Thank you Ann, Christine and Sarah for your questions and comments that inspired this month’s chat!
For those who missed the live call, I shared what I believe are the 3 pillars of positive growth.
Stillness: Observing our inner state with compassion and curiosity. Allowing the lessons and insights within us to reveal themselves naturally. I like to see this as the spiritual nutrition we need to make lasting and sustainable growth.
Purpose & Expression: Understanding that our purpose and current form of expression are different. We can lose momentum or inspiration when the way in which we express our purpose changes. This happens because we assume that we no longer can fulfill our purpose if it’s not done as we have done before. The key here is to tune into the feeling you get while you’re in your purpose and allow new forms of expression to emerge. Your inner work from being in stillness will also influence and evolve your purpose and forms of expression.
Resourcefulness: Mastering the movement of resources, energy, money and time with appreciation. This final pillar creates the upward lift in your life. As you learn to better direct and manage the resources in your life from a place of deep appreciation, you automatically attract more resources to be directed. Which in turn will bring more lessons to be learned the stillness.
Let me tell you a story of how this looks in practice…
I go for a walk in the forest and take time to be in the stillness and silence. I feel anxious and slightly disoriented. My life isn’t what it used to be and the people and places that use to bring me joy are shifting. I’m still enjoying my life but it’s just not what it was. My mind is spinning trying to figure out how to work harder. I then start complaining about something that happened that I feel shouldn’t have happened. “If only that Bob had done his job correctly, I wouldn’t have to spend so much time cleaning up his mess.”
In a moment I have the awareness that I’m complaining and I am presented with a choice. I can continue to feed the complaint by focusing on it or I can observe what is happening inside me.
I take a long, deep breath and exhale it out letting the tension leave my body. I close my eyes and place my hands where I am feeling the emotions of stress. As I continue to breathe, I notice the sensation of the cool air on my face, my heart pumping in my chest. My awareness is now coming back in the present moment. I breathe a sigh of relief as I remember I have the power to choose what to focus on and what it means.
I then take another breath and allow the feelings of hurt to bubble up. “There is sadness here.” As I notice the feelings of sadness, I simply acknowledge them with compassion and curiosity. Gently, I observe that beneath my sadness is a feeling of helplessness. “What if I cannot get out of my situation?”
And now I’ve uncovered the lesson. I am afraid of being stuck in this working situation with Bob and not being able to stand up for myself. This is where I begin the inner work. Not in blaming Bob or my situation, but by acknowledging my fear and insecurity. Then I allow myself to be shown where I need to put more of my love and attention.
I continue walking through the forest. Breathing deeply and appreciating this insight as I know it will eventually lead to my freedom and empowerment in this area of my life.
My mind throws a few doubts my way, “You can’t speak up for yourself. You will get shut down and the cycle will repeat all over again. Better to suck it up and stay quiet.”
I take a big breath in and stop walking to just breathe through this negative thought. I watch it desperately trying to stick in my mind. I simply breathe and observe the thought bouncing around grasping for my attention. I decide to focus on my breath and slowly begin walking again.
I walk towards a river and the sounds of the water crashing into the rocks stirs something inside me. The power and the forcefulness of this beautiful sight grips my chest and an anger I’ve never felt before rises to the surface. I look around to see if anyone is nearby, It feels like I’m going to explode with anger! “Where is this coming from?!”
A loud angry yell comes crashing out of my lungs. I am shocked and frozen in disbelief as I gasp for air. Not a second later and I can feel my body preparing for the second wave. My face is hot and my hands are clenched tightly. I spin around to make sure no one is watching and hopefully they cannot hear me over the loud sound of water rushing past.
I scream again with a desperate rage. “Enough!” My heart is pounding and I tumble back onto the forest floor to catch my breath. My thoughts are racing, “What just happened? Am I going crazy?”
I close my eyes and bring my attention into my chest. My heart is pounding. I slow my breathing down by extending my in- and out-breath to five seconds each way. The emotions are red hot inside me and I’m feeling rather disoriented now. I keep breathing and within a few minutes I can feel the pressure and sensations inside my chest dissipate and dissolve. Tears spill out of my eyes and I hear myself mutter the words, “I’m done. I can’t take it anymore.” I stand up and put my shoulders back. I say to myself, “I don’t care what it takes. I won’t stand for this anymore. I choose to love and respect myself.”
I remain quiet for the walk back to the trailhead observing myself and my emotions with compassion. Breathing through them and being gentle with myself as I walk back home.
This story is a fictional representation of what it might look like for someone to move into stillness and uncover the real lesson that life is presenting them. It doesn’t have to be this dramatic but sometimes it is. Very often I receive these lessons while in the shower or simply driving to the grocery store. The key is to be open and to listen with compassion. Be curious as the feelings or sensations arise. Then you will be able to find the root cause and from there you can allow the fear, doubt, false belief to emerge so you can address it head on.
These lessons then become activated when we bring this new state of awareness and being into our day-to-day lives. In our relationships, work environments and what we choose to pay attention to.
Sometimes our habits change or we no longer find the same activities we use to do as enjoyable. It turns out some of them were actually coping mechanisms that we needed to self-soothe from the emotions or fears that we hadn’t dealt with. Now that we’ve faced these shadows, some old patterns of behaviour are no longer attractive to us.
This causes a ripple effect in our lives beyond what we can imagine. As we continue to embody and activate this new lesson learned (respect for ourselves) our work environment changes. People treat us differently. I’ve even had to look over my shoulder once or twice because I couldn’t believe someone was talking to me with such respect. I thought they must be talking to someone else behind me!
Now the third pillar of resourcefulness comes into play. I define optimal resourcefulness as a beautiful combination of wise direction and appreciation of resources. This begins with acknowledging, respecting and appreciating yourself and what you’ve learned. How you’ve grown.
After we have finished with our inner world we move into appreciation and wise direction of the physical body and our surrounding blessings. This shifts our focus and therefore our attitude about life. We notice different things now because the reticular activating system in our brain has been primed to find all that it can be thankful for and how best to direct those blessings.
Solutions and ideas flow effortlessly to you now!
That is until a new lesson emerges and you have another choice on how you want to approach it.
Here are the three questions you can ask yourself to focus your mind on these three pillars of positive growth.
