Centering Tools

More Rules to Live By - A Guided Meditation and Journaling Empowerment Exercise

Rules from Your Center Guide and Uplift You

Yesterday in my monthly memoir writing group I was moved to offer the following journaling exercise that I wanted to share with you on considering how your unfolding life has gifted you with its own unique "Rules to Live By", and how to expand these rules to further support your ongoing healing,  empowerment and development.  We all have them, and they are intrinsic to who we are and what we are at our essence.  When we believe in our heart of hearts that the rules we live by must occur primarily through a sense of obligation, these are not really spiritual rules - they are fear-based conclusions coming from earlier woundedness and the energetic imprints they leave at our core, as well as faulty conditioning, wherever it comes from.

On that note I invite you to settle back, close your eyes, and take 10 full, deep, regular breaths.  Observe how your sense of inner space opens rhythmically inside you and spreads everywhere throughout your being.  This is your soul's quiet, clear reflective space rising to speak to you and enfold you.

The Meditation and Its Gifts

Ask your soul to communicate to you its rules to live by, and when you feel complete with this communication, easily and natrually return to full waking consciousness, open your eyes, and record all the rules your soul revealed.  Then record your impressions of all you experienced through this guided meditation.

Now review your list and write the following questions, noting the answers which emerge:

1.  What rule(s) came from innate knowing?

2.  What ruls(s) came through being supremely challenged in your life?

3.  What rule(s) seemed to come as a surprising gift?

Make a Commtiment

Feel free to journal additionally all that comes up inside you in further exploring your thoughts and feelings regarding these questions, and in relationship, to further add to and/or edit your list.  Then consider how your rules inspire and ground you to commit to complete your soul's choice for healing and development in your lifetime, and extend your journaling to express all that presents as additional insights and spiritual direction.

Which means . . . you do what, going forward?  Write down your plans, keep to your divine experiment, and continue to create light miracles in your multidimensionally cohesive, unfolding life.  Happy travels!

Transcending Impulses for Insight and Empowerment

Its a Bad Combination

I am impulsive.  I used to have hair-trigger responses that have not completely gone away despite my ever-advancing age, including a temper.  It is an odd combination with being extremely shy as a child, which also has its residuals, as well as quite sensitive; and carrying lots of old imprints of being pretty significantly traumatized, even terrorized, as well, on not one, but several key fronts that go back a long ways. 

Of course, all of these factors could well fuel impulsivity, as would playing what at times can feel like an endless waiting game, with the haunting accompanying image of standing patiently at the back of a line, expecting at some point to make my way to the front regarding whatever my individual needs are that do deserve to be met, only to discover that somehow I don't ever change my position.   And then there's the quality of passion in this mix - creative passion, physical passion, and really loving the adventure and excitement of a well-lived life.

All that being said, I do get reminded on a fairly regular basis by the universe that impulsivity does not have its uses, other than leading to addiction, entanglement and, speaking of the original translation of the word "sin" from the Hebrew, "missing the mark".  Impulsivity is an acting-out behavior reflecting anger, fear and hopelessness regarding trusting and effecting complete outcomes.

Setting the Stage for Further Complications

As I've not written a journaling entry for quite some time, I wanted to explore this common quality that does get us in a whole lot of trouble and sets the stage for even more complications than those that may already understandably exist, thus making life challenges worse.   Who among us is not impulsive?  To be completely devoid of this quality is to deny the creative passion and presence of life, but the key differences lie in impulsivity also including the elements of immaturity, impatience, entitlement and separating oneself from reflective mindfulness.

So here is my related journaling exercise for you to try to reveal and resolve impulsiveness.  Believe me, I'm trying right along with you!

A Healing Journaling Exercise to Recover Your Greater Self in 5 Key Steps

Settle back, take several deep cleansing breaths, close your eyes, and imagine that your guide, higher power, or sense of the divine joins you to answer the following questions and move you to write down all the responses which emerge:

1. List 3 memories you have of behaving impulsively.  Describe the situations involved and the outcomes.
2. Now for each situation list what you learned from it.  Consider if the learning you believe occurred stopped the particular kind of impulsive behavior going forward, and record these assessments.
3. Go back to each memory, once more settle back and take several deep, cleansing breaths, and close your eyes.  Experience each memory again, only this time, let the circumstances play out with you not behaving impulsively - instead, see yourself behaving reflectively and mindfully, while being fully, passionately present.   What happens?
4. Once more record these experiences.  Then, taking your time, read through all that you've written and record any additional insights that occur.
5. Ask yourself what you've learned through these different responses and outcomes that extend and improve your capacity to trust yourself, and become more empowered and successful in the world.  Consider three choices you can make now to express this trust in whatever aspects of your life you choose.

A New Directive to Experience a Better Partnering with Reality

Happy experimenting!  You've made a new commitment to yourself from a place of greater understanding, acknowledgment and insight, to break out of the trap of impulsivity, and change outcomes to best support your heart's desires. 

Keep me posted, and trust in your power to well enjoy your unfolding life.   You deserve it!   

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Success!

Success and Failure

What does success mean to you?  Failure?  We live in a culture that profoundly and primarily drives us to "success" and "failure".  I want to focus  in this article on clarifying what those terms mean to you, because your consciousness works with those terms, probably, every day of your life - and correspondingly directs you to respond.

Let's start by drawing a line down the center of a blank sheet of paper.  Write at the top of the left section the word, "Failure", and title the right section "Success."  Fold the paper so you only see, for the first part of this exercise, the title titled, "Failure".  Focus on this word for a few moments.  Write down whatever comes up inside of you in response to this word, "Failure" - one word or phrase to a line until you've run out of ideas.

A Profound Jouranling Exercise for Healing and Success

Now flip your paper so you can only see the right column, titled "Success".  Spend a few moments as you did above focusing on this word, "Success".  Write whatever words or phrases come up inside you, one word or phrase to a line until you've run out of ideas, in response to the title, "Success".

Now open your paper so you can see both columns.  Using the phrase "I am" or "I have", write either phrase, whichever seems to make the most sense to you, before every item on your lists, including the titles.  For example, you could write, "I have failure" , or "I have success".  Then settle back and take a few moments to read to yourself all that you have to say from accessing deeper levels of consciousness about success and failure.

Restore Your Power to Command Free Choice

Record whatever insights occur.   Now focus once more on your first list, titled, "Failure".  On a separate sheet of paper, write every item on that list including the title, as its exact opposite.  For example, using the title of that list, suppose you wrote, "I have failure".  You would convert the title to its exact opposite, which would read, "I have success".

Read down the entire converted list when you have finished, and record any insights that occur.  Now draw a big "X" down the original list titled "Failure".  You can use the new list you've just completed, and your original list titled "Success" for a tremendously targeted list of powerful affirmations to initiate and extend your innate power to create your chose reality; and support and reinforce yourself going forward.

It's All About Your Freedom to Be - And Accept

Consider that what you have drawn an "X" through on the first list is simply a list of faulty belief systems, and you could write that phrase at the top of that list above you word, "Failure".  Consider a s well that you have just created a supreme template going forward to define and dictate right direction for you to go forward in the way that best brings you what you want and need in your life, in order to continue to heal and evolve. 

There are no failures - only challenges to extend to right completion.  Happy landings . . . and all blessings in the spirit of organic unfolding . . . rmeember, where you are is only a relection of being .

10 Top Tips for Assertive Success!

Free Yourself from Being A Grown-up "Good Little Girl"

Assertiveness is a well-worn word in our culture, but still a goal that many people struggle with.  I do a lot of assertiveness training in my practice, which continues to involve a lot of women clients. 

It is also well-known, and for a very long time, that women were not, until fairly recently, given training or permission to be assertive.  Instead, women have, for many millenia actually, been hugely conditioned to be "good little girls" . . . for life.

Be Good to Yourself

So here is my crash course on assertiveness, especially dedicated to all you grown-up good little girls out there who now need to be good to yourself, and free yourself and your powerful voice to Speak Up.

10 Ways to ASSERT YOURSELF

1.  Give direct eye contact

2.  Use the word "I" or "me" when you speak - "I think", I feel", "for me it's this way", etc.

3.  Let go of expectation

4.  Let go of looking to fix anyone else on any level

5.  Let go of looking for anyone else to fix you on any level

6.  Take at least 5 full, deep breaths before you open your mouth

7.  Don't speak out of obligation

8.  Don't justify how you feel

9.  Speak from a central awareness of being true to yourself

10. Tell yourself before you speak you'll survive the exchange and life will go on

Our Inalienable Right to Speak

We are entitled to our thoughts and feelings.  It is our inalienable right to freely express ourselves and to be heard, and listened to attentively. 

Whether someone else has an opinion about what we say does not change our right to speak, nor does anyone else have the right to presume how we think and feel.  Assertiveness is an integrated way to accept and love yourself unconditionally, empower yourself, and put yourself on an equal footing with all other human beings.

So . . . . whaddya got to lose?  Speak up . . . . and keep breathin'!

Healing the Wound of Discard

A Client's Story

Yesterday I received an email from a longstanding client who has done some amazing healing  and empowering work that continues to transform her life.  She generously gave me permission to include her wonderful story in this blog article, which I feel "touches, teaches and passes on " a central healing challenge.  Here is her story, with my comments following (she asks to remain anonymous):

Today I met a man at the library.  We were both looking through the reference section for old fashioned illustrations and woodcuts.  He was looking for drawings of children and I was looking for drawings of tools.  I had gathered five large books and had them spread out before me. 

He had an ivy cap on, and a scarf and coat.  He had pale skin, bright blue eyes and large ears, and appeared to be in his 80's.  He was walking past me and then he stopped and said "Are you an artist?"

I said, "Yes".  He had a thick Russian accent.  It took my brain a couple seconds to distinguish some of his words because of the way he pronounced certain things.  So I found myself really looking into his eyes and paying attention to his gestures to help me discern what he was saying.

"Did you go to school for the art?"  "Yes", I said.  "You have a degree?", he queried.  "What is this for?", I asked.  "I am looking for a picture to scan in.  Of an anvil.  For my father."

"Oh. And you have a degree? Four years?"

"Yes," I answered.  He explained how he had taken a drawing class, and began to pull out his drawing pad, which was nestled inside a slim plastic case with other things.  It was well-used.  He opened it up and showed me a couple of the drawings.  They were of children's faces, all portraits.

He stopped at one, of a young African-American girl.  He said it took him fifteen minutes to draw.  The line work was light and soft and yet there was dimension to the face.  There was no outline, just slight feathery marks.  The eyes were captured in delicate marks and implied, not forced.  The strokes to indicate shadow were so soft and delicate, but at the same time intentional.   There was not a single mark on that piece of paper that wasn't necessary.

He said, "These are supposed to be the golden years.  But I feel ... discarded."

He mentioned that he comes to the library on Saturdays and Sundays and that if I would like, "Nothing planned, not important...just...if you would like, I could draw you.  Here. I might be here at 1 on Sundays, or Saturdays too.  I sit in the far corner where the light is good.  I like that area near the windows.  Not important but if you are here....who knows?"

He stuck out his hand, I asked his name and he said "________" in his thick accent, and I told him my name was _______ and we shook.  Then he disappeared.

I thought about the word DISCARDED afterwards.  I felt very sorry for him when he said that.

And I thought about the fact that I feel a lot of things in my daily life, and in my struggles, the one thing I have NEVER felt was discarded. 

He didn't seem sad about feeling discarded.  He merely stated it as fact.  And moved on.

His drawings, his eyes, his slow way of talking, and observations about art, all moved me.  He was able to distill his life into simple terms, and yet ... his life, to me, seems more meaningful and true than so much of the clutter and waste that I see around me.

A Central Wound

A fate worse than death, truly, to be discarded.  That is what the Nazis did with Holocaust victims.  In our culture we do, in many extensive ways, discard the elderly.  Within our own self as our ego's attempt to hide our central wound of not being enough, we discard ourselves.  We discard whoever we want to distance ourselves from to shield ourselves from conditioned or anticipated pain.

The antidote, of course, is to face - to accept fully and unconditionally what is real. 

A Meditative Journaling Exercise

Settle back comfortably in a relaxed position, eyes closed, and take several full, deep breaths.  Now imagine how easily you can ask your higher self to appear before you.  As you have a sense that this is happening, ask your higher self to show you any parts of you, your life, your present, your hopes, and what you truly care about that has been discarded.

As your higher self responds, take note within your own attentive imagination.  When you feel complete with this exercise, open your eyes and record your experience.

The Healing Challenge

. . . is to take back what you have sacrificed - discarded.  You can do this so easily by simply reviewing the list you have made, and choosing again what your heart asks you to keep.  It is a call to wholeness, to recovery.

Remember - you're so much, much more than you ever think you are.  And as we think, so, as James Allen says in his classic book As A Man Thinketh, shall we be.     

Yes, Virginia, There Are Limits

The Use of Limits

My mother would frequently say the following to me, "Once you set your mind to do something, there's no limit to what you can acheive".  She meant it as a compliment, and yet, it never quite set well with me. 

Through some related crises, I think I'm finally realizing why.  There actually are limits, and they are, I think, best meant to evolve and expand  in a most supportive way oneself and the reality one experiences, through freeing consciousness.  What do I mean by that?

The Best Discernment for Personal Power

I'm talking about developing our capacity to discern, and, as we improve that capacity, to  gain increasing insight, mindfulness, freedom to make wise choices, and most importantly, increase empowerment and what native Americans call "right relations" with ourselves and the environments we experience.  Here are three life-changing  tips to determine limits that best develop greater discernment, awareness and empowerment:

1.  Settle back in a relaxed position, close your eyes, and imagine how easily you can ask your  higher self for best guidelines to protect, empower and free you.  When you feel complete, and after several moments of inner listening, record your experience - and date it.  Check-in with yourself from time to time regarding this advice with the actual experiences you've had, to see how your higher self successfully "coached" you.

2.  Set a limit on apologizing.  Only say you're sorry after you consider and determine, from a place of reflection  and mindfulness,  that you understand you "missed the mark" (the real definition of the Hebrew root of the word "sin").  as an additional check, consider times you have apologized if the real message you communicated was being sorry for your existence.

3.  The next time you have any sense, when being asked to do anything, of feeling obligated, be sure to say "No", and STICK TO IT NO MATTER WHAT.

Accept Boundaries as Part of the Great Spiritual Paradox

We all have boundaries.  We none of us go on forever, whether with the space we occupy or the time we experience.  Of course, boundaries exist not in a vacuum, but in a paradox of unconditional love as the expression of being fully, endlessly present.

I think that's the winning combination.  So let's hear it for developing limits, so as to receive their miraculous gifts of developing wholeness!

Muster Up Your Courage and Ditch Perfection

Can You Give It Up?

It just ain't gonna happen.  Perfection, that is. 

How much time per day would you guestimate you spend obsessing about yours or someone else's lack of perfection?  Hate to break it to you, folks, but you'd be better off cleaning your bathroom, paying your most expensive bills, settling a thirty-year fight with your mother-in-law . . . get my drift? 

The Abusive Results of Our Perfectionistic Culture

Put your energy into your most dreaded or distasteful task and at least it will produce an improved result - whereas trying to be perfect - well, listen up now...it ain't gonna happen.  Hate to repeat myself, but why should this blog article be any different than my usual conversational style, as many of you know?

We live in a perfectionistic culture, and it produces extremely abusive results, the most important of which is spiritually robbing us of our ability to be fully present - which translates out to be robbing us of our spirit.  So ask yourself this question:  What would it take for me to stop demanding the impossible of myself and everybody else, and accept all our equal imperfections... unconditionally?

A Meditation That Will Change Your Life

Please settle back, close your eyes, deepen your breath, move ever so easily into an equally deeper meditative state, and bring that question with you.  Now listen closely to hear the response.

When you've received it, say, "thank you", just as unconditionally, and open your eyes.  Record your experience.

Can You Keep Your Promise?

My final question is to ask yourself what it would take for you to carry out your own intuitive directive in this new year.  I promise you it will revolutionize your life and open the door for many loving miracles and divine successes to come your way.

Keep me posted - and yourself !  Light the way, and your heart - and others - will follow. 

Rules to Live By for a Happy, Healthy 2008

Taking Stock in the Midst of Crises

Happy, healthy new year!  2008 promises to be a significant year, with the upcoming presidential election and much, much more. 

On an individual level, I find myself once again "taking stock" in the midst of some family crises which I don't see "re-solutions" for at the moment.  I do see how they have spurred me on in a whole other way to think about partnership and Rules to Live By.

How to Live Your Life

I am very lucky to have a tremendously loving, equally emotionally mature, spiritual partner with whom I live.  She happens to be my youngest child, 15 going on about 500-plus in how evolved she is.  I found myself feeling tremendously moved today as we were (where else?) refueling ourselves after browsing around Barnes & Noble with a Starbucks, as I call it, to ask her what her Rules to Live By are.

Of course she was confused - a good state to be in, according to my Rules, because at least confusion allows one to be open to all presentations, thoughts, and feelings.  I explained what I really wanted to know was how she lived her life.  Her face brightened, and as she began talking, I began scribbling notes.  My face brightened to, as, for the umpteenth time, I wondered how it was that I birthed this shining light in the world.

Without further ado, here they are, for your "re-solution" pleasure, and all my heartfelt wishes for peace, happiness and fulfillment in the new year:

Her Rules

1.   Always be yourself

2. Do what you want to do in life

3.  Find people you have things in common with, and share and have fun with them

4.  Accept people for who they are

5.  Treat people with love, kindness and respect

6.  Have and show empathy to other people

7.  We are responsible to help the world - decide how you want to help, and do it

8.  The test of having a good friend is how well they unconditionally listen to and accept your feelings

9.  Different parts of responsibility come with age - look to not choose stupidly or dangerously

10. Create your dream with joy

To pass along the note I found a week after my husband died, in his handwriting:

En-Joy Life

I think Her Rules offer the foundation to manifest that directive.  Happy experimenting - fruitful results, and much, much love and light to open the way this year and all years.   

Cycle of Completion

Making Sense Out of Year's End

We are coming to the end of our annual 365-day cycle in a few short weeks amidst our great holiday flurry, meant and pushed in many culturally-driven ways to complete whatever, for us, meaningfully constitutes this year.  I saw a client around this time years ago who uncovered what I was moved to title "a terror of completion".

I don't think we do completion well in our culture.  Perhaps we associate it with death, which, we fear, might just mean total annihilation.  This core fear drives us to addictions of all kinds, as well as greed, which continues to explode in our world and, saddest of all, sanctioned violence - for "it's never enough".

The Central Challenge to the Terrible Well of Societal Paranoia

Completion centrally challenges that terrible well of paranoia that continues to poison our society, for the truth of the matter is, completion is enough, end, finish . . . the period at the end of the sentence - the book that closes.  I see this as a central challenge to accept, which happens to be the end stage of grief.

Acceptance can only occur from a center of trust.  When we are wounded, trust blows apart, and we are driven spiritually, emotionally, mentally, and physically to become Humpty Dumpty, forced to endure, in all corresponding pain, the useless phases of the tale:

We Become Humpty Dumpty

"Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall" - the "wall"  can represent our karma, our woundedness from childhood, our ego . . .

"Humpty Dumpty had a great fall" - the "fall" in spiritual terms at its greatest level represents the Fall from Grace and all that it implies and produces, like the story of the Garden of Eden in the Bible . . .

"All the king's horses and all the king's men/Couldn't put Humpty together again" - we strive mightily to "put ourselves back together" the way we were and presented ourselves before our Fall, but it is not possible.  What is possible is to "rise to the occasion" presented by this crisis, however it translates in your life, to face the challenge to accept what has happened, and let the completion of the cycle of grief bring its own healing and resolution.

Transcendence through the Soul's Challenge for Healing and Development

It's interesting to note that we are so conditioned to make New Year's resolutions.  Can you consider wrapping up your year as if you were Humpty Dumpty, who embraces the "P.S." after the end of the nursery rhyme as a soul challenge to accept, in order to experience core healing and development?

What would your review of this year look like in those terms?  This kind of review becomes a most courageous journey which does not lead us to a dead end - quite the opposite.  We can never predict what our "re-solution" will be, which forces us to integratively trust.

As trust returns, so can we recover our freedom to be fully present to begin a new cycle from a place of wholeness, clarity and spiritual power, seeing all others in the same light, with the same potential - and yet, expecting nothing.  I offer a poem I wrote many years ago to speed you on this journey, with my heartfelt wish for you to receive a full, amazing, miraculous journey of completion through this holiday season.

(Note:  This poem is part of a unique collection of poems titled Willing To Be Led Toward Your Heart, just published and available for purchase in hard copy and as an ebook in the Products section of my web site under the following link: http://www.centeringtools.com/tempcdsales.html)   

The Last Great Journey

They say the last great journey

Is the one into your own consciousness

To give the gift to Your Self and Others

Is to ride that wave courageously

Surrendering tiny light

Into great darkness

Finding new light once again

In the shimmering fabric of your soul

Your tall laughing Soul

Your great emerged Self

As Beggar

Transformer

Singer of story songs

You can rest at long last

Giving thanks

As I do to You

For all the light You’ve given me

Godspeed in these holy-daze

Know Your Self

Be Your Self

Breathing Through

Busy dreams

Busy, busy - lots of exciting things for me, which professionally involves creating more audios and writings - always exciting and wonderful.  Also at this particular time of year, of course, lots of family get togethers, which are so meaningful and important to me. 

All but one of my four children are out of town, and all but the oldest were here celebrating a pretty low-key and very wonderful Thanksgiving.  Holiday season now is in full swing, and the culmination of a lot of dreams I've had involving my work which are just now coming to fruition. 

How to "Get Off the Bandwagon" and Breathe

I'm pretty much always busy, and have had, over these past several years, to "take myself in hand" to not be overrun by all I want to do in my life that I care so centrally and passionately about - family, work, travel, many hobbies.  I suppose that's why I never tire of teaching meditation and other self-help reflective exercises that have been such a crucial help for me to "get off the bandwagon" and breathe. 

One of the quick ways I decompressed over the Thanksgiving holiday, after returning from several short but intense trips the previous month with my grown children in Boston and New York, was to read an interview in an older issue of Parabola with Thich Nhat Hanah, the Vietnamese Buddhist spiritual master renowned throughout the world.  He spoke about the necessity of having a space to breathe - literally.

Here is a special breathing meditative exercise to establish and keep breathing space as your best gift to yourself this holiday season.  Remember, we can only give to others what we possess - so enjoy creating and expanding your special place to BE. 

You Can Create Breathing Space to Heal and Balance this Holiday Season

1.  Look around your living space.  Pick a room, even a corner, as your "space to breathe".  Clean it, clear it, and decorate it simply (a picture, a favorite object, include color(s) that you feel calm and supported around).  Check to be sure you can place yourself very comfortably in this space.

2.  So here you are for five or more minutes.  Settle back, make sure you will not be disturbed, close your eyes and focus your attention on your breath.  Count to yourself slowly ten full, deep, regular breaths. 

3.  For these next several breaths, each time you inhale, say to yourself the word "Breathe", and each time you exhale, say to yourself the word "Space".  When you're ready, slowly open your eyes.  How do you feel?          

Job's Miracles Revisited

Remembering the Parable

I found myself moved, in a session with a wonderful, long-standing client today, to retell the story of Job.  It was a struggle for my already way-overstocked memory, for it's been a very long time since I read this parable in the New Testament. 

I further remembered, once I began digging for my memories, how this story had been required reading during my senior year of high school for my English class.  I must admit, I still see the teacher as if, as the saying goes, "it were yesterday" (would that were the case - and of course, I wouldn't go back to those days for a million dollars).  She was in her first year of teaching, and she so strongly showed a level of intensity, caring and commitment to teach, that beautifully stoked my philosophical and spiritual fires long before I knew I had any.

The Mystery of Acceptance

If we find our way to being a truly Good Little Boy or Girl and grow up to become a Good Big Man or Woman, "in-your-face" reminders, through the story of Job, dictate that our "god" - our indestructible, spiritually knowing divine Self - can still, for His or Her own higher purposes, take it all away from us.  We are left deaf, dumb and blind - cast into the purifying fires of a tidal wave of grief - where we experience, each in our own unique way, its predictable stages:  denial, bargaining, anger, helplessness/hopelessness, and acceptance.

The mystery of acceptance in the fires of full-bodied destruction of all that one holds near and dear is a baffling one indeed.  It yields its own miracles of restoration, peace, and even greater gifts than the ones we have lost, promises the "happy ending" of the story - BUT it is for us to rightly interpret and understand all of that through the unfolding, synchronistic adventures of our lives.

The Indominable Force of Our Great Spirits

The story of Job is a story of how easy it is for Larger Forces, wherever they hugely come from, to shatter us and our associated world.  It reminds us just how fragile, how puny we are.  And it banks, even more hugely trusts, in the indominable force of our Great Spirits. 

It is, even further, a story that defines the many dimensions - the winding, irregular course - of emerging faith and trust through great betrayal.  Who has not, during that course that defines a well-lived life, experienced such a story?

The Uncharted Journey of the Shattered Heart

As we have experienced our own corresponding journeys, have we found our way to that miracle the story promises?  This is an uncharted journey of the shattered heart, which rebirths a newly strong soul to, in turn, resurrect us and all we deserve to have and be in our lives.

Like the quilts the pioneer women wove with every worn scrap of cloth, our hearts proudly bear the imprint of all our wounds, knowing where and how they rightly fit in our lives.  Perhaps that is the definition of faith, acknowledgment, even ownership.  It seems empowerment is simply a reflection of our own deepest, most reality-based spiritual definition of Who We Are and What We Are and How We Be in the world, after all.

The Real Bomb

The Real Cost

My daughter emailed me this poem she wrote for her high school English class assignment.  It set off a torrent of emotion within me.  Here it is:

Growing Up

we used to have more fun

playing games and laughing

and feeling freer to be ourselves

having not a care about what the world thought of us

we would do as we pleased and feel happy with the simple things in life.

now we are too busy for something as simple as fun

or feeling free

because we are always trying to prove to the world

that we can be exactly what they want us to be:

the only thing we are not.

Is This Progress?

In no particular order, these are my corresponding thoughts as antidotes to this central mortal wound that is the schism of our times:

1.  We have nothing to prove.

2.  The most satisfying life is a simple life that comes from being present.

3.  We have the power to free ourselves.

4.  We  can only free ourselves by becoming authentic from a place of integrity and acceptance.

5.   When we lose the power to laugh in our lives - experience joy and delight - we've lost ourselves.

How Long?

How long will we accept living at the cost of denying ourselves?  We have only to look at the state of the world to see the terrible, tragic cost we pay when we let go of the above five truths.

Of course the world seduces us to just that with a delusional promise that when we do the opposite, we will survive and be protected.  Instead we experience "dis-ease", with all its resultant pain.

Give back to Yourself . . .

Your Self.

Your power to choose.

Come "Of Age" . . .

And really, truly Grow Up.

Can we create an integrated story of personal power and transformation beyond Peter Pan?  In my fantasy version, we grow UP - evolving to be and unabashedly show ourselves in the world as who we are and what we are, taking a stand for ourselves and all others whose paths we cross, as we are moved to respond.

Response-ability

Notice the break-down ot this word associated with becoming an adult.  No proving here, no spiritual schism.  Just the ability to respond.

That is my preholiday-wish for you as we move to wrap up this pivotal year that begs for widespread change . . . for the better.  It's all really, really up to us.

Children know - couldn't be plainer - was the central thought of my "torrent of emotion" when I read her poem.

I think we do, too.

The Power of Journaling

Get Serious Through Journaling

September is such a significant month.  It is the dividing line between the quarter of Summer and The Rest of the Year.  We "take a fall" into Fall as the weather begins to turn away from the full bloom of summer to Get Serious.

School restarts, and we are moved to initiate, with an eye toward bringing to fruition, our goals.  In centering, self-healing and empowerment terms I can think of no better time to initiate your own journaling practice for maximum benefits.

Journaling Transforms Lives

The ancient art of entering and staying in a reflective creative space for no other reason than to attentively and unconditionally listen to any part of yourself that is moved to speak to you about anything at all has, in the past couple of decades, been indicated more and more through body-mind research to initiate and extend innate healing responses.  Examples have included improved recovery of many chronic and life-threatening diseases, including cancer, heart disease and post-traumatic stress syndrome.

In my Centering practice I have seen significant transformation occur in many clients who journal, resulting in experiencing key insights, empowered choice-making and central resolution in their lives.  Here are the guidelines I recommend:

Simple Techniques for Healing and Empowerment

1.  Journal every day.

2.  Keep it - meaning your expectations and your requirements of yourself for journaling - short and simple - write for a minimum of 5 minutes, and include how you feel.

3.  Draw.  I mean it.  Drawing is not just for designated artists, children or architects.  Remember our earliest languages were pictures.  Also remember the saying, "A picture is worth a thousand words"?  Draw diagrams, stick figures, or whatever shows beyond your judgment how you feel.

4.  Record any snippets of dreams you remember.

5.  If you want extra guidelines, adopt my "fill in the blank" list, completing any or all of the following sentences:

I need

I wish

I'm scared

If only

In my heart of hearts I think

If I could let go of ____________ I would

How Journaling Profoundly Improves Self-Esteem

Here are the life-transforming messages your subconsious receives from consistent journaling with these essential guidelines:

I'm worth writing about and committing to.

I accept myself unconditionally.

I am completely open and honest with myself.

I listen to myself with respect and attentiveness.

It is not necessary for me to always know what to do - it is enough to simply express myself.

What powerful affirmations we've just created!

Of course, for my final, very serious, "welcome to autumn" empowerment recommendations, I can't help inviting you to read the above five italicized sentences while looking at yourself in a mirror every day.  See what kind of miracles you can create!

Happy landings, and please tell me all about your adventures.  Better yet, tell yourself...every day.

 

Rites of Passage

A Full-Blown Rite of Passage

Tomorrow I take my 24 year-old daughter to NYC where she will begin life, post-grad school completion, as a full-fledged, independent adult.  She will move into her first apartment, as well as, for the first time, not be attending school since beginning kindergarten.

This is a full-blown rite of passage.  It strikes me that, beyond growing up, we undergo many rites of passage.  There are the ones we are conditioned to expect, which some of us never experience, like getting married and having children; and others we are perhaps conditioned not to expect but nonetheless happen anyway, like losing a job, divorcing, becoming handicapped, becoming successful, completing changing your worldview.

Major Maturational Leaps

I was reminded this week in my work with clients how helpful it is to identify life crises as rites of passage and then explore understanding the characteristics of  a rite of passage.  This allows much more realistic yet expansive capacity to then adjust one's expectations. 

Rites of passage represent major maturational leaps, and, as such, require restructuring dreams, conditioning, and courses of action.  Rites of passage take us into the stages of grief as well, which are denial, bargaining, anger, hopelessness and acceptance. 

How to Successfully Transition

This is, in fact, the therapeutic and developmental bridge which  allows us to successfully transition from one "world" we inhabit to the next, becoming a more whole, developed person through the transition.  On that note, I have a few suggestions for you to explore:

1.  Assume, as if it were an experiment, that whatever you presently find most challenging in your life is a rite of passage.  Describe the challenge in those terms.

2.  Imagine you can successfully change to meet the challenge.  See yourself as different, and describe that person in as much detail as you possibly can.

3.  Now imagine you can see the new world in which you as that new person can exist to resolve the challenge in a way that promotes wholeness.  Draw a picture or diagram of that new world and place yourself in it.

Review how you have completed  these steps, and record your insights afterward.  How are you moved to commit to initiating these changes?

Opportunities for Healing and Spiritual Completion

Rites of passage are how we organically progress.  They offer catalytical healing opportunities and spiritual completion for greater acceptance and empowerment.   

It is interesting, finally, to note that this time of year, traditionally the start of a new school year, is commonly viewed as a rite of passage.  I guess we none of us ever really leave the spirit and deeper directives of this "school" after all.