These Are Your Wings. Fly.

Just like birds, humans need two healthy wings to fly. 

The two wings we fly with: Will and Grace.

99.999% of our lives is completely out of our control. The weather, our place of birth, our genetics, our childhood conditioning, etc. Other people, their thoughts, their emotions, their desires, objectives, and needs. Physics, biology, chemistry, and art.

We live so much by the Grace of something beyond us - God, the universe, the quantum field, it's got many names.

The inspiration that pokes at us from beneath our being - that's Grace.

The values and commitments we live with - whether inspired and self-selected or trained by our families and culture - that's Grace.

The mere and miraculous conditions of our very existence, from the beginning of time and the universe through our birth and growth - that's Grace.

Many of us ignore or avoid or resist inspiration most of the time. We ignore or avoid or resist the inner poke or push to speak up, to commit, to forgive, to create, to love, to let go, to pick up, to put down. We ignore or avoid or resist the commitments we've made, the word we've given, the opportunities for honesty, integrity, camaraderie, and collaboration.

That's not a failure of Grace - that's a failure of Will.

(When most of us hear "will", we think of tension or of forcing something. That's not what I mean. There's another way to access and direct our Will. In fact, we can access and apply our will gracefully.)

God/the universe provides the conditions as they are in this moment, and how we apply our Will either:

• honors inspiration or not

• honors our values or not

• honors our commitments or not

• honors what matters most to us or not

• honors vitality or not

• honors love or honors fear

• honors intentionality or honors resignation

The pilot light of our deepest Self NEVER goes out, and we are given infinite opportunities throughout daily life to honor it.

Are you committed to applying your will to honor the grace you are lucky enough to be gifted?

You've been gifted the universe in the life that animates you, in the heart that feels, in the mind that creates. Honor it all, and honor yourself, by applying your will with fullness and integrity.

Thank you to one of my insightful teachers, Michael Singer (author of Living Untethered), for this distinction.

Much Love. ❤️

P.S. when you’re ready to elevate and fine-tune how you apply your beautiful will to honor the grace gifted to you, there are 2 ways to work with me:

• One-on-one and relationship coaching (16+)

• Mind Mastery group programs for your team, school, business, or organization.

Constant Conscious Creation

On Saturday evening, I was invited to a mysterious event by a dear friend and client. I felt a couple momentary pokes of insecurity leading up to the event, and I loved them! These pokes were echoes of so many previous experiences of insecurity as my primary experience.

Going into the event, I grounded myself in one of my self-creation statements: the person I am with is beautiful, valuable, and important, and worthy of my respect, compassion, and understanding.

The whole event occurred to me from within that world I created. Each person I met was so wonderful, so creative, so kind, so beautiful, so lovely, and so worthy of my love and respect. Such a gift to be with each of them.

The experience would NOT have gone that way if I let insecure, judgmental, or fearful thinking obscure the experience. In other words, if I had allowed my unconscious creation to determine my experience.

“What you perceive is communicated always. You do it with the clothes you place upon the body. You do it with your gestures and the sound of your voice… You are constantly and only creating forms through which you communicate.”

- The Way of Mastery

Everything about our lives is an expression of our perceptions of how we see ourselves, others, and the world.

The world comes in through our senses, but we mostly don’t perceive the world as it is. Instead, we mostly perceive the labels, judgments, opinions, and concepts that we layer on top of what our senses bring in. 

Even our inner world is mostly filtered through our thinking. Fear, anxiety, excitement, love...rarely do we allow ourselves to experience these emotions as they are. Instead, we resist, react, or indulge in merely the idea of them.

This mechanism is so subtle! 

We don’t perceive our lives as they are - we perceive our lives as we've labeled it, judged it, and believed it to be.

We are constantly creating on top of the information that comes in through our senses. We can’t help it! We are meaning-making machines, we are creatures who love categorizing, defining, and labeling.

And we do it ALL the time.

We are constantly creating with our minds. It’s a subtle layer of thought of which we’re mostly blind and ignorant. In other words, we’re constantly unconsciously creating with our minds.

We don’t even know we’re doing it most of the time!

The Buddha taught this 2500 years ago:

“Experiences are preceded by mind, led by mind, and produced by mind.”

Our thinking gives us the world we think we witness, the people we’re with, and the person we are. And then we show up in our lives consistent with the world we've created.

“For as he thinks in is heart, so is he.”

- Proverbs 23:7

Yes, we are constantly creating, and meditation is one of those tools that helps us see how we’ve painted reality with our own fears, our own judgments, our own insecurities, and our own desires.

We and our lives are the result of our seeing.

So what now?

First, practice seeing how you've unconsciously painted your life to be what it is in all areas. (This isn’t usually easy, especially on our own!)

Second, own it. (Yes, this takes guts.) New possibilities open when we see this and then take responsibility for the way we’ve painted the area.

Third, consciously create.

How we see ourselves, how we see others, and how we see the world gives us who we are.

Want new results in life? Change the way you see.

No, this isn’t an education we receive in school (yet). Though it is a capacity within each of us that can be developed and mastered.

It takes practice to develop this powerful capacity to alter how the world occurs to us in a way that gives us freedom, love, peace of mind, self-expression, and empowerment.

The practice of Constant Conscious Creation.

"Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind."

- Romans 12:2

When you're ready to master the art of Constant Conscious Creation in your own life, reach out and let's work together one-on-one, in your relationship, or with your team/group/school.

Much Love. ❤️

🚫Random🚫 Acts of Kindness

“Random acts of kindness.”

This phrase has always sounded sweet to me. It's also always felt a bit off. 

Seeing a mother guide her child to kindness at the gym last week, it suddenly made sense!

It’s easy to be randomly kind. It’s much more challenging (and generous and fulfilling and enlightening) to be kind always and unconditionally. 

We live conditional lives. 

- conditionally loving

- conditionally forgiving

- conditionally compassionate

- conditionally gracious

- conditionally welcoming - conditionally happy

- conditionally kind

Random acts of kindness allow us to feel better about ourselves while allowing us to justify being jerks at other times. 

Instead of being randomly kind, 

Instead of being conditionally kind,

How about simply being kind. Period.

Kindness isn't an action. Kindness is a way of being.

How about being kind intentionally. 

How about being kind unconditionally.

How about being kind always.

Being kind ≠ being a doormat. 

We can speak honestly, have boundaries, stand up for ourselves, stand up for our values, AND be kind. 

Kind to others. 

Kind to ourselves. 

Kind in light of our values and commitments. 

Kind in light of others’ values and commitments. 

One thing I love about our current divisive political culture is that it puts on loudspeaker - in our thoughts and in our conversations - how UNkind we can be. 

An impulse to be unkind is the perfect opportunity to practice kindness. An impulse to be unkind is the exact moment when we get to choose kindness over righteousness, kindness over frustration, kindness over judgment, and kindness over defensiveness.

It’s pretty easy to be kind randomly. That’s like liking someone you already get along with. 

It’s much more challenging to be kind always and unconditionally. That takes intentionality. That takes commitment. That takes grace and generosity, forgiveness and compassion.

It’s also much more fulfilling and enlightening for everyone involved.

Don’t get me wrong - any kind of kindness is great! Random acts are great too, so keep that up if it's your thing. 

I think, though, we can all be a bit more intentionally kind.

Much Love. ❤️