out there doing what we was doing, he withdrew and went in a different direction.
Given that I am my product, I am pretty certain there is no one else doing what I do. Not exactly. How to distinguish that has always been tricky for me. Getting clearer, but it has been one of my major stumbling blocks. Again, if this is your expertise, I am all ears…let me know.
So here I am, knowing I have something really great to offer the world, and refusing to go down the spin and spell casting route. I want people to make a fully informed, conscious decision, without any pressure of any kind. I want them to be grown up in their investment, to consider it… (I love love love the word consider…it actually means ‘examine the stars’...)
The ‘marketing’ strategy I am working on is built around speaking (let me know if you want me to speak, either live or by teleseminar, free or paid), interviewing artisans of integrity and positive deviants…putting other great people in the spotlight as well as providing a service to others…(let me know if you want to be interviewed because you believe you fit either or both categories), my blog writing….so do please spread the word, and also through social media, where my goal is connection, not just fans. I really like to meet people. I love it when you write. I love hearing your stories. I love getting to know you. I am so so so very grateful that you do read…
I am excited…I am being creative, seizing the day, totally clear about what is not just possible, but a done deal..in lag. Fear…what is fear…?? It seems to have left the building.
Would love to hear your thoughts..
photo by:
echiner1
Emerge through emergency
Thursday, April 12th, 2012
