Are you self-full?

Woman in Center: Russian Painting, Artist unknown

At an Enneagram presentation a year or so ago, a question came up about being selfish.

Selfish is such a buzzword–especially for those of us who grew up as women in this culture, over the age of 30 or so…

We were taught that to be selfish–to be concerned about ourselves–was wrong. Our presence was valued when we were selfless–when our concern was for others.

Of course, this has not been true for most men. Men who focus on themselves and who talk about their accomplishments are most often seen as successful and strong.

Well, this woman shared a distinction she had heard, which I have been considering and sharing with my clients ever since.

Instead of worrying about what it means to be selfish, let’s consider being self-full.

Self-full. We can’t be self-full when we are being self-less!

We can’t develop the fullness of our voice and presence if we feel it’s wrong to be concerned with ourselves. (Thank us, women of the #metoo movement, for daring to share our voices.)

All the heroines and heros of our time have modeled being self-full, not self-less.

They knew what they valued and loved. They knew what they needed–and they acted on it for themselves and for their greater communities.

We have to fill our own wells so we have water to share with others. This creates a self that is full, that over-brims with the water of life for all. This is being self-full, not self-less, or selfish!

In my free 5-day Practice Presence for Life Journey that’s just finishing up, we focus on making our everyday actions into meaningful, sacred ritual. This is a practice of becoming more self-full, which enables us to be more present. From this place, we meet the world with greater presence, which means we are more able to show up with what’s needed in the moment: more grace, strength, ease, equanimity, joy, power, love, etc.

My primary Enneagram teacher, Russ Hudson, once responded to a question from one of the Christian students about presence by saying “Whose Presence do you think it is, anyway?”

How do you fill your well to be self-full?

What does self-less look like in your life?

If you’d like some solid support in filling your well and becoming powerfully self-full, The SHE School offers a kindred community of women to support you in making daily rituals, monthly yoga & meditation classes, radical self-love, and spiritual practice non-negotiable in 2018.

I participated in 2012 and have been a mentor in The SHE School ever since. Because I believe in this work, I am an Ambassador, so if you register through my link, I get a reward, too. 🙂

The SHE School starts February 1st, so sign up soon if you want to give yourself this beautiful gift and become more self-full!

Do Two Halves Make a Whole?

Apple pie and cheddar cheese.

Fear and courage.

Hungry and satisfied.

Independent and dependent.

Grief and compassion.

Utter lostness and presence.

Single and partnered.

Strength and helplessness.

Female and male.

Dualities. Opposites. Two halves of a whole.

I name them, breathe them, own them.

They are part of our human experience.

Without one, the other does not arise.

Often in relationship we see this clearly. If I hold down the pole of the kids keeping their room clean, you will hold down the opposite one—the kids should do what they want. If I say I want to work all day, you say, we’d better give ourselves enough time to rest and do other things…

It’s like we are covering the full spectrum of life in these dualities.

One complements the other. How could I really feel satisfied if I never felt hungry? Without being lost, how would I feel my presence? How could I really enjoy my apple pie for breakfast without a good hunk of cheddar cheese? 😊 (Thanks, mom!)

Diamond Approach teacher AH Almaas takes it a step further and says that the qualities of our Essence arise as needed.

It’s not that we just don’t feel the pole without its opposite. An Essential Quality like Compassion has no need to arise unless a state of suffering like grief or fear or shame calls for it. Strength only arises when needed—when I’m feeling helpless, weak, unconfident, etc.

One is not “good” and the other “bad.”

That’s just another duality—each side of the equation keeping the other alive…

The old saying “Two halves make a whole” has some relevance here.

My mom used to emphasize that in relationship, that saying is not true—if we come to each other as halves, we won’t find wholeness. We each need to be whole in ourselves first.

This also applies in looking at life through the lens of duality. If I get caught up in juxtaposing the halves, the good-bad, strong-weak, independent-dependent, happy-sad, etc., I am not living into the wholeness that is possible.

Holding each pole of the duality, welcoming it, getting to know it, and not grasping, but opening ourselves (heart, body, and mind) allows something new, fresh, and essential to arise.

How do you work with duality in your life?

Dave & I are teaching a full-day workshop about this:

And I will be teaching a 4-week series on Forgiveness, which I have found is a HUGE part of being able to open to the innate wholeness, too:

Unfolding the Heart: The Journey of Forgiveness

We hope you will join us!

Building Temples of Forgiveness

This is the final post in a 3-part series on Unfolding the Heart.
Find the first post here.

Let’s take this a little deeper.

Let’s look for the innocence.

This was a hard one for me in the forgiveness work I’ve been engaged in over the past year.

To protect others and not cause more harm, I’ll give you the general outlines to describe what I’ve been working with:

I worked for a spiritual organization for 14 years and when I decided to leave due to integrity issues last year, they didn’t pay me the $5,800 in back vacation pay and consulting fees they owed me. They said they only way I could be paid was to sign away that 14 years of my life—to never publicly claim I had worked there. And to top it off, they still won’t talk with me and tell me why. I went from being the most valued employee to this.***

For the first half-year, all I could do was suffer.

I judged them as wrong and bad and lived in fear.
I went over and over the situation in my mind to try to make sense of it and see my part, learn my lessons…
I mostly saw their guilt and wrongdoing. 😦

Then I found some work to help me with the F-Word, forgiveness.

And I saw how I was keeping my own suffering going by splitting off and separating myself from them:

I was good one, the wronged-one, the victim.
They were the bad ones, the wrong-ers, the perpetrators.
End. Of. Story.

As you can imagine, this view was not helping me find freedom or a way to move forward in my life!

So I decided to look for their innocence—and I found it.

I saw how they were not doing this to me on purpose. They were living out their own separation and splitting, their own fear, their own attempt to be happy. I just happened to be affected by the wake of their huge ocean waves.

When I looked deeper, I could imagine the suffering underneath their actions, what might be causing them to treat me this way…

And over time, my heart unfolded, becoming bigger and wider and more available to Love.

Do I agree with their actions? No.

But I no longer judge them as bad or wrong because I can see underneath the rocky waves to the ocean of Oneness that connects us:

the ocean of innocence,
the ocean of groundlessness,
the ocean of Love.

And I invite you to do the same.

Whether you are working with forgiving yourself or an “other,” you can always look for the innocence underneath the actions.

You can see that underneath it all, there is an innocent, small childlike place that is just trying to be happy, to feel OK, even to survive.

We can’t force anything. We can’t force our hearts or the heart of the “other” to unfold. It has its own timing and process of growth.

But we can look for the innocence. And notice how our body, heart, and mind respond.

Make this practice your own. Forgiveness is usually a long process, and it can’t be rushed.

I found that I needed to fully feel my own suffering before I was willing to see their suffering and innocence.

And after that, I needed to keep turning my perspective toward innocence, toward a willingness to see with fresh eyes. Every time the feeling of being wronged arose, I tried to reorient to the Oneness with an intention or prayer.

May I see their innocence.
Open my mind to a deeper truth.
I am willing to see Love. Show me.

I let my heart yearn for this opening.

Research shows that those who practice forgiveness—and it is a lifelong practice—are healthier and happier.

In one Stanford University experiment, people reported fewer backaches, headaches, muscle pains, stomach upsets, and other common physical signs of stress. They also reported higher levels of optimism, hope, and self-confidence.

In a study at University College of London, they found that those who didn’t practice forgiveness suffer from a 55% higher risk of serious heart disease.

The negative emotions of injustice, anger, bitterness, vengeance, unfairness, and more cause biochemical changes in your body that damage your physical health.

And setting the physical health risks aside, who wants to live in the constant state of negativity that unforgiveness creates?

Contrary to popular belief, we are not stuck here just because something “bad” happened that we had little or no control over. We have a choice—a choice to do our own work and practice forgiveness, over and over and over again.

Forgiveness is an act of the heart, a movement to let go of the pain, the resentment, the outrage.

And as Buddhist teacher Jack Kornfield says so simply: Letting go begins with letting be.

That’s why the first step is to stay with our suffering—we let it be, we acknowledge it, we allow it, without judging, but with gentle holding and compassion. (You can read more on that in the 2nd part of this series.)

By opening to the pain we are trying to push away, we clear a space for something new, fresh, and alive to awaken in our hearts, for a return to Love.

Forgiveness is about accepting what happened (letting it be) and finding a way to release it so that you can live now, regardless of what happened in the past.

It’s about releasing the attempt to control the outcome and letting your heart and your life unfold in the present.
It’s about allowing healing without knowing or controlling how that will happen or look.
It’s a return to an open body, heart, and mind, softened by the healing power of Love.

One last practice, this one from Rob Eller-Isaacs, one of our ministers at Unity Church Unitarian in St. Paul, Minnesota.

I invite you to close your eyes again and bring your grievance to mind, heart, and body once more.

Think about it, and then sense and feel how it affects you.
Let these things be as they are, without trying to change them, opening to the truth of your feelings and sensations in the moment.
If you have a sense of your or the other’s innocence, bring that to body, heart, and mind—if not, no worries.

Now place one hand on your Heart Center and one on your Belly Center, below your belly button. Let them be kind, loving, allowing hands. Accepting you just as you are, like a loving mother would.

And repeat silently:

I forgive myself.
I forgive you. (Perhaps this is said to a part of yourself.)
We begin again in Love.
[Repeat this 3x]

And say it once outloud as if we were saying it all together, to feel the solidarity and possibility in this common intention for our lives:

I forgive myself.
I forgive you.
We begin again in Love.

I end with a quote from Jack Kornfield that encourages us to take on the sacred work of forgiveness:

If only we could help each other build temples of forgiveness
instead of prisons. We can. In our own hearts.

** Jack Kornfield quotes from The Art of Forgiveness, Lovingkindness, and Peace

*** Note: On August 8th, 2017, I received financial payment in full without having to sign my affiliation away, after over a year of spiritual work on my own. (With support of friends and teachers!) It happened after I had fully released any expectation of payment and had focused on my own work and ways I could make amends.

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Beyond Rightdoing and Wrongdoing

This is the 2nd of a 3-part series. Read the first.
Or listen to the full talk.

Just choose Love over Fear!

Love forgives. Fear blames and holds grudges.

Not so fast.

This may be true. In fact, I know it is, but for most of us it’s not that simple. The truth is:

Love is able to hold the deeper view of non-separation,
so there is no-one to blame and hold a grudge against.

Our ego personality can’t see this. We see ourselves as separate beings that things are done to.

The separate being of me does something to the separate being of you that causes harm in some way.
Or vice versa.

But what if this view is a wrong-minded perception as A Course in Miracles would say?

What if it’s really true that at our core, all is One, as all faith traditions I’ve come across affirm.

It’s true that this Oneness is housed in separate bodies. There’s no denying that we look different on the outside.

But the core of reality is consistently described as a Oneness from which all things arise.

The metaphor of the ocean helps me understand this.

I think we can pretty easily see how the water in the ocean is one water, right?
And yet the waves take many different forms.
And drops of water take shapes, too—droplets, spray, some bigger or smaller…
And the bottom of the ocean might be completely still and calm while a storm is raging above.
It’s all the same ocean, all the same water… all the same Oneness.

If we accept this as true, then when our separate egos do things that consciously or unconsciously cause harm, what are we harming?

Our ego personalities? They are part of the Oneness, too.

Any harm done by or to us affects us and the other. We are completely connected underneath the surface waves, just like the water.

From this perspective, Oneness or you could call it Life / God / Goddess / True Nature / Being is unfolding through us:

Through our actions.
Through our minds and hearts.
And all the harm done by or to us is part of this unfolding.

YIKES!

This goes directly against our very human desire to know what is right or good and to make sure we are on the right side of it.

We want to be good people. We want to know who has done something wrong and do something about it.

But what if there is no Good or Bad?

What if our trying to make situations fit into good / bad, right / wrong is really just an attempt by our dualistic mind to know where we stand, to understand the world, to feel a sense of security and stability?
What if it’s a wrong-minded perception that causes us to miss the Oneness?

Buddhist nun Pema Chodron, in her book When Things Fall Apart, says:

The whole right and wrong business closes us down and makes our world smaller.
Wanting situations and relationships to be solid, permanent, and graspable
obscures the pith of the matter, which is that things are fundamentally groundless.

This can feel very scary. All of a sudden, it’s not so clear how to determine if I’m a Good person anymore.

If I can’t make the other who has hurt me Bad, how do I know I am Good?
Doesn’t practicing the Good F-Word make me a Good person?

If everything is part of the Oneness, there is no Good vs. Bad.

Why would the Oneness split off parts of itself?
Doesn’t it express through everything, in all forms?

As Pema continues:

Whether it’s ourselves, our lovers, bosses, children, local Scrooge, or the political situation,
it’s more daring and real not to shut anyone out of our hearts
and not to make the other into an enemy.

We learned really early on how to be good from our parents, our culture, our personality, our religion… and it got internalized by our inner critic that lets us know whenever we stray by judging us from the inside to get us back on the straight and narrow.

But does this splitting of good / bad, right / wrong serve us?

Does it make you happy to separate yourself as over here and look at others as over there?
Does it make you happy when your inner critic judges you as doing something wrong?
Does it make you happy when you judge others as wrong, bad, immoral, ignorant, corrupt?

I doubt it.

It might whip you into action, but what is that action motivated by?

Probably not love. Or Oneness.

And we know that even social justice from that place can become tainted and unloving—without awareness of the Oneness, it can only hold a slice of the truth.

Pema suggests we “contemplate the fact that there is a larger alternative to [making ourselves right or wrong], a more tender, shaky kind of place where we could live.”

Practice Time!

I invite you to bring to mind a circumstance in which you are having a hard time forgiving yourself or someone else.

Close your eyes and give yourself to thinking about it.
- Ideally something up close and personal.
- But if you’re having a hard time coming up with something, try choosing a part of our current political situation.
Notice your thoughts: the judging, the blame, the anger, the outrage. All of it.
Now bring your awareness to your heart and body.
- How are you feeling? See if you can name 2-3 feelings. If you’re not sure, look for hurt, anger, resentment, grief…
- What’s going on in your body? How is your body reflecting this suffering?
  - Scan for places of tension, numbness, rigidity, clenching…
  - Of collapse, shoulders rounding in to protect your heart, slouching, lack of energy…
  - Or anything else…
If you’re willing, place your hand on the center of your chest, on your heart center.
What if all this suffering is not good / bad, right / wrong?
- What if it just is? It is your very human response to trying to make sense of something really hard.
Can you be with that, accept that, without needing to separate yourself or find a sense of solidity by being the good or the bad one?
What if it’s the Oneness of life expressing through you and this other? For some reason that you do or don’t understand.
- For your growth, for the other’s growth, for our world’s waking up.
Can you stay with the pain, the soft vulnerability of that without splitting?
Can you stay with this groundless place of the ever-changing flow of life and your place in that flow?
Can you find a place of refuge in this open, soft moment of willingness?
Thank you.

Our egos, in an attempt to find happiness, do things that cause real pain to ourselves and others.

Suffering happens when we resist and don’t accept what is happening. Responding from suffering creates more suffering. It solidifies the right / wrong position and sets us up to judge ourselves and others.

We don’t need suffering to get life done, to take right action, to work for social justice.

For that, we need Love. Only Love will soften our hearts and clear our minds to truly guide us into right action.

As Rumi says, “Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing, there is a field. I’ll meet you there.”

I’d love to know–How is this landing for you?

Read the 3rd in this 3-part series or listen to the full talk.

reprise: Come, yet again, come.

Come, come, whoever you are
Wanderer, worshiper, lover of leaving
Ours is no caravan of despair
Come, yet again, come.
~Rumi

Both Passover and Easter are about freedom.

The brain, on the other hand, likes patterns it can repeat, which makes it easy to fall into ruts…which don’t feel like freedom.

In one sense, it’s a good thing because the brain following well-known grooves to ride a bike or walk or drive frees up our energy for other things, like learning something new or trying on a new way of being…

But what if some of our repeated patterns aren’t serving us–and yet they keep repeating on autoplay? How do we find our way to freedom?

Come, yet again, come. This is a sweet invitation to come back to ourselves, to stop the autopilot of habit and wake up. To be present and experience the freedom of being right here, right now, in this very moment.

Wherever we are, whenever we notice, we have the chance to choose freshly again.

We can take a look at what we’ve been choosing.

When I’m not present, my type One orientation habitually and unconsciously chooses to try to improve things–me, you, my environment…life! I just have to learn a little more by reading one more article, to straighten the pile of shoes in the foyer, to update my site to make it more user-friendly…There’s always more to do and never enough time… Your way of getting lost may be very different from mine, but we all have them.

When we notice we are on autopilot, we can ask:

Does what I’m habitually choosing reflect my values?

I often find my value for contemplative quiet time gets relegated to last on my list. Sure, I fit some in every morning, but if it’s something I truly value (and need to be well!) wouldn’t it make sense to create more space in my life for it?

Wanderer, worshiper, lover of leaving…

Why do we wander away, leave what we value?

We forget. We get pulled back into the automatic pilot of repeating habits.

These are so compelling because they are familiar–the patterns have been traveled so often that they feel known, safe, comforting…even if we’d like to change them.

They don’t challenge our sense of who we might be, which might happen if we didn’t follow them. Our self-identity relies on them. In my example, I know myself as someone who is always making things better. This is an integral part of how I define myself, recognize my value, and orient to the world. Who would I be, how would I interact with life if I didn’t need to know myself in this way? What options for being, for freedom might open up?

Holding what I am repeating on autopilot along with my values creates a paradox. How can both be true? And yet they are.

If we hold this paradox with mindfulness, we can receive the wisdom of right action. There is no ultimate “right” way to always respond, no one tried and true way to reconcile these opposites. If there were, believe me, I would have found it! 🙂

When I’m not present, I fall back into habit = unfree.

When I am present, I can hold both the habit and what I value, and see what freely arises as true in my experience right now, in this moment. Letting these guide me, holding the tension, and listening will result in the right action I seek. The next time I ask, the moment may require something else of me.

Come, yet again, come. Being present means I am responding freshly each time I wake up enough to come, yet again, back to myself and hold the paradox. May Passover and Easter remind us of this possibility–the possibility of freedom in any moment that we choose presence.

OK, your turn! What habits do you fall into without thinking? How do these affect your ability to create space for the things you value? How do they affect your freedom?

Please join me to practice presence together, April 24th-28th:

For five days, you’ll receive a daily email with suggestions and inspiration for ways to practice presence that support your everyday life. We’ll share ideas and get support from each other in the private facebook group. Sign up for FREE!

I look forward to journeying with you!

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Come, yet again, come.

Come, come, whoever you are
Wanderer, worshiper, lover of leaving
Ours is no caravan of despair
Come, yet again, come.
~Rumi

It’s too easy to fall into ruts.

The brain likes patterns it can repeat. That frees up our energy for other things.

But what if some of our repeated patterns aren’t serving us–and yet they keep repeating on autoplay?

Come, yet again, come. This is a sweet invitation to come back to ourselves, to stop the autopilot of habit and wake up.

Wherever we are, whenever we notice, we have the chance to choose freshly again.

We can take a look at what we’ve been choosing.

When I’m not present, my type One orientation habitually and unconsciously chooses to try to improve things–me, you, my environment…life! I just have to learn a little more by reading one more article, to make the fridge look better by cleaning up that spill on the shelf, to bring order to the dining room by putting the Christmas wrapping supplies away…There’s always more to do and never enough time…Your way of getting lost may be very different from mine, but we all have them.

When we notice we are on autopilot, we can ask: Does what I’m habitually choosing reflect my values?

Wanderer, worshiper, lover of leaving… Why do we wander away, leave what we value?

We forget.We get pulled back into the automatic pilot of repeating habits.

These are so compelling because they are familiar–the patterns have been traveled so often that they feel known, safe, comforting…even if we’d like to change them.

Holding what I am repeating on autopilot along with my values creates a paradox. How can both be true? And yet they are.

If we hold this paradox with mindfulness, we can receive the wisdom of right action. There is no ultimate “right” way to always respond, no one tried and true way to reconcile these opposites.

When I’m not present, I fall back into habit.

When I am present, I can hold both the habit and what I value, and see what arises as true in my experience right now, in this moment. Letting these guide me, holding the tension, and listening will result in the right action I seek. The next time I ask, the moment may require something else of me.

Come, yet again, come. Being present means I am responding freshly each time I wake up enough to come, yet again, back to myself and hold the paradox.

OK, your turn! What habits do you fall into without thinking? How do these fit with creating space for the things you value?

Please join me to practice presence together, January 9th-13th:

I look forward to journeying with you!

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there shall I be

Freud said that the happy result of therapy is

“Where it was, there shall I be.”

At the Mankato Women & Spirituality Conference this past weekend and teaching this morning at St. Kate’s Staff Circles, I was sharing practices to move from being caught in “it,” in what Dave and I call “normally neurotic ego,” to wholeness.

Moving from Criticism to Compassion focused on the Inner Critic and how it keeps us stuck and separate from ourselves, most directly from compassion. Welcoming Joy in Your Daily Life focused on how we keep ourselves from opening to joy as our essence, our very being.

In each workshop, I was struck how the participants had moments of reclaiming their true sense of the “I” Freud refers to (the Self, our True Nature, our Buddha Nature, Divine Nature, etc.)–

Through mindful attention to the ways the Inner Critic talks to us.
Through acknowledging the ways we unconsciously react to try to get the Inner Critic to stop.
Through trying on something new to open up the heart to joy.
Through seeing clearly the ways we check out and leave presence.
Through creating a different more conscious relationship with ourselves.

Consciousness moves “it” towards “I.”

Understanding opens.

Compassion blossoms.

Tensions melt.

Moments of being in touch with Who we are shows us a new way of being, which can hold, contain, and respond compassionately to “it.” We are reclaiming these lost parts of ourselves, coming more deeply home by including “it” as “I.” No more separation and fighting against shadow parts or ourselves.

All are welcome.

Moments of grace arise.

As my Diamond Approach teacher would say–

we do our practices so we can be “accident prone to grace”

and reclaim our innate wholeness.

receiving the moment

i recently immersed myself in the book Three Faces of Mind by Elaine de Beauport with Aura Sofia Diaz. in the section on the different intelligences of the neocortex, the “human” brain, i found a really helpful explanation of one of the ways of thinking i really struggle with.

as an Enneagram Type One, one of the ways my ego feels safe is to quickly discern what is right/wrong, good/bad, etc. i notice whether things are done well, put in the right place, or expressed clearly. i notice if people follow-through, act with integrity, speak the truth… i notice this in others and even more in myself.

i know it might seem like it, but this is not just me being picky or judgmental. it is an attempt by my ego personality to always know how to align with the Good, the Right. this not only makes me feel safe in the world, but keeps a sense of myself, my identity going.

unfortunately, it also separates me from myself and from others. when i am discerning, if there is any hint of “i’m better” or that i’m standing on higher moral ground, then what i’m really doing is judging, not simply discerning the differences between things. and people feel this.

Elaine talks about this way of thinking as a less healthy version of Rational Intelligence. we most definitely need the capacity to discern, to think linearly and rationally (left brain), but when it becomes about judging, it is a hindrance rather than a support.

she suggests developing Associative Intelligence to be more whole (right brain). associate thinking is about receiving life as it arrives without judging or even discerning. it is about taking in the fullness of the experience—be that a person, something in nature, a situation, and in this openness to life, to discover something new. it is about connecting as opposed to separating. (there is less healthy associative thinking, too—like getting overwhelmed and lost in the amount of life coming in.)

this is a helpful way for me to understand the practices that i have felt called to take on.

one of the big ones these days has been this RECEIVING of life. when Dave walks into my office to share something or check-in, instead of going into my personality habit of feeling interrupted in my rational working process, i turn away from my computer and toward him. i breathe him in. i listen, i look, i feel into him as much as i can while staying grounded in my body and heart. (this invites my heart online, too.) i receive his presence in the moment instead of blocking it to stay focused on my linear task.

this feels much better to me, and is resulting in deeper connection and communication between us. and i can still use my left brain to limit how long of a break i take, while showing up completely, openly, softly for the time that he is here.

i’m not always very good at this, though! (my rationally intelligent left brain discerns and judges this, too. 🙂 ) i’ve been going through a rough work transition lately, and i’ve found that my rational mind’s conclusion that the other side is wrong, acting out of integrity, and untrustworthy can really keep me from engaging in associative intelligence. i recently had the opportunity to try to connect with the other side, and i was too loaded up with the conclusion that i’m being wronged to allow associative intelligence in.

so, i work with it after the fact in the hopes that i will have more choice next time.

what could associative thinking have looked like?

i could have breathed into my feet and belly and up my spine, connecting with my own grounded strength first.
i could have breathed down the front of my body, softening to receive the other person.
i could have focused softly on including the other person’s experience.
i could have listened without immediately jumping in to respond.
i could have found something i could connect with in the other person—some glimpse, some feeling, some energy.

how could this have supported me? perhaps i would have learned something new about the other side of the situation. perhaps they would have been more open to listening to me. perhaps i could have spoken a deeper truth from that place of deeper connection.

there are many benefits to practicing skillful associative thinking:

it can re-awaken interest in someone you think you know through and through.
it can open you up to appreciating something you would have overlooked.
it can help you make your own meaning by sensing how something is affecting you.
it can build a deeper relationship with your body and heart, as well as with other people.
it can open you up to new non-linear creative insights.

how do you practice Associative Intelligence?
does it come naturally to you? i think it is definitely easier for certain Enneagram types as it supports their self-image and basic needs more than Rational Intelligence.

in my holistic life coaching, we explore how to draw on a more whole way of living, using both rational and associative ways of being. we definitely need the healthy version of both!

if you would like some support in practicing presence to feel more at home in your body and at ease & resilient in your life, i’d be happy to offer you a free Discovery Session to explore my coaching program.

p.s. do you have friends who would like to feel more mindful? i’d love it if you would share this post with them on Facebook!

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decluttering to make way

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not the blog.

please unsubscribe me.

yes, i’m sure.

“just streamlining. thank you for your work.”

it’s incredible to me how difficult this process is.

i am decluttering my inbox. i am decluttering my mind.
i am making space to integrate my life.

what is it that makes me think i need to get all these emails? i have subscriptions to many online experts—on health, wellness, spirituality, business, living your best life, self-care, sexuality, women’s work…phew. it makes me tired just typing it out here.

and yet, i’ve had a really hard time letting them go.

why? it all comes down to thinking i don’t know enough…

it’s my type One personality, always trying to do a good job and get things right…
and this information age in which we are supposed to know everything, be experts in our field, leaving no stone unturned…
and my upbringing with two smart parents, who were always keeping up on the world, on science, on important things, my mom even a tenured ceramics engineering professor…
and even my dearly beloved husband who has a Five mind that awes me in its ability to know and remember stuff.

Keep reading about what i learned from this process…

Grow

From the Talmud:
Every blade of grass has its angel that bends over it
and whispers, ‘Grow, grow.’

A gentle whisper—grow, grow…

the spring rain to the grass
the sunlight filtering down to the rosebush
the robin nesting on her eggs
the mother bending over her baby
the conversation that asks from us a new response
nutrient-dense food coming into our cells, tissues, and bones
each new breath entering the body
love suffusing our overwhelmed hearts
the angels watching over us as we sleep
True Nature guiding the unfoldment of our lives

Take a moment and sense how you feel right now—body, heart, and mind.

But what about the everyday messages you learn from your upbringing and culture, reinforced by the inner critic inside your head?
Keep reading about how we really talk to ourselves and what to do about it.