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Previous Wisdom Weekly Newsletters
How Gratitude Works:
A month or so ago, I signed a contract with Findhorn Press to write a book on Abundance, so I've been experimenting with abundance and how it works.
Being a gardener, I am frequently reminded that abundance is a natural state. Plants produce thousands of seeds and reproduce abundantly. That's just the way things are.
Yet, in our culture, we live in a state of lack. We are always being told we don't have enough, and that we need to buy this and have that and keep consuming.
In order to overcome this cultural bias, I began to work with gratitude. As I did, I became aware of what a muscular force gratitude is. The mere vibration of it can lift me out of the state of lack and put me in a state of abundance in just a few moments.
I knew this was important because if I wanted to attract more abundance, it was necessary to first create an energetic "home" for it. In my experience, like attracts like. That's a Universal Law. And "attracting" what I want is a lot easier than struggling for what I want.
So, now, every morning, I speak my gratitudes out loud as part of my morning practice. It makes me feel so lush to do this. It plumps me up and changes my state.
Is it a co-incidence that I've won 3 things at the last 3 events I've been to? I don't know. But some lovely things have been coming my way and I'm appreciating that.
Try it yourself. Speak or write your gratutides down every day for the next 2 weeks. And let me know what happens. Meanwhile, I think I'll head out and buy a lottery ticket! Think of all the environmental initiatives I could promote with a few hundred thousand....
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The Top 10 Ways To Surrender To The Flow:
1. Get that there IS a flow and that it's bigger than you are.
2. When facing a problem, seek to solve it immediately, taking the path of least resistance.
3. Get that you don't know what you don't know, but that the flow does. Trust.
4. Get that the physical universe never lies. If something is "off," so are you.
5. Seek to understand your environment and it's affects on you, even more than seeking to understand yourself.
6. Get that your body often knows more than you mind or heart does. Listen to your body if you're not sure what to do.
7. Get that there is an ebb and flow; sometimes it's wise to do nothing.
8. Get that the flow changes and you'll need to adapt with it.
9. Get that you affect the flow around you, even though the flow around you is bigger than you.
10. Get that you want to BECOME the flow, not just be carried along BY the flow.
by Thomas J. Leonard.
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Top Ten Resolutions:
Here's the rest of the "10 Best New Year's Resolutions You Can Make," By Mike Lipkin, The Globe and Mail, 1/1/2002
1. Resolve to stay brutally optimistic.
See the opportunity in every difficulty and anticipate the most favourable outcome out of every situation. Whatever you look for, that's what you'll find. We can get better or we can get bitter; it all depends on the lessons we draw from each experience. Optimism is like electricity - very little happens without it. Know this truth: you have all the resources you'll ever need to handle all the challenges you'll ever have. It's in true emergencies that the true you can emerge.
2. Resolve to identify the most powerful benefit you offer to the people around you and then deliver it.
"The purpose of life," said George Bernard Shaw, "is a life of purpose." What's yours? Where are you investing your personal energy: self-preservation or adding value to others? Here's the well-being paradox: if you're only concerned about yourself, you cannot take care of yourself. Only by helping others, can you succeed.
3. Resolve to pump-up your personal vitality.
In the game of life, it's not about who's right, its about who's left. Over 60% of us are more than 36 years old. The real currency of the new century is not cash, it's vitality. It's the ability to keep going every day of every week of every month of the year with vigour and verve. All you are to the people around you is a source of energy and you cannot give what you don't have. 90% of all adults do no physical exercise at all. More than half of us are overweight. A third of us still smoke. So, this year, resolve to enhance your physical, emotional and mental vitality. Take just a small step. First you'll amaze yourself and then you'll amaze everybody else.
4. Resolve to be habitually generous.
Success is not something you pursue, it's something you attract by what you become. The more you give of yourself, the more favours you attract from others. People have a deep-rooted drive to give back. So, resolve to search for ways to contribute to others. Here's an interesting aphorism: Live life above the line. If the line represents others' expectations of you, consistently surpass those expectations. You'll develop what the business author Ken Blanchard calls "raving fans," people who become walking billboards for you.
5. Resolve to go on a mental diet.
Sticks and stones can break your bones, but words can scar you for life. Its humans, not elephants who never forget. So, resolve to use the language of conciliation, not the language of confrontation. Avoid the temptation to vent your negativity on others. Instead, use words that express your joie de vivre and connection with others.
6. Resolve to be a global citizen, fully open to the cultures and influences of others.
There is a direct correlation between personal well-being and openness to other peoples' ideas and cultures. If someone has a different point of view, they're probably right as well. There are no absolutes any more, so welcome different opinions. Become a one-person champion of plurality. Not only will you make lots of new friends, but you'll also gather multiple reference points to help you resolve personal challenges.
7. Resolve to take control of your destiny.
Don't be so busy trying to make a living that you forget to make a life. Decide who you want to be and what you want to achieve and then stride boldly towards your vision. The most precious human commodity today is confidence.
8. Resolve to increase your human connectedness.
The person with the best connections wins. The wider your network, the more opportunities you generate. It's all about trust. And it's all about profile - your presence in the minds of the people who matter. So invest at least 10 per cent of your time broadening your sphere of influence. Connect other people to the opportunities within your network: cross-pollinate their potential. When you are with others, make every encounter a pleasurable one. When you listen, truly listen. And burn your fear of rejection.
9. Resolve to increase your creativity by letting go of the familiar.
Nothing is as far away as yesterday. Try to see the world through fresh eyes every day. As Salman Rushdie writes, every year is the Stone Age to the year that follows it. Listen to your intuition and follow your instincts, they'll tell you what to do before your head has had a chance to figure it out. You are a Picasso or Einstein at something. Discover what it is and then develop it to the maximum.
10. Resolve to be you because others are already taken.
You and I are at our best when we're being authentic. We're at our best when we're being positively spontaneous because that's when all our energy is being invested in the situation at hand. In a hypercompetitive world, we cannot afford to second-guess ourselves. Success in the new century is all about speed. So act now, because if not now, when?
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Celebrating the People Who Support You:
Charles Plumb as a U.S. Navy jet pilot in Vietnam. After 75 combat missions, his plane was destroyed by a surface-to-air missile. Plumb ejected and parachuted into enemy hands. He was captured and spent 6 years in a communist Vietnamese prison. He survived the ordeal and now lectures on lessons learned from that experience.
One day, when Plumb and his wife were sitting in a restaurant, a man at another table came up and said, "You're Plumb! You flew jet fighters in Vietnam from the aircraft carrier Kitty Hawk. You were shot down!"
How in the world did you know that?" asked Plumb.
"I packed your parachute," the man replied.
Plumb gasped in surprise and gratitude. The man pumped his hand and said, "I guess it worked!"
Plumb assured him, "It sure did. If your chute hadn't worked, I wouldn't be here today."
Plumb couldn't sleep that night, thinking about that man. Plumb says, "I kept wondering what he might have looked like in a Navy uniform: a white
hat, a bib in the back, and bell-bottom trousers. I wonder how many times I might have seen him and not even said 'Good morning, how are you?' or
anything because, you see, I was a fighter pilot and he was just a sailor."
Plumb thought of the many hours the sailor had spent on a long wooden table in the bowels of the ship, carefully weaving the shrouds and folding the
silks of each chute, holding in his hands each time the fate of someone he didn't know.
Now, Plumb asks his audience, "Who's packing your parachute?"
Everyone has someone who provides what he or she needs to make it through the day. Plumb also points out that he needed many kinds of parachutes when
his plane was shot down over enemy territory - he needed his physical parachute, his mental parachute, his emotional parachute, and his spiritual
parachute. He called on all these supports before reaching safety.
Sometimes in the daily challenges that life gives us, we miss what is really important. We may fail to say hello, please, or thank you, congratulate someone on something wonderful that has happened to them, give a compliment, or just do something nice for no reason.
As you go through this week, this month, this year, recognize people who pack your parachute.
And I hope you will send it on to those who have helped pack yours!
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Who’s Right?
My guess, is that in the future we won't talk much about "who's right" because even the question presumes a kind of
black and white thinking. Black and white thinking isn't expansive enough for the way we're evolving. Because in a way,
everyone is "right". The person looking at the tail of a donkey, experiences the donkey as long and thin, the person who
sees the donkey's belly sees it as rotund, the person sitting on it, experiences the donkey as substantial and mobile.
If you want to do some brain gymnastics, bring to your mind a person you love who sees something differently from how
you do. Now imagine that they are 'right'. Spend an entire day thinking this way, as if their perspective is the true
one. Watch how your resistances come up and notice what you have to do to soften yourself to be open. This is a great
exercise for creating deep listening and compassion.
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Resistance:
One of the traits of evolved people is they accept what comes towards them without resistance and look at what comes as teaching.
The trick is to notice when you’re resisting. What you’re resisting may be the line in the grocery store, or it may be the fact that someone isn’t treating you the way you want to be treated, or if maybe that your body is giving you a signal of some sort that it’s not happy. We can expend a lot of energy in resistance, energy that we could be using for other creative adventures. So, when you notice yourself resisting, see if you can just let whatever is there, be there. The line in the store, the treatment of a friend, the headache: they are aspects of what is. Let in what is and see if you find some wisdom in “what is”.
You may have to look hard, you may have to look differently, but there will be a lesson or opportunity in there somewhere.
I used to resist standing in line terribly. Of course, my resistance only made the line harder to deal with. When I looked at the lessons of “the line”, I saw that it was telling me to slow down. So I did. And now when I am in a line, I used the time to dream or do some inner work. I never see it was wasted time.
So, play with this in the following few days as your life plays out. Notice how moving out of resistance gives you more energy, energy that you can use to create your life. And notice how life is always trying to teach you to be in tune with it and in tune with yourself.
That’s all for this week. Feel free to pass this around to your friends and work colleagues.
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The Importance of 'State':
Those of you who do coaching with me know how I'm often talking about the importance of state. By 'state', I mean the condition of your energy field.
The more I work with myself and with others, the more crucial I realize a person's state is to the quality of their lives.
Here's a personal example most of you will be able to relate to. Before I took a holiday, I couldn't find a solution to a certain challenge I had. I thought about it a lot and no solution came. Of course, the moment I returned from my holiday, I was in a lush and creative state and the solution simply blossomed into my awareness like a rose in a greenhouse.
That solution was born from that state. That's what's important to recognize. It couldn't have arisen from my pre-holiday state anymore than a rose could grow in clay. All the solutions are out there, everything we need is out there, but our ability to bring them into our lives is determined by our state.
Much of our state is determined by what we think about. Often we scare ourselves with frightening thoughts (easy to do these days with the world situation), or worry ourselves or create un-ease (the precursor to dis-ease).
But try this: imagine your state is like the earth in a garden. Dig in some bone meal right now by having some wonderful thoughts. Imagine five wonderful things that could happen to you today. Come on, do it! I just did and it felt great. I felt my entire field softening and lightening.
Creating from this 'state' will be effortless. Know why? Because the Universe is inherently growthfull. Every living thing is constantly in a state of growth. That means there's new opportunities out there every minute, every second. But to have them grow in you, your soil or 'state' has to be light as loam. But hey, redirect your thinking and you'll create that in no time.
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Using Our Intuition:
Just as we have an immune system to fight off harmful pathogens inside our bodies, we also have an important defence mechanism to guide us through life. It's called Intuition. It's sometimes called the 6th sense. I used to think of intuition was something kind of fun to have but not something crucial to existence, but I now understand how vital a healthy intuition is.
When I was in India for many months, I was very frightened of getting sick as I was travelling alone. I checked with my intuition each time before I ate anything and never was ill. Last week, I was lamenting about not being able to get in touch with someone, only to run into that person after following a nudge to go to a particular event.
Intuition allows our higher knowing to speak. It lives beyond Time and Space as we know it, so can create all kinds of magical things. Following our intuition can save a great deal of time and make our lives more flowing and easy.
We all have an intuition, but most of us haven't developed it. Here are some ways to help strengthen your intuition.
1. Learn how your intuition speaks to you. It may be through a gut feeling, or a feeling somewhere else in your body, it may be a voice or an image.
2. Start asking your intuition questions: it may only comment a little at first, but it will get better at communicating with you and you will get better at understanding its language. Especially if you begin to take its advice. Be on the lookout for how your intuition may speak to you. For me, I sometimes notice signs. I was wondering whether to respond to something affirmatively a few months ago and noticed the car in front of me had a licence plate that said, YES as the first 3 letters. The fact that I'd noticed it said a lot to me.
3.Let your imagination play. If you are considering a new job, for example, let the job possibility be an animal, a colour, a song, etc. Our intuition is a nonlinear process and needs lots of imaginal scope.
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Increase Your Resilience!:
Being resilient is becoming more and more important in our fast-paced challenging world. When you're resilient, you can bounce back after setbacks and failures and not give into the temptation to give up. Resilience allows you to face the future with optimism and courage despite what's going on.
Here are some ways to boost your resilience:
*deeply understand and accept that life has its ups and downs. Refuse to take it personally when life throws you a curve ball.
*look for the teaching in all life's situations.
*face reality head-on, labelling setbacks and losses for what they are.
*allow yourself to experience feelings of loss and grief. Let the feelings move through you.
*think creatively and flexibly. Expand rather than shut down when faced with a challenge.
*Keep yourself rejuvenated so you have reserves when difficulties hit.
*have people to talk to and support you through hard times.
*ask for help. If you don't know what to do, ask for help or hire someone who does.
*Commit to doing things that bring you joy.
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The Power of Thinking Outcomes:
Thinking about outcomes will bring a whole new success rate to your meetings, interactions and relationships. Why? Because as Stephen Covey (the 7 habits guy) says, if you start with the end in mind, you have a far better chance of staying on target.
Imagine, for example, that you are boating to a spot across the shore. In order to arrive at the exact spot you want, you continually keep your eye on the spot where you want to end up. That allows you to constantly readjust as you go along. This is thinking outcomes.
I believe thinking outcomes is so important that I will often not only take a moment to think about an outcome before a meeting or a coaching session, but I will often state it to the person or people I am dealing with.
For example, I may say something like this at the beginning of a meeting: "What I'd like is to have a focussed, energetic meeting where we all leave feeling full of excitement about our next steps."
If I'm dealing with something difficult, it's even more important to state the outcome. For example, I may say, "What I'd like is for us to be able to sort out these problems and feel like we can go forward freshly."
So, think outcomes this week. Notice how powerful they are for keeping you on track.
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