This post arriving in my inbox is soooo timely for me.

Just last week I tried to express to my husband my sadness and despair around the quality of our conversations. We had gone out for lunch and the people we were meeting were an hour late so we sat down to have a cup of tea while we waited. I noticed, for this hour, his attention was predominantly drawn to the screen showing music videos in the cafe. I started to feel resentful. My need for connection and fun were not being met by his attention being elsewhere. At first I self-empathised.

BUT then I noticed my thinking kicked in. Just staying with self-empathy was not enough to change the situation I was not enjoying. I told myself I still needed “him to want to want to communicate with me”.

“This happens a lot. I can’t remember a conversation for ages where he has been joyfully engaged.”

“Why do I have to put all the effort in to starting/keeping a conversation going?”

“The least he could do when we are together is “be here” and talk with me.”

Then came thoughts about

Well, I’ll sit here and wait and see how long he can “not talk to me”

As you can imagine the hour passed with me feeling increasingly resentful, despairing and with a growing sense of disconnection.

What I had not done was envision how I wanted this situation to be and taken control of it myself.

I hadn’t taken self-care to the next level which is actively taking responsibility for getting what I want. I could choose to change my experience in the moment. That is not to say I still couldn’t do with some empathy around all of the thoughts above – and I can take the next step in self-care and make a request for that with some of my empathy buddies (or journal it).

AND I can take care of the moment where I want a nice time with my husband by making it a nice time. Noticing where he is at (tired, distracted, uncertain?) and connecting there first. I could have changed the environment – invited him to come for a walk while we wait (reframe, create energy). Once I connected to my need to take care of myself, in addition to my need for connection and ease,  a number of strategies (more useful than the one I chose) may have arisen.

Please enjoy LaShelle’s posting. I have!

Please check out this incredible 3-minute video that just came my way:

http://www.karmatube.org/videos.php?id=1524

Using some great quotes from Martin Luther King, JFK, and others, I hope this inspiring video helps stir your creativity and motivates you to take ACTION!

With so many global systems being challenged, it has never been more important for each one of us to take the risk to be happy.

I hope this little video serves a purpose for you today:

http://www.karmatube.org/videos.php?id=1524

I am hearing so much talk about the how tough times are getting. Underneath all of this talk is a subtle message about reining in our lives: our spending, our expectations, our lifestyles.

However I say NO! Let’s look at this differently. Rather than shrinking we can THRIVE!

No, I’m not advocating new age positive affirmations that will miraculously turn your life around if you say them often enough, loud enough and with great gusto.

Neither am I advocating wildly ignoring the environment around us. We probably will know people who will experience the harsh reality of job displacement or retrenchment, loss of a regular income and the related personal and relationship challenges that come with that.

BUT, what if we perceive 2009 as a year of recalibration rather than recession. This is an opportunity to REVIEW, RECOGNISE, RE-FOCUS, RELEASE, RE-SET & RE-CALIBRATE. We can review the highs and lows of 2008 exploring our journey and the meanings we have made from it. We can recognise where we expend our time and energy and how aligned that is to our what we really want. We can pay attention to what’s working – and what’s no longer serving us. We can re-focus on core essentials and strengths. These essentials give us pleasure, confidence, outcomes, joy and integrity. These are underpinned by our values which become our new focus and motivators.  We can release our blocks to action, our limiting beliefs clearing a way for the new and fresh to enter our lives. We can re-set our compass bearings setting a course which takes us to where we CHOOSE to go. We can consistently re-calibrate by committing to staying focused, paying attention to our daily intentions and actions through self-awareness and keeping an open mind to what needs changing or adjusting.

The biggest variable in how this year goes for you is

WHAT YOU DO!

Personal responsibility and taking action is going to be what makes the difference between a year you can celebrate and a year you may wonder what happened – it just slid by or a year you’d rather forget.

Now, I’m not saying that we, literally, bring everything into our lives by our thoughts. Nonsense. People don’t bring earthquakes, hurricanes, accidents, and the like upon themselves. No!

I am saying the only thing we are in control of  is our intentions, our reactions and being a living expression of our core values.

And by paying attention to these we can choose to have a certain quality of life, our inner life holds our bearings no matter what is going on with our outer-life. We can choose to have a certain quality of relationships  and we can choose to spend more time on the things that make us feel great. If we are doing things that seem unavoidable, like driving the kids to school we have the choice to explore ‘the how of doing that.”  We can choose to recognise the underlying value we are meeting (contributing to the kids well-being & safety for example), and from that place we can find plenty of ways to meet those values (form a group to share the driving, pay a teenager to escort the kids on the school bus, move closer to the school so they can walk etc.)

The bottom line is we only have 24 hours a day and 7 days a week.  How do we  spend them? How do you want to spend them?

How are you spending them now? What percentage either brings you joy or meets your values?

Curious about how to thrive not survive in 2009?

1. REVIEW

What was great? Mapping the peaks & valleys of 2008. Find meaning in what happened.

2. RECOGNISE

What are you already saying “yes” to? What are your “yes” opportunities?  What can you say “no” to? Where is your energy being drained or displaced? Where are you expending your time and energy? How much of your time and energy is actually supporting your deepest values and aspirations?

3. RE-FOCUS

What do you want to focus on? Strengthen your strengths through identifying your core values and deepest passions.

4. RELEASE

What do you need to let go of in order to allow the entry of the new? Beliefs? Relationships? Busyness? Habits? Explore and embrace your blocks to transformation. When we listen to ourselves with non-judgmental curiosity what one always finds at the bottom of the barrel is precious life-going-forward energy.

5. RE-SET

Reset your compass bearings for thriving. Making choice-full-conscious decisions for self-care and growth. Once you’ve listened to all the concerns and worries of any specific inner voice then you can begin to listen for what that voice, that part, does want – what it’s passionate about. Experience the sense of wholeness and ease that comes when your joy and passion for living are lined up with the intentions that hold your hopes and dreams.

6. RE-CALIBRATE

Practice a simple technique for consistently checking in with what your body knows about how you are tracking; for me this is Focusing, for you it might be mediation, listening to your inner voice while watching the ocean, surfing, running, dancing. Learn to re-calibrate with sensitivity not reactivity, building your capacity for self-empathy, self-trust and emotional resilience.

Thriving is a choice for life ~ your life.

Genuine new beginnings emerge from a realignment of ways of looking at the world and a renewal of energy.  We often look for external signs to guide us into a beginning, but our inner attitudes toward life, our renewed self-knowledge and our intuition are really the hallmarks of our new beginnings. 

Staying on course

By relying on our inner voice to tell us where to go in life, we are likely to have more motivation than if we were to depend on the traditional expectations provided to us by others. 

Each day is an opportunity to check the alignment of our new beginning, to bring awareness of what is manifesting in our lives.  If we fail to do this, sooner or later we may inadvertently find ourselves reverting to our old ways of living or wondering how we wandered off course with no real awareness of doing so.

This process of checking-in and micro-adjusting our intentional choices to our our ongoing living experience will  depend on whether or not we can bring the Witness or Observer to bear on our continuing experiencing  and the quality of Presence we bring to our checking-in.
 

Trusting your Inner Voice through Focusing

In Focusing there’s a flow of awareness. What we can sense is how it is now. Yes, that includes the "now" of the past, our memories and the reactions of parts of us to what happened before. And it changes in response to each moment of our living while remaining aligned to our inner truths or essence. 

 
But I hear more than one Voice in there you say. I hear the voice that says do it, the voice that says you should be careful, the voice that says this is the wrong this to do.

We have many voices in us, and they can be in competition to be the one we act on. This can sometimes feel like an argument or even a war inside. These competing voices are often driven by fear, worry, and anxiety — and there can be a strong inner pressure to do what they say – and this can lead to a sense of overwhelm, disappointment or even the paralysis of procrastination because the voices might be advocating different steps or actions. Something just doesn’t feel right and there doesn’t seem to be a sense of ease.  And, of course, this would not be the inner sense of rightness that we talk about in Focusing.

These warring parts are what Barbara McGavin and Ann Weiser-Cornell call "Partial Selves," and they arise from an attempt to resolve a situation of trauma, blockage, or missing-ness. Because they are only  partial, they are not going to be able to bring about the resolution they seek—yet they do need to be listened to. But when I say they need to be listened to, I do not mean that we should act on them!

We need to ground ourselves firmly in Presence or our Inner Witness and listen deeply to what they’re afraid of and what they truly want for us – we need to hear their positive intent and let them know we have heard that is how it is – for them. One by one we listen to each partial self. Their energy eases up when they get heard. This leads to an inner calming that clears the way for the inner sense of rightness to be heard. Just saying hello to each voice-acknowledging their fear, anxiety etc can bring us into a clearer space and from this space we can sense the next right step.

This next step, sensed from a clear space after listening to our inner voices will feel fresh, intuitively supportive and a relief. The body knows the just right micro-adjustment if we listen.

Just 2 more thoughts…

We each need to let our intuition guide us, and then be willing to follow that guidance, directly and  fearlessly.

Shakti Gawain

I feel there are two people inside me – me and my intuition. If I go against her, she’ll screw me everytime, and if I follow her we get along quite nicely.

Kim Basinger

The Small Things Challenge

Here’s an easy way to contribute.

At least 80% of humanity lives on less than $10 a day, while 75 million children worldwide are not in school. By pooling surprisingly small investments, we can help to significantly improve educational access and economic development. It’s called The Small Things Challenge, and it’s a campaign based on the premise that every small action can make a big difference to ensure quality education and economic opportunity for all. We challenge you to join us in becoming a part of the solution. Your help will make a difference. Click here and they’ll donate 25¢ to the cause. Intel wants to rally millions of people. That 25¢ can become $300,000.

Just one click on your mouse and you can donate 25 cents. How easy is that? Dead set easy – so do it NOW! Yep – right now.

Thanks.

Kiva

We Let You Loan to the Working Poor

Kiva’s mission is to connect people through lending for the sake of alleviating poverty.

Kiva is the world’s first person-to-person micro-lending website, empowering individuals to lend directly to unique entrepreneurs in the developing world. Matt and Jessica Flanery knew that many people don’t give money to charity in part because they don’t really know where their money goes. So, Matt and Jessica decided to fix it. Their amazing organization, Kiva.org, has essentially democratized accountability for charities by linking up donors in rich countries with individual borrowers in poor countries.  

You can create your own personal profile and loan directly or join one of the open groups and contribute as one of their members. Some groups are by location (country, city), some are by affiliation (cat lovers – no not really – but there are 470 pages of groups so it is possible).

Here’s how Kiva describes their process and intentions:

The people you see on Kiva’s site are real individuals in need of funding – not marketing material. When you browse entrepreneurs’ profiles on the site, choose someone to lend to, and then make a loan, you are helping a real person make great strides towards economic independence and improve life for themselves, their family, and their community. Throughout the course of the loan (usually 6-12 months), you can receive email journal updates and track repayments. Then, when you get your loan money back, you can relend to someone else in need.

Kiva partners with existing expert microfinance institutions. In doing so, we gain access to outstanding entrepreneurs from impoverished communities world-wide. Our partners are experts in choosing qualified entrepreneurs. That said, they are usually short on funds. Through Kiva, our partners upload their entrepreneur profiles directly to the site so you can lend to them. When you do, not only do you get a unique experience connecting to a specific entrepreneur on the other side of the planet, but our microfinance partners can do more of what they do, more efficiently.

Kiva provides a data-rich, transparent lending platform. We are constantly working to make the system more transparent to show how money flows throughout the entire cycle, and what effect it has on the people and institutions lending it, borrowing it, and managing it along the way. To do this, we are using the power of the internet to facilitate one-to-one connections that were previously prohibitively expensive. Child sponsorship has always been a high overhead business. Kiva creates a similar interpersonal connection at much lower costs due to the instant, inexpensive nature of internet delivery. The individuals featured on our website are real people who need a loan and are waiting for socially-minded individuals like you to lend them money.

I’d love to hear from you if you have other ideas and recommendations that are simple, doable ways we can bring about the change we want to see in the world.