Becoming Brilliant!

An idea

What if our new administration created a "happiness stimulus package"? While this may do down with Dennis Kucinich's department of peace as one of the least likely things to happen, just humor me for a minute. What would it look like? What stimulates happiness? How can you create your own happiness stimulus package? What could you do, starting this minute, that would cause you, your friends, family and utter strangers, to be happier? Now ramp it up a notch and think about an international happiness plan. I wonder...

Let's not talk about Obama

Everyone else has that covered today. Let's talk about us: We the People.

Look at what we did, folks, you and me, all of us, standing together for something fresh and radical and scary and hopeful.

Today is a good day to be proud. For my part, I think it's the first time I can remember actually feeling proud to be an American. I feel proud to be human today, too, and proud to have cast my vote for a future that promises to be profoundly different, and dare I say better, than today.

So where do we go from here? Our Brilliant future depends upon our willingness to consciously choose to live into our highest values, like choosing compassion and kindness when all we want to say is, "See, I told you Palin was a jerk!"

A lot of people are scared today. They're not sure what's coming; but they're damned sure it isn't the status quo. Let's listen to their stories, and help guide the conversation to what we share, what heals, what feels good, what gives us hope. When fear is rampant, let's choose love. When conflict arises, let's calmly hold space for all voices to be heard and for all needs to be met.

The President-elect made it abundantly clear last night that he is prepared to do these things. So let's help him out, you and me, in big and small ways. He's even provided us with a handy mantra, one that seems to work even in the worst of times.

So repeat after me, everybody, say "Yes, we can!" Together, we can create a future of which  each and every one of us-republican and democrat, rich and poor, black and white, young and old, straight and gay...every last one of us- will be proud.

What's up with the holidays?

 

Here it is again, folks, the season you've all been waiting for...or not. Everywhere I go, minds are whirring and tongues are wagging; everybody's  writing the script for Holidays in Hell. Jeez, like we need another scary movie!

Maybe there's another option.

Maybe this season offers a wonderful opportunity to experience the magical moments that make life a joy! How's that for a subversive thought?

While it's true there's a lot of weird stuff going on out there, it's equally true that our real power lies inside. So no matter what's hitting the fan, know that you have everything you need not only to survive, but to thrive in this season and beyond.

What's inside that's so powerful? It's the ability to focus our thoughts and emotions.

When we use the immense power of our thoughts and emotions to align with what we want, we're creating the conditions for those things to manifest in our lives. Like two instruments resonating with each other, we're becoming a vibrational match to our highest future. The Universe is all too willing to help us create more of whatever we put our attention on. When we focus on war, we get war; when we focus on peace, we get peace. When we look for lack, we find it; and when we focus on the abundance in our lives, we find that too. The skillful direction of our attention is all it takes.

Here's a cool story:

One day I started thinking about an old friend,  who I'd known practically from birth, and who I was very close to through grade school. We saw each other on and off after that and lost touch just before college. Well, almost 30 years later, I Google this guy, find out  he still lives in our home town, and spend a couple of weeks screwing up the courage to call him. I don't know why it feels so important; it just does. I keep thinking about how much his friendship means to me, and the wonderful adventures we had together.

One day, I'm driving my son to his father's house and think, This is it!..the minute I get home, I'll make the call. When I get back in my car after dropping my son off, I notice there's a message on my cell phone. Yep, you guessed it, it's from my friend. I pick the phone up right then and there, call him back, and we've been experiencing the delight of rekindling our friendship ever since.

We're powerful creators; and we're just beginning to truly understand the mechanism for wielding our power. When we learn to take responsibility for our thoughts and emotions, and focus them in the direction we want to go, there's no end to the joy, abundance and well-being we can create for ourselves and for others. Even now. No, especially now!

Here are some ideas for getting started...

1. Find the Good Stuff

Make a list of the things/people/experiences that bring you joy. Put it in a prominent place and read it often.

2. Envision Your Best Life

Make a vision board where you assemble images of the things you love and would like to attract into your life. You might include pictures of your family and friends, places you love to visit, items you would enjoy owning and service you would like to offer to the world. Study it several times a day, and focus on how you feel as you imagine yourself enjoying the radiant experiences depicted here.

3. Ask and Ye Shall Receive

Ask what's going right. In every situation, there's always something that works, a valuable lesson to be learned, an opportunity to be had. In every person, there's beauty, if you know where to look. If you don't, just close your eyes for a moment and say, Show me what's right about this; show me what's good. Then open your eyes. You'll be amazed at what you see.

4. Focus, focus, focus!

Help others to direct their focus. Design holiday activities that bring attention to what you and others want more of. Host a gratitude party; ask everyone at your holiday table to talk about something or someone they love, or the most wonderful thing that happened that day. As you shift the conversation to what is good, what works, you're connecting with the awesome power of the Universe to deliver those things right to your doorstep.

So here's to a happy ending. Whadaya say? Let's go for it, shall we?

Some excellent resources:

The Teachings of Abraham

The Trance of Scarcity a book by Victoria Castle

Keith does it again!

Keith Ferrazzi is an amazing guy. Don't know him? You should. Anyway, I subscribe to his news updates, something I don't usually do, but  Keith always seems to come up with good stuff. Like HARO, the brainchild of PR adventurer, Peter Shankman. HARO stands for "help a reporter out", and it's a list you can subscribe to that alerts you to opportunities to offer your expertise to reporters. How cool is that? So go forth and spread your Brilliance!Namaste!

Here's a story for ya.

From my friend, Jan Phillips, a Brilliant! story teller and someone you should know:

I asked my neighbor Marge today if she thought a good Christian could vote Republican. She was just trying to unwind the cord on her electric lawnmower and I think the question took her by surprise. I asked her because she's a good Lutheran, the widow of a career Marine, the mother of four and grandmother of several. Like Sarah Palin, she's had her share of mothering challenges-kids with drug addictions, unmarried pregnancies, grand-daughters gone astray. In the forgiveness department, Marge has come a long way. She's one of the least judgmental people I know.

"I don't know," she said. "I haven't been keeping up with politics much. I know everyone in my church is going to vote Republican, except maybe me. They hand out a piece of paper that tells us who we ought to vote for, and most people just go with that."

"What issues do they base it on, the things Jesus talked about or the things he never mentioned?"

"Whadya mean?"

"Well, he never said anything about homosexuality, except love everyone all the time; he never said anything about abortion, but he did say we will be judged according to how we judge others. He never said anything about gay marriage but was fierce in his condemnation of divorce. 'Let no man put asunder--" Seems like a good Christian would want to take a stand for what Jesus took a stand for---peace instead of violence, dignity for everyone, caring for the poor. Don't you think?

"Well, yeah, that makes sense, but it doesn't work like that. The church cares about the issues he didn't talk about. They're against gays and abortion, not war. My sister is a Christian in Texas and when I told her I was all for getting out of Iraq fast, she couldn't figure out why I cared about Iraq. 'What's that country got to do with you? Why do you even care about it?' She couldn't  understand why it hurts me that all those soldiers have lost their lives."

"How's she voting?"

"She'll vote for whoever her husband is for. It always goes like that. Whatever he believes, she believes. So they'll go for McCain. She likes Palin, too. Feels good about having a woman in there."

"Yeah, I'd like a woman in there too, but Sarah Palin kind of scares me. She doesn't believe in global warming, she doesn't want gun control, she's against reproductive rights and sex education. Yesterday I saw a clip of her talking about how the Alaskan pipeline is God's will. And today she's talking about maybe going to war with Russia. That's not the kind of leadership that inspires me."

"Me neither. I have another sister who used to live in Alaska. She likes Alaska so she'll be voting for Palin just because of that."

"Wow, does that make sense to you?"

"Nope. But it's true. I think you ought to talk to some more people in the neighborhood. Give 'em something to think about. Like I said, I haven't tuned in yet. I don't know if I'm going to go for Obama. I know darn well I'm not going to do what the church says, just because they say so. And I've never liked McCain, so who knows?"

"OK, Marge, keep me posted," I say as I head back over to my yard.

"OK," she hollers back, "and keep those questions coming. I'll be thinking about it all day: can a good Christian vote Republican? Let me know if you find out!"

I went back into the house wondering if we'll ever figure out how to think our own thoughts, or if we'll just keep voting the way our churches tell us, or our spouses, or because we like the state the person came from.

As for being a Christian, I have to vote for the "we" not the "me." My faith calls for me to care about all of us---the poor, the immigrants, the refugees, the families in Baghdad, Afghanistan, Bosnia. I have to say NO to war, and not just this was, but all wars. Today the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Adm. Mike Mullen admitted that "we can't kill our way to victory." Not now, not ever.

War is an obsolete solution, as was slavery, as was child labor. It's time for us to ban it, like we banned cigarette commercials on TV. It's not healthy for us. I wonder if Christians really gave some thought to what their  teacher said about non-violence, about the poor, about what we do to the "least of these," if they wouldn't cast their vote for the person who took time to remind us at the national convention that "we ARE our brothers and sisters' keepers."

What to Choose?

I Want to Change the World

 

Ido, I do! I want everyone to live peacefully, to have enough to eat, to respect each other, to find joy. And here's what I've learned about what I want:

The best way - in fact the only way - to create profound transformation in the world is to begin with myself, now, in this moment. There's no place else to begin. This is where I have leverage.

Yes, I can hold a vision for something more. Yes, I can take steps in the now to work toward my vision. But until I align with my Brilliance, my source, I'm pushing against the current.

As counter-intuitive as it may seem, my greatest power to affect change lies in the space between the doing. It lies in my being.

Were do I find this space? I start with my breath.

Try this:

Set aside five minutes to site quietly, close your eyes and notice your breath. When your mind wanders, invite it back  with kindness and hospitality. No matter how experienced you are on your path, this is always a great place to go. It's huge inside you. So much space for possibility, so much potential to allow your choices to emerge from a place of wisdom and alignment.

Check out this talk about gay rights, diversity and social change from Esther Hicks and Abraham. Regardless of your belief system, or how you feel about the source of the information, the information itself is magnificent.

Also, read Start Where You Are, and other books by Pema Chodron.

Anything's Possible

I'm about to celebrate my 50th birthday. Actually, I've been celebrating for some time. There's a lot to celebrate.

I'm happier than ever before, healthier than ever before. I have wonderful friends all over the world. I'm always learning amazing, cool new stuff. My kid is happy and healthy and whole. Daily, I feel myself healing old wounds and moving beyond them. I'm becoming more conscious every minute, more able to lovingly guide myself back to my Self.

Is everything perfect all the time? No. Do I regress and struggle from time to time? Yes.

But you know what? Shining, so brightly that it's blinding sometimes, is possibility. The possibility of what I can become, develop in myself, facilitate in others, give to the world. Possibility of what the world can give to itself, and to me. How it can transform, we can transform, the joy we can experience individually and together.

Maybe it's a coincidence, my turning 50 and having Possibility swim into focus just now. Maybe not. Either way, there's no argument from me.

So how's this for celebrating Possibility? On the morning of my birthday, I'm meeting my new friend Sharon (whom I've never met in person), and we're going to drive from New York to Pittsburgh, where we're meeting up with our mutual friend, Amy (whom I've never met in person) and six other people (you guessed it...whom I've never met in person) for a workshop on personal development and leadership, facilitated by Amy and her herd of horses! Wild, huh?

Thelma and Louise do Becoming Brilliant! The only cliff I'm driving off is the one at the edge of Possibility. I can't wait!

Happy birthday to me! And happy birth-day to You. Because every day offers an opportunity to embrace Possibility. In the words of William Spear  (more or less), "It takes no belief to begin to live this way. Only the smallest space in which possibility can develop." And then, all of a sudden, you see possibility everywhere, every day. We birth it as we live it. There's a never-ending supply.

For inspiration, check out The Art of Possibility, by Rosamund Stone Zander and Benjamin Zander. Give it to yourself as a birthday present to me. You'll be glad you did, and I'll be glad you did.

And remember, anything's possible!

Trance Dance

An interesting quote from The Trance of Scarcity, by Victoria Castle:

"Bernard Lietaer, author of The Future of Money and co-designer of the single European currency system, has studied and operated in the international currency system for decades. He says, 'If a society is afraid of scarcity, it will actually create and environment in which it manifests well-grounded reasons to live in fear of scarcity. It is a self-fulfilling prophecy!' Might you be familiar with such a society?"

Hmm...

Red Raspberries, Green Money

I picked four quarts of raspberries in the last two days, from the same few bushes, no less! Wild and tangy-sweet. Bursting  red.

I have no words to describe the sensation of being surrounded by such abundance. On the first day, I picked two quarts and felt blessed. We had raspberries for dessert that night, for breakfast the next day, and many handfuls in between.

My mom suggested that I freeze them, save them for later. But what if there is no later; what if it's only now, just me and those delicious red nipples of joy? Besides, maybe there are more.

So I went out again this morning with another two containers and the thought that I'd be lucky to fill one half way. But another two quarts fell into my hands. And again I stood in the prickly green and red forest thinking how grateful I am: for raspberries, for summer, for everything.

I've been thinking a lot about abundance lately; most of us have. It's a hot topic.  And I'm fascinated by the beliefs I find, in myself and others, about money and scarcity. I know there's a lesson in the raspberry patch, about how abundance is there for the picking if we look for the natural order of things.

There's an excellent article by Woody Tasch in this month's Green Money Journal newsletter called Slow Money, Manure and Prudence. It's about rethinking how we make, use and distribute money, so that the process becomes naturally generative, rather then destructive.

Much of my discomfort around the subject of money has stemmed from the belief that destruction (or abuse, or neglect) has to be part of the equation. Which, I've discovered, is true only if that's the story I tell. There are other stories out there. Enter socially responsible investing and not only for profit business. Tasch has founded Slow Money (a la Slow Food), an organization dedicated to rethinking the process entirely.*

"In these first few decades of the 21st century," he writes, "it is our 'inescapable duty', to use Wendell Berry's words, to change not only our light bulbs, but our myths. And along with them, our concepts of entrepreneurship, investing and philanthropy, which will have to be amended, expanded, and, perhaps, even radically transformed, as part of a new vision of restorative economics."

Just imagine creating, having, spending and giving away wealth in ways that generate life on this planet. Not piddling, scrawny, eek-it-out, it's-so-hard-to-get-funded amounts, but juicy falling-off-the-vine, four-quarts-in-two-days amounts. Raspberries for breakfast, lunch and dinner!

What are we getting out of our old stories about money? Not much, or not much that's good for us anyway. That it's hard, that we have to suffer, that we have to make others suffer in order to be wealthy? I prefer the raspberry story myself.

And here's the thing I forgot to say. On my way to the bushes this morning, a guy walked by me carrying a quart bag of raspberries, and I thought, "Oh no, he's gotten there first! None for me."

Oops! Old thinking...repeat after me, Abby: There's enough for everybody. And sure enough, there was.

*Great reading:

Megatrends 2010: The Rise of Conscious Capitalism by Patricia Aburdene

In Praise of Slowness: Challenging the Cult of Speed by Carl Honore