2008 ... A change in perception

This is the Chinese character for change: dangerous opportunity. It's the perfect symbol for the coming year! This is a longer post today, as befits the start of a new year. I hope you find it inspiring.

Life can throw a lot at us, sometimes more than we think we’re capable of dealing with, and often there isn’t much we can physically do about it. Those are the times when we feel impotent and the feeling is so disempowering that we may be tempted to give up.

I raise the point because my intuition tells me that 2008 is going to be a year of change. As with the genesis of all change, the first stages occur beneath the surface. A friend of mine planted potato seeds in her garden last summer and was getting impatient and concerned when the spuds didn’t seem to be growing. This is typical of most of us, especially when we’re hoping for and even expecting change and growth. When we can’t see it, we begin to wonder if anything is really happening or if we’re doing something wrong. And who among us hasn't had those passing thoughts in the past year?

Well, I think global change has been germinating for quite a while and it will begin to break surface (to use a submarine term) in more obvious ways in the coming year. Some of you have voiced to me that you’re wondering if we should expect changes to our physical world, or if it will be political and/or economic.

I think the changes are going to be in the realm of information. I have felt for a while now that ‘the truth will out’; it will be revealed to us. I’ve mentioned before that truth and lies have completely different energy; that of lies, twisted back on itself to form a sort of inverted spiral. On an energy level, I can feel a lie, and so can most psychics. I would go as far as to say that most people can but not all of us can identify what we’re feeling when we feel it.

The truth about Enron, or at least some of it, has come out. As with all lies, one lie requires another to cover the first, and before you know it, you have a whole fabrication of lies. When one is discovered, it doesn’t take too much digging before the others begin to come to light. An environment is created where the public begins to doubt the formerly accepted status quo, and expand the doubt into many other seemingly related areas. The fear is that if they could be duped once, then about how many other things could they still be in the dark? They start to look askance at everything they once trusted.

A profound level of mistrust arises, creating a crisis of faith encompassing more then just the original lies. By association, we mistrust all the people in the affected organizations, all the same or similar positions and professions in other organizations, the laws themselves, and not just the individuals and organizations who broke the trust in the specific, publicized incidents.

It is said that trust is a given until it is broken and then it takes a very long time to earn it back. The effect of any sort of lie is to erode the very fabric of community, where trust forms a crucial element of the bedrock upon which we build our relationships, for the purposes of commerce, government, education and family.

When I say that we’re going to see a year of change, I mean that it will come about on every level mentioned above. I don’t suppose it will be limited to just the corporate, political, global or family levels. I think we’ll also find it amongst the world’s religious leaders; local and on high. We’ll find it in our education systems, the scientific community, the medical community. In fact, I don’t think there is an area that will be immune. The fact that it will appear to be everywhere is what will cause the crisis in our hearts and minds.

I mentioned earlier that in feeling disempowered and mistrustful, we may be tempted to give up or become cynical. I encourage you to guard against these for a few reasons which I will outline below.

Firstly, not everyone has been lying, or creatively bending the truth, or even lying by omission. There are many individuals who witnessed some of what has been sanctioned and in some cases even demanded by the organizations in which they were members, and they may have felt gagged. Standing up and challenging the lies may have been tacitly or blatantly discouraged and they may have feared for their jobs or even their safety. These individuals, and I believe there are far more of them than we know, may be mightily relieved when the truth comes out. You may be one of them.

Secondly, I believe we have the tools and the creativity to deal with the fallout from these revelations, even if the results look like a mess. We could be tempted to throw the baby out with the bath water but we should think this through before we do anything precipitate. Our constitutions are principled documents, encouraging us to be idealistic while at the same time recognizing that we’re human. The common problem lies in the interpretation of our guiding principles, not in the principles themselves. Our boat may have sprung a leak but that doesn’t mean that we don’t know how to sail, any more than it means that there is something wrong with the principle of sailing. And, to continue the metaphor, even if sailing isn’t the best way to get where we need to go, I believe we have the global resources and the creativity to find another way.

Thirdly, we may have to look at the events that have led to our feelings of hopelessness, and ‘reframe’ them. By that I mean that the events about which the truth will come to light will quite often be about what happened in the past. When that is the case, there is nothing we can do to change what has already happened. What’s done is done. What remains within our power however, is to change how we look at it. Learning from a past mistake or betrayal, and seeing it for what it really is, is the first step in making sure that we don’t repeat it.

Vowing to never trust anyone again will not be useful. Rather, we should be more judicious in what evidence we require before we trust and in how involved we are in the follow-up. Perhaps we have been lulled into trusting so much, or scared into focusing our attention elsewhere, whether it was by our elected officials, educators, clergy, corporate leaders, etc., that we absolved ourselves of responsibility for due diligence. For that we must take responsibility and endeavour to make changes in our future behaviour.

Fourthly, in this era of apparently vast quantities of information, so much specialization and so many so-called experts, it is easy to feel overwhelmed and unable to determine what is actually the truth. Who do you trust and how can you be sure? I believe there is only so much homework we can do and then we have to rely on our instincts.

No, I’m not advocating that you retire your brain. I do suggest that we have been overly reliant on our brains, to the exclusion of our ‘gut’ sense of what is right. There are many times I’ve heard people say, ‘that doesn’t seem right’, or, something smells funny about this’. If it doesn’t seem right, it might warrant further digging on your part, or at least your postponing your decision until you get more information (the job of the brain). Don’t let yourself be pressured into having to make a decision right now when it doesn’t feel right (the job of the gut).

And lastly, in the coming year, you may know right away that you are a leader and just what you should be doing to help correct a given situation. You may have been biding your time, waiting for the sense that the time is right for you to do what you feel best suited to do. I say, go for it!

On the other hand, you may be a supporter and you just haven’t felt there was anyone to support yet. To you I say, when you find the right person, support them! Neither leading nor supporting is more important or more valuable. Both are necessary. You’ll know when to move by ‘feeling’ for the truth. The truth feels different than lies. Viscerally, you will know which feels right.

So, in these times of change, when so many about us will be afraid, disenchanted or angry, and when the ones who have been illegally and immorally co-opting our power, are trying to use fear to convince us to continue supporting what they are doing, hold on to your centre and open your heart. Know who you are and use your heart to FEEL for the difference between truth and lies. Don’t panic, get cynical or give up your right and your responsibility to make informed choices. Think positively. We have the systems and the solutions already, if we will just look for them and support them.

So, bring on the change! It’s time. We have been manipulated by fear for a long time and we’re ready to take up our power, integrate our brains with our hearts and make some different choices.We can live in a better world and there are those among us who have the blueprint and the passion. We just need to recognise and support them while we find our own paths.

I wish an inspiring, passionate and positive 2008 to you all. May you remember who you are and have the courage to stand for what you believe in. Let us remind ourselves of our true potential and live it, one day at a time.

Nothing is something

I've been giving some thought to 'doing nothing' lately and I've come to the conclusion that it is vastly underrated. The subject of 'nothing' may seem a little strange at this time of year, when we are all so busy, but I think that it's topical. I've decided that I should strive to be neither a human 'doing' nor a human 'being' but rather a 'be-doing' - the best of both worlds.

I stepped out of the formal world of business more than seventeen years ago because, after nine years, I was spent. But I didn't just step out of my job; I also stepped out of the 'busy-ness' I had been so hooked on for so long. I can see now that I thought that being busy made me important, made me look like I was needed and valued. I started the habit in high school where it helped me cope with feeling completely alienated and alone, and I just kept going with it into my twenties. By the time I reached 30, I'd finally had enough. Whatever it was supposed to be doing for me, it wasn't working and I knew it.

At thirty years old, I moved to the other side of the country and started afresh. I went back to school, worked part-time to keep the wolf from the door, and in the process I found a way to still myself for short periods, the way I had when I was a child. I found me again. I can't say that I loved everything I found when I looked inside but it prompted some soul-searching. Looking back at that time, I can see that I needed space; some 'nothing-time'.

Although it was somewhat scary to be without work for the eight months that I was, and somewhat threatening to my identity, it was also gloriously freeing. I let go of scheduling and I could go to bed when I was tired and wake up when I was refreshed. I could walk outside, or read a book, in the middle of the morning or afternoon. I stopped dreading Mondays. I no longer got angry when it rained on the weekend. I felt I could breath freely again. When I left my job, I had been as tightly wound as a kid after ice cream but not as happy. It took me months to unwind, but I did, and I am richer for it.

As I look around me lately, I think that many of us are as wound up as I was, and not always to good effect. We're so busy we don't seem to be able to make time for the things that really matter in the long run - family, deep friendships, learning, service, fun and rest. Keeping food on the table is important but is that really what ALL the busy-ness is about? Honestly?

These days, the buzz word we hear is 'stress'. We have to 'manage' our stress levels while still finding ways to get everything done. At the end of the day, 'doing' seems to be how we're measuring ourselves. We've bought into the idea that 'doing nothing' is wasting time, and with death looming on the horizon all our adult lives, that's close to a sin.

I was looking at a friend's artwork the other day and we were talking about having white space in the composition. Whether it's deliberate or accidental, life as well as art needs a space on which to rest the eye. Chefs know this; there has to be an element in the best designed meal where your pallet can rest, or your taste buds get overwhelmed and the most beautiful flavours are lost.

I believe life is the same way. There needs to be a certain percentage of our day/week/year when we take time. The exact duration, frequency and way of taking it will vary according to each individual, but I believe it's more than just necessary; I believe it's imperative. If we don't take it, life turns into an unexamined, undigested blur, sometimes even a lump, as we run without pause from one activity to another. And don't tell yourself, "but I take a holiday!", if your holiday is as frantic as the rest of the year and you have to 'catch up' when you return!

Sometimes I think we've lost the art of 'nothing'. Even the acts of examining and thinking are still 'something'. When I was in school, if I got caught staring out the window, I was chastised. Staring out the window on school time, or work time, was and is unacceptable. But outlaw it as we may, the healthy student, or worker, will find a way to take it, even if we don't know we're doing so. Some part of our psyche knows that we need it - crave it. The shame is that we most often end up feeling guilty about it.

Doing 'nothing' is like the fallow field that rejuvenates itself for a season. It's the sabbatical that we seem to think only professors need. It's day-dreaming and reveries. It's watching the clouds scud across the sky or birds at the bird feeder. It's watching the rain on puddles and the snow on the windscreen. It's listening to adult conversation ebb and flow around you when you're a kid and not needing to participate. It's staring out the window on a plane or a train and not needing to do anything in that moment. My generation knew how to do it when we were kids. Along the line, I think we've learned to devalue it.

So here's my suggestion for the week ahead, in this frantically busy time of the year, with so many demands, obligatory social functions and so little time: make some space to do 'nothing' - whatever your version is. It may be challenging but do it anyway. Find a space, however small, to 'un-do'. Savour it. Recognize it. Value it. And then see if you wouldn't like to build it into your life more regularly. Consider it a present to yourself. If you're someone who can do healthy 'nothing', then good for you. Keep doing it and model it for us.

I wish you a little morsel of 'nothing' this Christmas season. If, like me, you're more Pagan than Christian, then enjoy the first coming of the light. If you're into the Christmas celebrations, I hope you enjoy the camaraderie and the sharing of goodwill. If you're of another persuasion and have to put up with the negative side of this time of the year, I wish you patience and earplugs, or an invitation to join in our annual craziness. Bless you all.

Hope and a better world

At this time of the year, in the Northern Hemisphere, I become pensive, especially regarding the state of my world and the larger world around me. I gave up watching and listening to the news many years ago because I found it profoundly disturbing to take in the pervasive levels of fear that seem to coat each item presented in the name of awareness, for the public to consume. And still, the major news of the world sifts into my awareness anyway.

We have three weeks until the tide of light turns and the days begin to lengthen once again. I actually welcome this dark time of year, as I do the long days at the opposite end. Both bring with them the opportunity to purge in different ways. In June, I long for the chance to celebrate the life that surrounds me and expand into the lightness of being that comes with sun and growth. In December, I crawl into my cave, dream my dreams and set my sights on the freshening of hope.

I realize that I’m a little ahead of the game here but I thought that we might need some time to think about this, before the tide of light shifts. I’ve been reflecting this week on how sad I feel when I look at the state of the world. A friend of mine has been sending me articles that remind me that not everything that goes on in the world is reported in the media, and that we must steady our sights on what we strive for, rather than allowing fear to encourage us to lose hope.

Believing that dreams should be made practical in order to manifest, I have set myself the challenge of creating my wish list for a better world. If I were to have the world I could be proud to call home, what would it look like? Here’s what I’ve come up with so far. This is a longer posting that I usually write so I hope you will bear with me and take this away as fodder for thought. I recognize that I’m being idealistic and we’re not there yet; that’s the whole point.

Peaceful
My world would be at peace. I believe that constructive conflict in moderation is healthy. It shows us what matters and what is not yet as we would like it to be. However, I don’t believe we’re meant to live in constant anger, nor carry revenge from one generation to the next. It is harmful to the heart, the mind, the body and our communities. It forces us to expend energy and talent on finding ways to defend ourselves and/or defeat the identified enemy. There are surely more valuable things on which to expend our creative energy.

Confident
This may be fundamentally linked to my first point but let me make it anyway. I would like every child to grow up knowing that they are valued and unique. Let us measure them by their talents and interests, and encourage them to explore these as the basis of their ongoing contribution to their community. Let us treat them with respect so that they will continue to respect themselves and their fellow human beings. Let us celebrate their mistakes as a way for them to learn how to correct themselves and make different choices next time. If we all had more self confidence, maybe we would be less likely to live in fear.

Interconnected
I’d like my world to be like a web, where everyone is connected to everyone else through the forgiving tension of the web. By ‘forgiving’, I mean that the web has elasticity and doesn’t break as soon as it comes under stress. I would know that I matter because whatever I did in my corner of the web would immediately be felt by the rest of the web, and vice-versa. A web such as this would make borders obsolete. I believe that borders are designed to protect power and that the desire for protection is the result of fear.

Transparent
A transparent world would be like everyone having telepathy. There’s no point in lying if your thoughts are transparent. No doubt we would have to learn some strong interpersonal skills to deal with the fallout from having our thoughts on public display, but I believe it’s possible. Incorrect assumptions could be dealt with immediately. Public figures would have to tell the truth. Everyone would have to be more self-aware and responsible.

Learning as a way of life
With the amount of information available in our world and the rate of change that we experience, I believe that learning has to be recognized as a way of life. Teachers have always walked among us and should not be relegated to institutions, with low recognition. We are all teachers when it comes to what we have a talent for and are passionate about. Learning is not something that we only do at school and information shouldn’t be treated as a commodity for those who have the money to pay for it. In my preferred world, we would learn as we felt the need and teach as we had the talent.

Money as energy
I don’t pretend to have the answer to the problem of the equal distribution of money in our world but I confess that I do not like the way it works at the moment. I had exposure to an ‘alternative economic system’ when I lived in Scotland and I liked it. It had potential to be more equitable than our current system which seems usurious to me. Units of barter in an alternative system could be treated as energy that ebbs and flows over time. What’s important is that we keep the units moving, through each person’s spending and earning, and not that we accumulate more than we need or that we go into deepening debt. In my ideal world, people’s worth would be measured by their unique talent and their contribution and not by their bank balance or accumulation of things.

Beliefs that enrich
I see other people’s beliefs as part of the mosaic of humanity and not as a threat to my way of life. Language, culture, religion, food and ritual all make our world a richer tapestry. I would hate to have a homogenous world. On the other hand, belief systems that are intolerant of others’ rights to believe differently are not compatible with the idea of an interconnected web. Ultimately, we will have to come to a global consensus about values that we can all live with, that are mutually respectful and tolerant, otherwise we will not survive to live another day.

Our health and that of the planet
This ties back into our being interconnected. I believe we should treat our bodies the way we treat the planet and our planet the way we treat our bodies. We may have a self-aware brain but that doesn’t give us the right to destroy the natural balance of the planet. In fact, I think it brings a unique responsibility to keep things in balance and not doing so will be to our peril. Finding ways to cure diseases is no great feat when we engineered the conditions that created the diseases in the first place. A healthy body is a balanced body and the same goes for the planet. We have the talent, the ingenuity and the will to clean up the planet and our bodies, and keep them that way. My ideal world is a balanced one.

* * *

I think that’s as long as I can stretch your attention for this week. I hope what I’ve written here inspires thought. Nothing I’ve mentioned is rocket science. It probably isn’t even complete, but I hope it’s positive. It is my fervent wish that there are many more people than just me out there, who see opportunities to create positive change for our future. I hope that there are people working on it as I write this. Blessings on them, whoever and wherever they are. I may not know what they’re doing but they do. I hope they know they aren’t alone. I hope someone spreads the stories about what they’re up to so we can all be inspired and reassured as we approach the solstice time this year.

Finding our path in life

What do people generally want to know when they go to a psychic? Not surprisingly, I find it's similar from person to person, and even from continent to continent.

• Love life
• Job and/or life purpose
• Family and loved ones
• Health
• Financial security

But what happens before we get to the psychic? Some people head for the psychic as soon as they run into a glitch but in my experience this isn't the norm. For many people, a visit to a psychic is a last resort. We usually try to figure things out on our own. It's only when we feel we've exhausted all other avenues that we decide we have nothing to lose.

I think this is one of the reasons that we feel so emotional when the psychic sees just what we're up against, without us having to articulate it. We feel seen and understood, when often that isn't the case with other people in our lives, either because we feel we can't reveal our vulnerability or because we're not even sure how to define it ourselves.

It has been suggested to me that these same people only want to know about their future, and not the present or the past. While I think that may be true in the abstract, I don't think it's true in the particulars. I think most of us would prefer to understand what's going on for us in the present, and how we got there, so that we can find our own way into the future. It's only in the absence of understanding what's going on in the present that we feel blocked and hopeless about the future.

The famous Dr. Seuss expressed this very nicely in his last children's book before he died, entitled "Oh the Places You'll Go". I think it applies equally to adults. In it he says:

And when you're in a Slump,
you're not in for much fun.
Un-slumping yourself
is not easily done.

You will come to a place where the streets are not marked.
Some windows are lighted. But mostly they're darked.
A place you could sprain both your elbow and chin!
Do you dare to stay out? Do you dare to go in?
How much can you lose? How much can you win?

And IF you go in, should you turn left or right ...
or right-and-three-quarters? Or maybe not quite?
Or go around back and sneak in from behind?
Simple it's not, I'm afraid you will find,
for a mind-maker-upper to make up his mind.

He suggests that this is when we end up in the 'Waiting Place'. And when we come out of that place, we can find ourselves in the place where we're playing games against ourselves. That's when it gets lonely and scary. Actually, I think he describes beautifully what state people are in when they search out or stumble across a psychic.

They could be:

• in a 'Slump', or
• not know if they should 'turn left or right', or
• in the 'Waiting Place', or
• playing games against themselves.

But whichever it is, I think they usually need reassurance that they aren't crazy or deluded, and/or they need another perspective, like putting a new frame on the old picture so that they can see it in a new light.

So you may feel you'd like someone to take over and make the choices for you, or just tell you where you're going to end up, but I'll bet that if someone tried to take the reigns out of your hands, you'd fight to get them back again. I've had several clients who say they wanted to know what the future held for them and when I told them what I saw (which was only a probability in any case), they fought me. It wasn't the 'right' future, the one they had envisaged, although they didn't know that until 'it didn't fit'.

We say we want to see what choices we have but sometimes we can't see the fork in the road because we're preoccupied trying to figure out why it isn't where we expect it to be. It's frustration and hopelessness that makes us want someone else to take the whole thing out of our hands and make it all right. Our foreheads get sore from banging them against the proverbial wall and we just want to see some light. So is it as easy as just asking someone, like a psychic, to tell us what to do?

Ah, I doubt it! Life is sometimes the slog of a march on a road with no markers but I think it's also equal measures of dance, which does not proceed in a straight line. Neither can we expect life to be all one or the other. Too much of either would be really tedious!

I think it's a shame that we're programmed with so much fear... Are we doing enough? Are we doing the right things? Why did this happen to me? What if I don't make the right choice? A pinch of serendipity, an ounce of magic, some patience and a dollop of hard work; that's the recipe. And sometimes you need to reach out for some reassurance or another perspective. It isn't 'cheating'. Then, "Oh the Places You'll Go!"

The good Doctor says, at the end of his book:

And will you succeed?
Yes! You will indeed!
(98 and 3/4 percent guaranteed.)

Lies, lies, and denial

There is an energy around a lie that is different from the energy around the truth, or the truth as we know it to be. Several of the readings I've done in the last few weeks have raised the topic and so I have been giving it some thought. As I get older and more experienced with people lying to me or to others around me, I find my awareness increasing around when it's happening in the moment; as opposed to seeing it in hindsight. I may not always know what the lie is, or why the person is lying, but I think I can often tell when it happens.

I think denial is a kind of lying to the self. I've come to the conclusion that it most often comes from an inability to face the truth, or what we fear is the truth and what it might mean, perhaps because we feel we are helpless before it. This would mean that very often we lie out of plain old fear. It seems to me that fear is so powerful that the person who is in denial can refuse to see what is pointed out to them, even when the evidence is overwhelming.

How does one get through to that person? Is it even possible? When confronted with lies and/or denial, I find myself hanging on to the hope that one day the person will see what the lies really do in their life; the pain it causes, the further lies to cover up the original lies, the betrayal. We tend to hang in and hope that the boss, family member, or friend will say, "Maybe there is something to what you're saying. Let me have a look at it and I'll get back to you." I hear people saying that they would be happy just to be able to open some dialog. Or they get too frustrated and they give up and walk away.

I'm coming to understand that such an admission of the possibility of letting go of the lies is much more difficult than we might imagine when we wish for it. I suppose it depends what we imagine is the underpinning issue that is causing all the fear. For instance, if the person in question were to believe that he or she is basically a flawed and unworthy human being, and that they would be completely abandoned if anyone were to find out, then that belief would form the cornerstone of their behaviour around everything. It would be the seminal denial and every lie they told would spring from that fear and be designed to protect themselves against ultimate abandonment.

By the time someone came along and pointed out just one little lie or one form of denial that was part of that fabric of lies, acknowledging it would be tantamount to letting someone take the end of the ball of yarn and pull on it. It could unravel their self image and their whole life could fall apart. For them, it might have to be all or nothing in terms of defending the lies. They couldn't allow anyone to touch any part of the web without their whole self image being put in jeopardy.

For some of us, our self esteem is solid enough that we can take a look at what comes our way without it disturbing the bedrock of our identity, although it might still be uncomfortable or even painful to look. Perhaps those people in our lives who are lying or are in denial see that basic confidence in us and believe that we wouldn't understand how they feel. They might feel that such a strong person has 'all the cards', certainly in the confidence department, and they have fewer cards, or none. The other person has power; they don't. The other person is resilient; they're vulnerable. The other person has nothing to lose and they're at risk. It wouldn't seem like an even playing field to them and therefore not safe enough to take such a huge risk as to uncover themselves, even to themselves.

Those people with strong, basic self confidence might try showing their vulnerability, believing that this would demonstrate that they have fears as well, but even that may not work. It's as though even that disclosure is something that you can only make if you're confident enough. And you can't pretend to be less confident than you are; that would insult their intelligence.

The realization I'm finally coming to is that there very often isn't anything you can do, except love them and leave them to get on with their path in life. Even if you're naturally more confident, or even if you've worked hard on yourself to get there, you're still human. You'll misspeak at times, and lose patience, and feel angry. But banging on the door of the person who's in denial is only going to give you a sore hand.

Occasionally, with some people, you might be able to get through. We tend not to have as much emotional baggage with people outside our families and maybe it makes it easier to resolve conflicts with them than it is closer to home. We tend not to be as invested and so are less likely to take offense or get so scared that it's beyond our ability to find a solution.

Having said that, there are times when most of us get triggered by something that pushes our hot buttons and makes us reactive. I had one of those this week! I've done a lot of work on myself over the years, enough to be able to see when it was happening and to pull back and reconsider my reaction– this time.

What I hope is that there are enough of us who are willing and able to take the risk to face what we fear and do the work of rebuilding our confidence, to the point where we don't feel that denial or lying are our only options, so that way down deep inside ourselves we will be confident that we can somehow find our way through the fear and conflict and out at the other end.

In the meantime we need to remember that, sometimes it won't be within our ability to affect the situation directly. That's the key: not within our ability. We do have the power to work on improving our abilities, all of us. But whilst we're doing that, sometimes we'll have to wait and trust that there will be someone, somewhere, who is in the right position to help that person we care about, even though it might not be us just yet.

Kindergarten and the 'Blue Line'

Conversations around me have been turning lately, and with a degree of hopelessness and cynicism, to the present state of the world. This includes the looming American presidential election, the investigation of ex-prime minister Brian Mulroney's investment dealings with a shady German 'businessman', the state of our global environment, the effects of the current drop in the value of the US dollar, teachers molesting students, gang-style murders in our province, and the list goes on.

Division, deception and suspicion seem to be dominating our news and it makes me so sad. How can it be that we still have not learned that we need to share, that we need to clean up after ourselves and that killing doesn't beget anything other than more killing, no matter how good our intentions? There's a folksy writer living on a houseboat in Seattle who wrote a book called: All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten. (Robert Fulghum, Ivy Books, New York, 1986) In it he reflects on some of the things he has learned in life, summarized in this list:

Share everything.
Play Fair Don't hit people.
Put things back where you found them.
Clean up your own mess.
Don' take things that aren't yours.
Say you're sorry when you hurt somebody.
Wash your hands before you eat.
Flush.
Warm cookies and cold milk are good for you.
Live a balanced life–learn some and think some and draw and paint and sing and dance and play and work every day some.
Take a nap every afternoon.
When you go out into the world, watch out for traffic, hold hands, and stick together.
Be aware of wonder.

This isn't a remedy for everything that ails us but I think our world might be somewhat simpler if we tried to live by these maxims as a starter.

Bearing in mind how young we are in kindergarten, I'd like to share with you the words, with permission, of my young friend. He's nine years old and I really like his way of looking at the brotherhood and sisterhood of humanity. Sometimes the young are our best teachers.

When I was little I used to think one thing: I thought that everyone was connected in our family by a blue line. Blue is the colour of the sky so it's very hard to see these lines, but sometimes on gray days you can make out little blue flake molecules if you look really hard. This blue line is connected for miles and miles and miles, even to Australia and beyond. And every person in the world is connected to his family through these lines. I believe that this line can never be cut. the air in the world is squished around us because part of it is the blue line because that blue line is connected to every single human being everywhere. Every time a person dies the line fades to a really light blue, but it is still there.

Petitioning the Universe

I'm in the process of reading a book by Elizabeth Gilbert called Eat, Pray, Love. (see the sidebar for what I'm reading) Elizabeth is a New York Journalist and, in Chapter 9, during a long car ride, complains to her friend about how long it's taking for her divorce to come through. It had been taking an extraordinarily long time and she was wrung out.

She said to her friend, "I don't think I can endure another year in court. I wish I could get some divine intervention here. I wish I could write a petition to God, asking for this thing to end." She then went on to explain to her friend why she thought that she couldn't/shouldn't ask for specific things from God but should instead pray for the courage to face whatever occurred in her life with equanimity.

Her friend's response was as follows:

"Where did you get the idea that you aren't allowed to petition the universe with prayer? You are part of this universe, Liz. You're a constituent - you have every entitlement to participate in the actions of the universe, and to let your feelings be known."

So Elizabeth wrote a petition to God and asked for what she wanted. She humbly made a case for getting rid of one more conflict in this world and said that it would increase the general health of the whole world, letting two more people become free and healthy. (It was a great letter but I'll let you read it in the book.) She signed it respectfully. Then her friend suggested that she should add (symbolically sign) the names of all the people whom she thought would support it. They listed them for an hour as they drove, including her parents and others, alive and dead, as far-flung as Mandela, the Clintons and Gandhi. Then she was exhausted and fell asleep. She was woken by her cell phone ringing. It was her lawyer to tell her that her husband had just signed the papers.

Did I mention that this book is non-fiction? As unlikely as this story sounds, I believe that when we ask for what we want, we should be prepared to get it. Yes, this could be a coincidence. Yes, she might be stretching a point - although I don't think she is.

To write a letter/petition to God or the Universe, I think you have to get very clear in your own mind about what you want and why. Wishy-washy petitions don't usually garner support and we'd best keep that in mind when formulating them.

What do you want? Who will benefit and why? Keep in mind that you can't pull one over on the Universe or the all-knowing-one because, well, he/she/it is all-knowing. You would really look unworthy if you lied about deserving something, or lied about what you really wanted it for, or how many people it would benefit. Even if you don't believe in God, and you're writing to yourself, lying isn't likely to move you closer to what you want. At the very least, you should be honest with yourself.

It seems to me that getting clear is really half the battle. If you can spell out what you want and not have any doubts about it, then you've set your intention clearly enough to manifest what you want or need - especially if it really is in the best interests of your soul and everyone else's. And, in the worst case scenario, if you still don't get what you're looking for, petitioning can't do any harm, can it? It's not like you're using up three wishes.

All this left me wondering how I would phrase a letter. What do I want? How much do I want it? Why?

The 'holding tank'

My world went through quite an expansion when I left home to go to university in the late seventies. I met many new people from many walks of life and learned about other people's lifestyles, belief systems and histories. Many of the people whom I met during those first years away from home are etched in my memory. I remember having one deep discussion in particular, in my dorm room late one evening, with a new-found friend. We were getting to know one another's views on life and in the process I realized that I was using a technique that I had not, until then, put a name to.

Fear of new concepts
I use this technique to this day. I thought everyone used it until I talked to this new friend and found she didn't. Let me explain. When someone, or some experience in my life, introduces me to a new concept or a new piece of information, especially one with which I am not completely comfortable, I put it into what I described that night as a 'holding tank'. During our discussion, I introduced to this friend just such a new and, to her, uncomfortable concept, and she immediately rejected it - out-of-hand, I thought.

I was surprised that she refused to even entertain the idea and that she was so vehement in her rejection. We had hardly even had a chance to discuss it. When I asked her why she wouldn't even give the concept some thought, she said she already had and that the idea I was suggesting wasn't possible for her. I thought maybe she had thought about it in the past and rejected it, but no, I was the first person to suggest it. She was rejecting it because it felt too unsafe for her to even sit with it while she considered the ramifications.

A holding tank
It was as she explained this that I was able to see my 'holding tank' system for dealing with the unknown. For me, it's a bit like putting an idea into an isolation chamber while I give it a good sniff and figure out what it would mean to my belief system if I took it on board. I can then talk to other people about it. I might research it. I can compare it to what I have always believed in the past, to see if the new concept makes more sense than how I have seen things to date.

Because I have somewhere to put any potentially life-changing concept or piece of information, I don't have to immediately make a decision about it. This system gives me the grace of time. Generally-speaking, I have noticed that if someone pushes me to make a decision faster than I am ready to, I am much more likely to say no, just to be on the safe side. Since rejecting change out of hand might not be in my best interests, I have developed this system to help me process the potential ramifications of the change, whatever it might be.

Entertaining the 'guest' of change
Over the years, I have often referred to this idea when working with clients. For it to work, we have to be able to make a little compartment within ourselves, within our belief systems, where we can 'entertain' a concept as we would an unknown guest in our house. We might only let this guest come as far as the front porch, at least until we determine how comfortable we are with it. Researchers are familliar with this process. They call it setting up a hypothesis, which has to be tested and then validated before it is accepted as fact.

In order to do this, we have to be aware of ourselves as 'people who hold beliefs' and be confident that those beliefs can change without us completely losing our identity. Gaining such an awareness requires a certain degree of objectification of our thought processes. It requires a 'meta' viewpoint. For me this has always been a natural way to see aspects of my beliefs and my behaviour, and the world, but I realize that this isn't always so for everyone.

Some people can take such a meta-position naturally, without even knowing that they do. Others can be introduced to this process and, with some practice, can gain increasing levels of confidence and skill. Still others may never feel comfortable with it, preferring to whole-heartedly take the plunge into change, devil take the hindmost, or instantly reject the change as being too dangerous, or 'not me'. These are different styles; each with their own benefits and drawbacks.

Helping myself grow
I'm happy with my system because it gives me the space to explore with some sense of safety- real or imagined. Perhaps I'm overly cautious and could live a more adventurous life - some might say this is true of me. But at the moment this system suits my personality and allows me to be a little braver than I might be without it. It helps me to deal with being in my own personal 'edge territory' and potentially grow into a greater awareness of my potential self - which was last week's subject.

Contemplating the 'edge'

In the last couple of months, I have found myself frequently referring to people being 'on the edge' and afraid to step off into the unknown. I've had conversations with many of them but there are many who aren't in a place where they can talk about it yet.

I'm not talking about being so uncomfortable that you want to commit suicide. I'm talking about having the feeling that where you are isn't completely comfortable any more, at the least, or is possibly even downright uncomfortable at the worst. We could call this, 'edge territory'. Any of you who have worked with me have probably heard me refer to this place.

Foggy Land
Edge territory is the the foggy land between the you with whom you can identify and the as-yet unknown you. As we get older, life teaches us more about ourselves. You could say that it increases our window of self-awareness. But all of us have a blind spot. That's the part of ourselves that is still undiscovered. It's hard to deliberately do something about this because a blind spot is, well... blind.

The biggest challenge about increasing our self-awareness and decreasing the size of our blind spot is that we're really not identified with it. We experience it as 'other'. A teacher of mine once said that we often have emotional allergies to the qualities that we see as 'other'.

'Other'
My personal favourite was the 'selfish' person. It was so easy for me to point out anyone who had the slightest scent of what I saw as selfishness. 'Selfish people' were 'them' and I was part of the 'unselfish people'. Once I had this 'allergy' pointed out to me, I could see the nonsense in my perspective, but it took a while! In reality, we all have every quality. Before I could accept that I had this one, I had to reframe it as 'self-ful-ness'. Being selfish is actually a neutral quality. The positive and negative aspects just depend on how we express it.

Exploring Our Wholeness
We may choose not to identify with part of our emotional wholeness, or not express it, but all the emotions are there. For many years, I thought that I wasn't an 'angry person'. In fact, I prided myself in not being angry. I started seeing a therapist in my early thirties and began to see how I expressed, or leaked, my repressed anger. I was under the impression that it wasn't acceptable to be angry, let alone express it.

All the reasons behind why each of us repress certain qualities in ourselves could fill a book. Suffice it to say that some of it is gender-related, some cultural, some to do with the era in which we were raised, and much to do with our life experiences. But lest I mislead you, being afraid of certain emotions or qualities in ourselves isn't the whole story of 'edge territory'.

Reframing
Let's go back to feeling uncomfortable. I was talking to someone at coffee the other day who knows exactly what she wants to do, and she's not doing it. She was under the impression that it was just that she couldn't get organized and get off her duff. We played with the idea that it's related to a responsibility that she has been carrying for years. The need to carry it has all but gone now but she suspects that she might be holding herself back because she's afraid that the need to carry the responsibility could suddenly return. Very simple, but it hadn't occurred to her. If this is in fact true, she may have more options than she had thought, in terms of how she steps out over her personal edge.

Courage and Change
What's 'over the edge', so-to-speak, is unknown and therefore a bit shadowy; ranging from uncomfortable to downright terrifying. One thing is certain; venturing into this place, alone or with support, always brings growth, excitement and change. So, whether we're afraid to go for a dream, or make a long-overdue change, or explore our blind spot, or just own another part of our wholeness, carpe diem!

Love and friendship

It's a time we call 'Thanksgiving' in my part of the world, a time that is really quite Pagan, if you think about it, as it comes from giving thanks for the bounty of the land after the crops have been harvested for the winter. Everything in the market always looks so appealing at this time of the year that it gets my inspirational cooking juices flowing.

While I always feel particularly aware of Mother Nature in the autumn, I am feeling grateful on this holiday weekend for friendships. A friend of mine hasn't been feeling contented with her looks lately and I was reassuring her that she looks fine. Sound like a platitude? I think it might have to her, although I meant it.

I meant it because I don't look at people I care about with the same eyes as they use to look at themselves. I've been wondering about that. Why don't I look at them that way? I often find myself narrowing my eyes at my reflection in the mirror and getting hypercritical. Why do I do it to myself and not to them?

Perhaps it's because we fall in love with our friends. Yup - that's what I said: 'in love'. I don't mean that we want to hop into bed with them; just that wanting to spend time with someone, listen to their joys and woes, isn't just about being 'kind'. I think we're genuinely in love with some aspect of their character, their persona, their talent. It might be something that we wish we had and believe we don't. It might be some shared passion, sense of humour or cause. Whatever it is, we love it.

And just as with the partner we choose to commit to in life, we may not love everything about them. Being in love doesn't always mean being blind, especially if you've known the person for a long time. You can still get irritated or impatient with them, but overall you love the package, or you wouldn't stick around. Of course I'm talking about healthy friendships.

There are plenty of unhealthy ones around; the ones who become the big screen where we project our disowned power, our unacknowledged weaknesses, our need for whatever we feel we are not, or aren't allowed to be. Maybe you could call those the dysfunctional friendships that could do with a friendship equivalent of divorce.

As I give thanks for my friends, past and present, I suppose I must consider this latter group as well. Even if they aren't presently in my life, they too served me, if only in the negative sense. Either they taught me something or I taught them, probably a little of both. At least I hope that's what came out of it.

I was googling (funny how that's a verb now) some old friends the other day and found a few. One was a girl who lived across the street from me in Montreal. I think I only knew her for about a year and a half, although in child years it felt longer. Even though we were a year apart, we walked to school together and swore to be one another's bosom pals.

I found a picture of her on the web, and even found her email address, but I hesitated when it came to what to say. Do I need to say anything? Maybe it's better for that friendship stay intact in my past, uncomplicated by who we have become. I loved her then, in the way that a child loves their bosom pal. That apple has already been polished.

I have some friends with whom I feel special, like that polished apple. When I have visited with them, or spoken to them on the phone, I feel like a more beautiful, more splendid, or talented person - my best self. I feel accepted, celebrated, a worthy contributor to their well being, uplifted. Perhaps this is the everyday equivalent of a standing ovation.

I wish we all saw ourselves through the eyes of our best friends. Perhaps we would be more contented with ourselves. It's certainly cheaper than drugs and even better than vitamins to keep us healthy.

So, on this Thanksgiving, I give thanks for the wonderful balm of friendship.

Just what is it that you do anyway?

The other day, I found myself explaining to an acquaintance just what it is that I do. I thought it was a legitimate question. After all, I'm not a doctor or a lawyer or a fire chief. Most people would not have heard of what I do, and even if they had, they still might not be sure what it is.

I've heard the question quite a few times lately and so I imagine that trotting out my stock answer isn't what the Universe has in mind for me. I find that we're not usually asked to repeat something if we don't need to go over it again and catch something we've missed. Therefore, I answered this woman's question very carefully.

Many of you have worked with me in the past and so you may know one or several aspects of what I do. I have explained each aspect before and I think I have the descriptions pretty tight by now. I am, variously and in combination, a therapist, coach, management and communication skills trainer, psychic, healer, medium and writer. And while I am all of these, they don't really define the essence of what I do.

I suspect that it isn't so much what I do that needs capturing so much as it is who I am. When I graduated from school with a management degree under my belt, I looked for a vocation that would allow me to use who I was, with only limited matches. At twenty-two years old, I was still trying to think conventionally and I didn't fully understand who I was.

Now, at closer to fifty than forty-five, I am much clearer about who I am, and therefore what I do. Firstly, I think I'm a diagnostician. Here's what I said to that acquaintance I was telling you about... No matter where you put me, I soak up the environment and try to make sense of it.

I use every tool at my disposal. I call it my kit-bag. Think of me as an intelligent sponge. I soak up the environment and process it. In the best-case-scenario I can discern a pattern that means something to someone around me. In a family setting, an office, an organization, a relationship, a classroom or across the world, that could mean that what I pick up provides a different perspective, an insight, a challenge, some recognition or in some cases, just a starting place for figuring things out.

In my kit bag is who I am; all the skills I've acquired and practiced, all the experiences I've had, all the experiences I've listened to, all the books I've read and all my talents. We all have them - talents, I mean. I believe we are meant to use them. They are our 'unfair advantage' and we're meant to share them in whatever way we can.

The really minimalist thing about what I do is that I don't need any supplies or infrastructure. All I need is me and my senses. And the person or group with whom I'm working. That's why I can work in a coffee shop, a park, a plane or an office. Information is information. It doesn't matter if it comes in the form of words/sounds, body language, energy, prayers or pictures. Ultimately, everything has a feeling to it.

That brings me to the second part of what I do ... I talk, or write, and watch for feedback. Sometimes it feels a bit like translation because not all of what I 'pick up' when I'm in 'sponge mode' translates easily into language, but I do my best. I'm clear that I don't have all the answers. My job is to assist. Synergy and synchronicity are key ingredients. I never know what I'm going to be assisting with, from day to day. That's what makes my life so exciting, and interesting.

Back in the days when I didn't really understand what I was doing, when I thought I was a management trainer in the hospitality industry, I was asked by my then out-going boss to give her some feedback on what she was like as a boss, and what I thought she could improve upon. I took this request very seriously and went away overnight to consider carefully just what I should say to her that would be useful in her new job.

We had lunch the next day and I gave her my feedback. Now, given what I have been doing for the last twenty-five years, I realize that what I did for her was a psychic reading combined with observation. The poor woman probably didn't know what hit her. Don't get me wrong; it was professional, respectful constructive and thoughtful. But it was also very accurate and somewhat disconcerting. I honestly didn't know what I was giving her.

Nowadays I work with more awareness stemming from having lived for another twenty-five years. I've learned to expand the parameters of what I call 'work'. The woman who asked the question of me the other day was explaining about a team-building intervention in which she had participated at work a short while ago. I've conducted those in my time but I'm clear that while I'm a good trainer, it's not the best use of my skills.

This is what I do where I have an advantage:

1. soak up 'vibes' and make observations
2. find a way to communicate them
3. listen to the feedback and refine the observations
4. help the person or group to make a plan, if needed, and assess their progress

Once a person or group has figured out what they're working on and why, the REAL issues, that's half the battle won. The rest can be accomplished with skill and logistics. I'm not afraid to work 'outside the box' and my ego doesn't require that anyone even need to know I've been there. I read a web site the other day where the author referred to this as a secret adviser. I call it Private Counsel but that doesn't really do it justice. It's just a tag.

Do you think this answers the question?

A blue line

I'm late posting this week because I was involved in a memorial celebration for a friend of mine who died this past July. About two hundred and fifty people gathered for a few hours this sunny September afternoon, at a stately old house on the grounds of the University of British Columbia.

Friends, family and colleagues came from far and wide to participate. It was like a gathering of the clans. Some people were of the same family, or branches of the same family, but the rest of us were members of the human family.

Over the last ten-plus-years I have come to know my friend Geoff, his wife Fleur and his son Aidan. They own the house in which I live on the garden level. Many of the people who were at the celebration today have come and gone over the years I've lived here and I have met and come to know them. Geoff was diagnosed with cancer about a year and a half before he died and many of those people, and more, came by the house to see Geoff and to support his wife and son. They were almost all there today.

The ones whom I had not already met I had heard stories about. The afternoon was not long enough for me to be able to put names to faces and talk to all of the people whom I felt I already knew. I will have to trust that there will be time in the future, although, if there is one thing that Geoff's illness reinforced for me, it was that we should not put off until tomorrow what is important to do today. Carpe Diem.

Geoff's mother's partner and a friend of Geoff's with whom he used to play hockey worked on different stages of a computerized slide show of photographs of every stage of Geoff's life. Many things were left out because forty-seven years are hard to compress into a short presentation but there was enough there for most people who knew him to be able to smile through the tears in recognition.

I was one of the people who spoke and I went up last to read something that Geoff had written last winter and had asked me to read. Coming on the heels as it did, of his brother and sister's comments and those of a University friend, I could see so clearly how this last piece was one strand of the tapestry of his life. In fact, I was acutely aware that this is so for all of us, no matter at what age we depart.

Ultimately our life is summarized by all the people who share our life's experience, who inspire us, who warn us by word or deed not to proceed in a particular direction, who challenge us as well as those who come together to mourn our passing. Even those who couldn't make it today share in this tapestry.

As I listened to those who spoke, and many others whose comments I heard or overhead as we circulated afterwards, I heard so many different perceptions of Geoff. Each individual held select pieces of the many facets of the person he was; early in life, in his married years, as a hockey player, as an architect, as a journalist, a photographer and as a friend. The more I heard, the better I felt I knew him, even after his death. Not only did we all come together to celebrate a life lived, to mourn a man lost, but we form a living web that will continue to add depth and breadth to the man who lives on in all the people who knew him.

I would have called this the 'ripples in the pond of life' but his son put it so much better. I wish I had the actual words in front of me but my memory will have to suffice for now. Aidan is nine and his contribution today was to say, among other things, that he thinks that we are all connected to one another by a blue line. It's the colour of the sky so you can't always see it, but it connects all of us to one another. Essentially we're all one.

I couldn't have said it better myself. Somewhere out there Geoff is still connected to us all through love and a blue line. Gone in some ways but not gone in all ways. I believe we are all connected by participating in one another's lives and by witnessing one another's joys and sorrows. We create one another, even after death.

Purpose string

I tuned in to a young woman's energy the other day. She has been feeling exhausted and unwell. The doctors haven't been able to find the cause and she and her family are feeling worried and frustrated. Without looking for any information, I suddenly picked up one line and it was:

"She has lost her connection to her purpose string."

My sense was that she experienced some sort of trauma and her connection to her purpose string was wrenched. Sometimes I receive information that contains a concept which I haven't heard of before and this was one of those times. As a term "purpose string" is so clear and quite delightful. So much so that it made me smile in recognition. Even though I've never heard of it, I feel I know exactly what a purpose string is.

I imagine it going all the way up my spine and into the sky and the Universe, and that if I tug on it, something on the other end will tug back. It feels reassuring, as if I might need a reminder about why I'm here and it is always there - like spell-check.

If I didn't have a purpose string, then I imagine I might not be very well grounded. I might lose sight of who I am and how to navigate through my life. How would I know what is right for me? I began to think about all the times when we make pivotal decisions in life and what we need as a reference point in order to make those choices. What do I study? Who do I want as a friend? What city should I live in? Who should I marry?

One thought leads to another in my thinking processes and as soon as I began to think of pivotal decisions, I corrected myself and considered that big choices are based on thousands of daily choices. Surely a purpose string would influence many of those as well. I pick up a book to read based on my interests, which are connected to my purpose in life. Friends and potential mates could be drawn to me based on who I am, my interests, my values and my choices.

I wondered if a computer without an operating systems might make a good metaphor for life without a purpose string but I had second thoughts about that. An operating system isn't a blueprint for what to do with the computer. It just gives you a tool to access data. The 'data', or the purpose, comes from a part of ourselves that has access to the bigger picture of our lives whereas the day-to-day part of ourselves can sometimes get lost in minutiae.

I don't know if what I sensed about the young woman was correct. Time will tell but she has led me to think about my purpose string and what it means in my life. It provides a touchstone that informs my choices and gives me comfort when I'm not sure where the turns in the road in front of me will lead. If I lost it, I would feel as though I had been cast adrift in a boat without a rudder, not knowing where I was going or how to get there. I might be tempted to navigate with an external compass instead of my internal one.

I suspect we all have a purpose string but I need to talk to some more people about it to find out more about their experience.

Edgewalking

An Edgewalker, according to a book by that name just written by Judi Neale, is defined this way:

They're the first people to volunteer to head up a new business unit, lead a cross-company initiative, or take on an overseas assignment. They're the glass half-full folks, who are constantly thinking "out of the box," forging alliances with colleagues in other departments, seeking out new solutions to old problems, and anticipating challenges on the horizon. And in today's increasingly diverse workplaces, they are often people who have pursued unusual educational and career paths, traveled widely, and speak more than one language. Judi Neal has a term for these people: Edgewalkers. Literally, an Edgewalker is someone who walks between two worlds.

I haven't read the book yet but it seems to me from her web site that the author is focused on several different roles in the workforce. I find I'm more interested in how Edgewalkers might behave in society in general. My term for them has been 'deviant bees'. I feel that I am one; either a deviant bee or an Edgewalker. I really like the term Edgewalker though. (Find out if you are an Edgewalker by completing Judi's questionnaire)

I see them as the people who walk the edge between the known and the unknown in any community. You could be one in your profession, in your community, your family - in any group really, where the known is trying to grow into the unknown. A friend of mine has always been great at trying out new things that are available on the market. I admire that trait in her and sometimes wish I had it. It see it as an adventurous quality in her whereas I tend to wait until something has been around for a while, until I get used to seeing it around and someone else has tried it, and then I decide that maybe I'd like to have one.

I think I walk the edge in other spheres though. My sphere is the spiritual/emotional side of life. Sometimes I feel that I'm so avant-guard that what I'm looking at doesn't even have words to describe it yet. I like being in that weird territory, even though it isn't always comfortable. I'm willing to risk people not understanding me, or even ostracizing me in some situations because somehow it's worth it. It's where I live. It's home in some strange way.

I don't imagine that true Edgewalkers try to be what they are. It just happens because of the way they look at the world. I don't even imagine that you could recruit people to be a part of that group. You either came wired that way at birth or you didn't.

Judi says on her web site that she thought there were very few Edgewalkers in the workforce and that they need to be more appreciated but she got a flood of feedback from people at her talks saying that they felt that she was being biased towards the role and neglecting others. To her surprise more people than she expected thought they were Edgewalkers, many of them just in some areas and not others.

In the course of my research, I came across a group in the US called BlogHer. These are women bloggers, blogging about everything under the sun. I found one a few days ago and I'll link you to it here. This BlogHer was talking about what she refers to as the 'S-word' in business. 'S' being spirituality. She carefully defines it as 'not religion' and says that businesses would do well to acknowledge that it is important to a number of employees, and even customers. I'm paraphrasing but my take on it is that businesses will ignore it at their peril.

When I was in the business world in the 80s, and even in the 90s, if you mentioned anything spiritual, you immediately and automatically lost credibility. Many of the issues I work with are related to what we see as spirituality, although I don't think they are truly limited to that area. It's just a catch-all label for a bunch of things we're not yet comfortable talking about in the world of work. Business ethics and personal integrity, values, fears about illness and incapacitation, death, birth, marriage, friendship, self worth and meaning; I think all of these are very much related to our spiritual outlook in life. They may also relate to our religious beliefs and practices but not only to those.

This 'S' area, for lack of a better term, is what interests me. How does it affect how we work and what we work on, with whom and how well? I don't think human beings work optimally without meaning, and meaning is derived from many things. Just wanting more money in order to buy more security and more material things seems a mean and limiting expectation of what motivates us.

I'm hoping that we're going to get fed up with being on the often fear-ridden, material treadmill and seek something with richer meaning. I hope that we demand more of our jobs and our relationships at work. Given how much time we spend there and how influential our work environments are on our lives, I hope that we can do better than we have been doing. I suspect that there are a growing number of people who are getting fed up, or we wouldn't have so many home-based businesses, children being home-schooled, or even people retiring early in order to do something that holds more meaning for them.

I celebrate walking on the edge, in whatever capacity we do it. I found a post card years ago that read:

If you're not living on the edge, you're taking up too much space.

Paying it forward

I was reminded the other day by a friend of mine that service is where we start when we don't know how to get to where we want to be. If you don't know how to get there, help someone else to get to where they want to be and watch it snowball (as we say in Canada). Somehow it shifts you into a higher vibration of energy, a more optimistic place. You'll end up getting the help you need as well.

My childhood was the learning ground for what I know about service. I learned it from my mother and a few key people in my community. I didn't think about service as 'service' when I was a kid. It was just what I did. Helping other people do things made me feel good and gave me an opportunity to get to know them better.

It wasn't a 'cool' thing to do when I was young. I was called 'little-miss-goody-two-shoes' at school. I didn't like the teasing but I guess it didn't bother me enough to make me stop doing what I was doing. I was sensitive but I was stubborn. In one of my early jobs I was even told by a head-hunter that I was too altruistic. I thought I knew what the term meant but he was using it as though it were an insult. I had to go home and look it up to be sure I hadn't misunderstood.

My trusty Webster's dictionary says that it means:

1. unselfish concern for the welfare of others; selflessness
2. Ethics the doctrine that the general welfare of society is the proper goal of an individual's actions: opposed to egoism

I wouldn't call myself selfless. I have as much interest in things turning out well for myself as anyone else. However I do believe that if we look after society as a whole, it will be a better place for each member of a community. I don't remember having to learn that concept as much as I remember learning what it was called after the fact.

I find that helping other people just plain feels good. Perhaps we live in a society where people don't help one another as much as we could, perhaps because we are living at such a fast pace and feel we don't have time. One of my friends says that we are all one on the cosmic level anyway, and we have to treat one another that way. She's serious about this; she doesn't just pay lip service to it. She's in a wheelchair and she still finds ways to help people.

Themes come up in my life sometimes and there have been several reminders about service lately, and not just from the friend I mentioned earlier. The other day I met a young immigrant couple when I was out for coffee. Their history was interesting. The man escaped from Iran many years ago and declared himself to the United Nations as a political refugee. He had to leave his family and the life he knew behind, starting over in Canada with no English. He wasn't looking for sympathy - far from it - he was just responding to our questions about how he came to be here. But his is not the first story of escape I've heard in the last little while.

Each story I hear tells of complete strangers who came to the aid of the escapee at some key point in their journey. Granted, there were also plenty of people ready to take advantage of them, but there were also people who made considerable sacrifices out of the goodness of their hearts. Those acts of kindness can make the difference between surviving or being caught and shot.

His wife has only recently arrived in Canada from Turkey. She's a surgical nurse and is getting her English up to scratch and converting her qualifications, both of which are taking much longer than she had hoped. Her being a new immigrant reminded me of what it felt like for me to arrive in Scotland and only know one person. Admittedly I spoke the language and that made things considerably easier but I had to start from the beginning with networking and making a community for myself. I will always remember the people who made the transition easier for me, just like the people here in Vancouver who gave me a place to stay when I first arrived here seventeen years ago. They were very kind to me and I will be forever grateful.

This evening I was at a friend's house helping her to pack her life into a van. She has just found herself a job in a new town and is moving this weekend. I had said I would come over and lend her a hand but she was surprised when I actually followed through. The other people she had asked had not. I've been in her shoes many times. I know what it feels like to be left in the lurch as well as have generous help and I'm putting back into the pot what I took out many years ago. As I have heard so many times: we don't always get to help the people who helped us, but we can help someone else instead.

A wonderful film I watched recently coined the term 'paying it forward'. An eleven year old boy was given a social studies project to come up with an idea that he thought would change the world and make it a better place. This boy decided that he would find three people who really, really needed help but who hadn't asked for it. They had to need something that he could do for them and that would be a stretch for him to do. It couldn't be something that would be easy. It had to involve some personal sacrifice. It had to really matter. Then he had to help them out. The only request he would make of them would be that they do the same for another three people. He thought that if people would take his idea seriously and would do it, it would spread around the world.

The idea gave me goosebumps. If we could all do that, I believe it really would change the world. We could all be personal angels. It's so intimate, so real, so personal, and makes us feel so alive. Doing something because you feel you have to isn't the right energy. Doing something because it's the right thing to do and it feels right, that's what makes a difference in this world.

I've been on the receiving end of such generosity and it makes me spontaneously cry, because it touches my heart. We don't have to do it all the time, or for everyone - just when the spirit moves us. The fringe benefit is that we get back what we put out. But watch out because you never know what form it could take!

Outer experience matching inner truth

I've just received an astrological update from a guy who lives and works in Australia. I've been reading his full moon and new moon updates for a couple of years now and find them very insightful. They are not astrological charts in the sense of having a 'birth chart' done but rather they are discussions of the general circumstances in which we all find ourselves at the moment.

I admit to not being very astrologically savvy. At best I can say that I understand some of the underlying principles. However, I do appreciate some astrological guidance in the form of his weather reports. Several of my friends also read these letters and I'm always amused by the fact that we get different things from them. I guess we hear what we need to. Isn't that so with life in general?

This month's letter was informative for my personal process which I won't go into here but I will note one thought that has stayed with me. I believe we have come to a time when we have the opportunity to make our outer experience match our inner truth. Let me explain what I mean by this.

I'll begin by going back more than twenty-five years to an example from my own experience. I started my career in the business world although at the time I was a bit surprised. I wasn't a kid who grew up knowing that I wanted to be a business woman. In fact my dreams were never about any ordinary profession on the check-list of what to be when you grow up. However, from the time I was old enough to know what the paranormal was, I wanted to have something to do with it. I didn't know how but that was what interested me.

Through a set of seeming co-incidences I ended up in business school and then working in the hotel industry. The only thing about it that made sense was that I was in the Human Resources department and so was essentially dealing with psychology. About two years before I left the business world, I enrolled in a six-month course designed to help me explore my psychic abilities. It opened a door that I went through and never looked back. I was still in the business world but I never said a word about what I was exploring. I believed I had to split myself in two because it was not acceptable to reveal that side of myself in my work environment and maintain any sort of professional credibility.

I stayed in that split state, living a conventional life during business hours and an esoteric life in my private life, for about three years. When I changed careers and studied psychotherapy, I took the opportunity to step out and acknowledge what I was doing and learning psychically. Although it felt like a huge risk at the time, it was an enormous relief not to have to hide parts of myself and I noticed that openly incorporating my intuition into my work made me better able to help my clients.

Since then the 'long-bony-finger-of-the-Universe' has continually challenged me to deepen the synthesis between my inner and outer world. I don't think I was incorrect in my assessment of what would be acceptable in the business world all those years ago; I just think that what I had deemed unacceptable in the 80s and 90s has been changing over the last few years. Not only is it changing but I believe that using our intuition is going to become a survival tool.

It's becoming ever clearer to me that we are not here on this planet to play it safe. That doesn't enliven us or help us grow. I've noticed something interesting; whenever I learn something in my personal life, I am almost instantly called upon to turn around and teach it to whoever is standing close behind me on the ladder of life - lest I be deluded or insecure enough to believe I am all alone in my experience! It's like passing a bucket in an old-fashioned fire line, from the lake to the burning building. So let's assume that one or other of you might be behind me in the line... here's the bucket I'm passing along.

I am learning that I am being called to be the most 'me' I can possibly be. I am not here to be just like everyone else. I am not here to conform, or look pretty, or be reasonable, or make more money, or be famous. I'm here to be uniquely me and by doing so, to encourage others to do the same. When we don't embrace all of who we know we are, there is a very real and persistent angst gnawing away inside us. I believe the angst comes as a result of the dissonance we feel when we try to keep some essential part of ourselves under cover, or under the radar. I'm coming to the conclusion that it just takes too much energy to pretend we are not something that we are. Compare that expenditure of energy to what is released when we let our 'me-ness' out into the light of day and revel in it.

To be sure, it is at first a bit scary, but I am recognizing that I need my outer experience to match my inner truth. It's a journey that I take every day, one step at a time. I'm gradually finding out what my inner truth is. It's a process. It reveals itself a little more each time I think I've figured it out. It's not a destination; it's a journey. I can always tell there's another level to explore by what it feels like inside me. If I am denying some aspect of my inner truth, I feel uncomfortable. You could even say it's an adventure in getting to know myself and then introducing that better integrated self to the world.

I leave you with these questions:

• In what way are you being invited to match your outer experience with your inner truth?
• What aspect of who you are do you suppose is calling to you?
• Where is the edge over which you are frightened to step but which is strangely compelling?
• How might embracing it enliven you and broaden your horizons?

You don't have to leap right away! Awareness is always the first step so invite your 'opportunity' out for coffee and get to know it a little better.

Stand up and be counted

Reading the book that's currently on my bookshelf, Shake Hands with the Devil by Romeo Dallaire, I have been thinking about all the little things that we do, or don't do, and how those choices shape the world. At first I was feeling quite despondent, probably as a result of how hard the author had to fight to get anyone to pay attention to the genocide taking place in Rwanda. I can read the book now but all those people died in the interim and we can't bring them back. I've been noticing how helpless many of us are feeling just now, about everything from local traffic flow to global warming, and wondering what the solution is.

In my typical fashion, I am reading several books at once and one of them, already mentioned here, is It's the Thought that Counts by David R. Hamilton PhD. He and many others suggest that we actually create our reality through what we think. If I were to apply that concept to empowering myself as well as to the daunting things like global change, then I imagine that the big changes in the world can only come about through increased individual empowerment. Waiting for an existing 'powerful' organization to do something about these changes doesn't seem to be doing it.

You and I feel more empowered when we think differently about ourselves and our impact on our world - when we believe we make a difference. I think that self esteem is really at the root of self empowerment. If I don't think I'm worth anything, then I certainly won't believe that I can have any impact on my fellow human beings, never mind on the planet. If, as I also believe, we are all connected in a giant and elegant web of energy, including thoughts, and if I feel better about myself and as a result I believe that what I think matters, I am more likely to call my local member of parliament and express my views.

I could even start with something smaller than that: I could start by acting as though I matter. That would mean that by riding my bicycle to the park instead of taking the car, I do make a difference. Maybe I won't make that much of an impact all by myself but a million of us making one choice like that a month - that makes a difference. And it's only ONE choice.

I don't mean my blog today to be about ecology, although it's a worthy topic. I'm really trying to say that we need to get out of the 'who, little ol' me?' syndrome. If I matter, then one person's life lost in Rwanda matters too. If I have the right to speak up and voice my opinion at a dinner party, then I also have the right to speak up at a local community meeting. Voices in chorus are easier to hear but we can't have a chorus if everyone is afraid they can't sing.

I watched an interesting documentary on television the other night about a micro-lending scheme run by an enterprising young couple in San Francisco, www.kiva.org. They have made contacts in a community in an African nation. With a representative there, they were able to set up a system whereby people in the vilage who need money to start or grow their business, can present their need/proposal to a committee of their peers sitting in the shade under a tree.

The whole business community of the village gather to vote on whose proposals are deserving of funding. The details of the successful requests are then posted on a web site administered from San Francisco. The next stage involves interested lenders in the so-called first world who have a few dollars they would like to use to finance one of the African community members. They can browse all the proposals and then make one or more contributions to projects they deem to be worthwhile. When one lender, or in some cases several lenders, have fully funded a project, the borrower is informed and the money is forwarded to the rep who puts the cash into the hands of the borrower.

The lenders see an on-line photograph of the borrower and their project. They can follow the borrower's progress and are eventually paid back according to their repayment agreement. So far, at the time of the documentary going to air, there had been 100% repayment. There are many advantages to their system but I was captivated by the personal connection and immediacy of it.

You don't need to be a multi-millionaire to help someone on the other side of the world and you get a sense of personal satisfaction, of empowerment, when you can make a real difference in the life of another human being. There is no middle person to take a cut. The full amount goes exactly where you thought it would and then multiplies around the community.

I don't really know why we have to go halfway around the world to do this, except that less money goes further there. But I'm sure there are plenty of opportunities for this sort of enterprising aid right in our own backyard. Helping someone who needs it opens the heart and makes us feel needed. We matter. We are in touch with our own humanity.

Tom Friedman who writes for the New York Times said in his new book that he believes that Americans won't begin to make progress in their challenge to become more ecologically proactive until the government legislates a tax/cost for carbon emissions. He believes that Americans will only act in their own self-interest, which is measured by the impact on their wallets. The micro-lending project would suggest otherwise.

I was once 'accused' of being too altruistic but I have always felt that there are some things we should be do just because they are right. I don't believe that the whole world operates on nothing but the profit motive, as much as some would like us to believe this to be so. Some people, many more than we might think, have been sitting at home and quietly wondering why we keep doing what we have always done, even when we can see that we're heading for a train wreck. Perhaps they feel so disempowered that they don't believe that their voice would be heard if they spoke up.

If I matter, I have to sing my own song and hope there are others who will join in. What makes you feel strongly enough to stand up and be counted?

Re-finding centre

Today I would like to remind us (you and me) that we are divine creatures (did you ever doubt it?) each with our own divine purpose - even if we don't always know how to describe what that may be. If, as I believe, we create in this world from what we think, then we had better get with the program and think positively. It's hard to be divine when we're buried under fear and negativity.

I've noticed quite a few people lately who seem to have been knocked off their centers, and I can include myself among them. Always alert to 'signs' from my 'higher self', I sat down and read an article that a friend had just sent me. It comes from SOLARA's surf reports which discuss the energies they say we are currently experiencing in our lives. Interestingly, it started out by describing something very similar to what I had described to someone in a conversation the day before, so I'll quote a little piece of it:

"During the final days of July and the first few days of August, everything came to a seeming halt. It felt as if the track we had been riding upon for a long time was suddenly dismantled. We could travel no further on the old track and had to wait until the new titanium express track was ready for us. ..."

Among other things, the article reminds us go inside ourselves and find our center/core once again. Not bad advice. Not that it means we don't need to do anything else of course, but it's a good place to start when we wobble off-centre.

I thought I'd experiment so I conjured up my childhood freedom of expression and sat down with crayons and paper to draw what I think my core being looks like. This wasn't the me who walks the street in shoes and a hat. This was the me that I come back to when I have to choose a direction in life. I've noticed that either/or sorts of decisions are not so difficult for me. The ones I find more troublesome are the ones where the road seems to have evaporated before my very eyes and I have to decide whether to stay put or set off in some direction across what looks like a desert - not a palm tree or water hole in sight.

Next I drew a graphic representation of what I'd like to have in my life. Pictures force me to get away from words and therefore to focus on the grander scale of things and not the minutia. I'm at a point where I would like to generate some new clients so I drew a picture of me working. I called it 'be-doing' because I think it should combine being and doing - since I'm a human being and not a human doing AND I like to be doing something that gives me satisfaction.

It was successful because I have to say that I felt more centered once I was finished. As a result of this process I decided that it was also a good time for me to remind myself of some of my life-long guiding principles. They might not be exciting because many of them are tried and true but here they are:

• do unto others because what goes around comes around and because you can't ask to be treated better than you treat others
  
• leave things as you find them, or better
• always do the best you can with what you have
• share
• do no harm
• express gratitude for the blessings that come your way
• graciously accept help when it is offered
• speak the truth as you know it
• be open to learning
• respect yourself and others
• there is no such thing as coincidence so be curious about it when it seems to appear
  
• you never know what good things are around the corner
• we never encounter anything in life without being given the resources to deal with it as well
• we have everything we need to know within our grasp - we just forget that we do
  
• we are all connected to one another so we are truly our brother's/sister's keeper
• we are much more than will fit into our tiny earth bodies
• at the end of our time here, we can't take things with us
  
• we are never alone
• helping others is a great privilege
• we are what we believe
• the world is full of opportunities
• energy cannot be destroyed
• linear time is an illusion
• love heals
• we attract more of what we put out - often multiplied
• everything is perfect, given the right perspective

I don't mean any of these to be schmaltzy. To me they're very practical. I see everything on this list as its energy equivalent (physics &/or Universal laws). You might think of more to add to the list but this is good for starters. Well, I feel better already.