I just finshed reading two more blogs – Sarah’s and Amy’s.
Sarah’s was about giving herself permission and choosing to step up to the plate and engage her own live, differently. Amy’s was about getting on with it by engaging with others and sharing enthusiasm and the willingness to engage (her connection with Lori); and by recognizing that she does not have to re-invent the wheel.
My life has been my greatest experiment. From one day to the next, I’ve discovered over time how to pay attention to something other than my history, my cultural conditioning and external references, and have discovered how to trust the truth of my inner cues and remember the full measure of who I am. My life is both a constant invitation to the ‘more’ that I know we all are, and evidence that it’s always already there – all I have to do is be willing to notice and engage.
I created the WEL-Systems body of knowledge, Quantum TLC™, The CODE Model™, CODE Model Coaching, Evolution by Intention and Emerging Futures so that you wouldn’t have to. I did the ground work, experienced the turmoil, made the big mistakes and lost my way – over and over again – so that you wouldn’t have to. Amy has that all figured out! 
Over the years (and it has now been 17 years), I’ve encouraged people to engage and share this material with others. All I’ve asked is that people honor copyright and trademarks. Read the books! Listen to the CD’s! It doesn’t have to cost a lot to change your life – profoundly and generatively – in a way that leaves you as the power center of your own evolution. Lives have been transformed just by reading Fully Alive or Phoenix Rising or When the Horse Dies, Get Off. Not much effort required there.
Because I believe that women are the key; and because I believe that it is women who have kept other women in check, it is now women who must engage to awaken other women to their own potential. Women gathering in small groups, talking… about their potential, about possibility, about strength and courage and tenacity; women gathering in small groups, talking… about the things that open their lives and propel them forward and free them from their past, is what it’s all about.
When women become willing to engage openly about the truth of who they are, their fear dissipates. And because, initially, there is a greater sense of safety in numbers, creating these small groups of women gathering… is a way to create safe space within which we can begin to discover the power of who we are. Women gathering in small groups, talking… is a powerful, dynamic and unstoppable force. We need to recognize it as such and discover how to harness its potential to shape the world we want. To do that, we have to begin somewhere and test the waters of our own fear.
Attractors. Seed pods. Beginnings. Being willing to be the first awake, enlivened and vibrating cell that touches and awakens the cells around it, and before you know it, new life has taken shape.
Women awake, women enlivened, women awakening other women. Women wiling to be seen and heard. Women inviting women to be honest, open and clear. Women seeking their unique truth rather than capitulating to a collective lie. Women respecting themselves and each other. Women willing to be different – to speak differently, act differently and engage differently. Women sharing what they know and what they don’t know – each a powerful gift to another. Women coming out of the shadows and silence. Women taking shape, with clear lines and sharp angles. Women unwilling to blend into the background… unwilling to be the wallpaper on which others hang their lives.
It’s about women engaging! We don’t have to have the answers – we just need to be willing to explore the much bigger questions. We don’t need to become best friends and all hang out together and have sleep-overs, we just need to respect each other; to welcome our differences and honor the invitation that we are to each other to break out of our tiny lives.
It’s about living, fully, as the truth of who we know ourselves to be deep down, where no one can see.
It’s about our lives.
January 13th, 2008
Posted by
Louise |
Groups, Insights |
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I was reading Lori’s blog this morning, entitled ‘Starving for Conversation’. I’ve had enough experience with Lori to take a wild guess that when she says she’s starving for conversation, she’s not talking about explorations of the weather… or the latest sports scores… or who bought what on their last trip to the mall. She’s also not talking about gossip and telling stories about each other. She’s talking about the kind of conversations that make it worth getting out of bed in the morning and that leave you going to bed at the end of the day, delighted with who you are. The kind that you have to be awake to have and can’t just skim through with your eyes closed and one hand tied behind your back because you’ve had them a thousand times before ! The kind where you have to show up, take a stand and risk allowing yourself to be seen and heard by those around you, for the truth of who you are.
These conversations change lives – hers and that of others around her. Lori’s Conscious Parenting conversations not only change the lives of the parents and their children, they hold the potential to shape future generations. Why? Because we’re creatures of habit, prone to do what we’ve done before. Imagine the implications if our children live differently and as such, parent differently. In one moment, we can shape the future for generations to come.
But here’s the point: Lori already knows that if she’s going to have the kind of conversation she’s starving for, she’s going to have to create it for herself. She’s going to have to make it happen and not wait for it to come along. Her passion for engaging meaningfully will propel her to invite others into the kind of converstaions that she wants to have – and those who want them, too, will show up. Like Sheila’s invitation, in order for her to get what she wants, Lori is going to have to decloak and reveal who she is, what she cares about and what’s meaningful to her. She’s going to have to go first, and put herself and her intention ‘out there’ – just as she describes in her blog entry. In that moment, she will attract to herself what she is looking for.
Far too often, in our desire to be ’subtle’ or ‘diplomatic’; in our attempts to avoid ‘making waves’ or annoying or irritating someone, what we put out to others as a call to engage is a pale, ghostly reflection of the deep intensity that we truly feel. We tone down, soften, round the edges and cloak in ‘niceness’ the truth of who we are and what we care deeply and passionately about. Heaven help us if we were to be seen to be other than harmless and mild-mannered!
Wherever did we get the idea that we should tread softly and never ruffle any feathers if we are to get what we want? That is reminscent of being sure never to annoy the masters – never bite the hand that feeds – if we are to have anything at all.
And perhaps more pointedly: wherever did we get the idea that directly asking for what we want or – god forbid! – taking what we want is to be scorned and pressed away??? Underlying our hesitation is an old, worn out, ragged belief that there is always someone or something outside of ourself that must give us permission before we can do/have/be what we desire. Permission! Clearly, in the cradle of such beliefs, our lives are not our own and yet, far too often, we are lulled into numbness and inaction by the gentle rocking of our repetitive lives. However, despite the hypnotic rhythms of the sway, there is a restlessness that comes from knowing somewhere deep inside that there is more to living than just being alive.
For generations and decades, as with the binding of the feet, far too often it is women who keep other women in check. Shunning. Raised eyebrows and glances of disapproval. Mothers shaping their daughters. Devastating gossip. Friends encouraging women to try one more time, even if black eyes lead to broken bones. Caustic comments about behaviour or dress. Unanswered emails and unreturned phone calls. The power of the subdued pack to shape behaviour and intentions for compliance. As I write this, I am aware of a group in my own experience that causes women to choose between people they care about and the work that they do. I wonder how vulnerable the men are to such leverage…
In today’s world – in Lori’s world – things are changing. Women are discovering, one conversation at a time, that they can have what they want. They can be/do what is meaningful for them. But for it all to happen, permission must become the domain of our own choosing. We must give ourselves permission to determine our own outcomes; to shape our own intentions, choose our playmates and engage as we see fit. When it comes to the quality of our own lives, the buck stops here. In that single moment, the conversation changes and awakens the potential to change our world.
January 13th, 2008
Posted by
Louise |
Insights |
2 comments
