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Archive for February, 2008
A paradigm shift is a fundamental change in approach or assumptions. It involves a change in perception. But not only our thoughts change; there must be a corresponding behavioural change too.
I began a major paradigm shift when I took my training with Martha Beck in May of 2005. I knew intuitively that the experience would change me personally as well as professionally. Since that time I’ve been on a steep learning curve, accelerating dramatically over the years.
In addition to coaching my clients, I have of course continued with my own self-coaching and peer-coaching, and have received neurological treatments designed to identify and discharge old emotional material stored in the body-mind. Coaching is all about change…big-time change! Working on ourselves is what coaches do. A coach and her client work as a team; both are on a life-changing internal journey.
Paradigm shifts can be sudden. Steven Covey tells a story that illustrates this very well. He was travelling on the subway and there was a father with two young boys who were running wildly around the subway car. After a while, Covey asked the father if he could do something to control them. The man replied that they were on their way home from the hospital where their mother had just died. He told Covey that he didn’t know what to do, and neither did his sons. Suddenly Covey saw everything differently; same kids, same father, but he understood them in a different way.
We can also have mini-shifts daily or even hourly, which culminate in our eventual paradigm shift. Suddenly seeing an old situation or relationship in a new light is a mini- shift. The ability to step outside ourselves and be the observer opens the window for these shifts.
Many of us are rapidly growing in awareness now. Call it paradigm shifts, call it what you will, something is happening ‘out there’. Numeroligists and intuitives are currently telling us that energies are speeding up. I will leave you with some helpful words from a woman I know.
Natasha Rosewood, intuitive, says:
“This speeding up of energy will be easier on us if we are willing not to hold on too tightly. If you are true to yourself and your heart…you can attract your true purpose for being here.”
Having a wardrobe pretty much full of sweat-type and jean-type clothes that all look alike, and wearing the same outfit day after day after day…Running errands in your pyjama(-like clothes)…Mmm. Guess I’m a shlumpadinka! The word’s not in Webster’s dictionary yet, but many other odd and unexpected words have been added in the past few years.
Oprah coined the word years ago, and she says:
“It represents, to me, a woman who dresses like she’s given up, and it shows.
But what if we’re comfortable in those clothes? What if we have a great self-image underneath them? I do concede that a little variety might be nice once in a while, but why the emphasis on outward appearance all the time? If our clothes are (relatively) clean, we look neat, our hair is washed (or up or something), what’s the problem? I feel that there’s a whisper of Charla Krupps in this…remember her…it’s okay to be middle-aged, as long as you don’t look it.
For those of us who don’t live in big city America, or who work at home, this just doesn’t fit. My friend Barb, also a coach, and a rural-resident like me says:
“I’m proud to be a shlumpadinka! I go to the Goodwill to buy my comfortable clothes.”
Eckhart Tolle says that a basic form of identification is with our body. In the West, our physical appearance is a large part of our sense of identity, and many feel lower self-worth because of perceived bodily imperfections. Tolle says that when we identify with our good looks, strength etc. we suffer when those begin to disappear.
I find it ironic that Oprah and Tolle are teaching the tele-course on transcending our ego-based consciousness, yet she still spends so much air time on “make-overs” (to wit the schlumpadinka show last week).
Tolle believes, as I do, that we can still care for our bodies without identifying with them so much. His recipe for changing body-identification is to shift our attention from outside and feel the aliveness of our body from within, beginning with our hands, then feet.
I’ve been familiar with energy in my hands for many years as a practitioner of Trager, Reiki and Jin-shin-do. I’m planning to take Tolle’s recommendation and spend some time focusing on the energy in various parts of my body so I will become more intimately in tune with the aliveness that is me.
When my aged mother walks unaided through the halls of her care facility, she bends her body into a ‘C’ shape, puts her head down, and runs (well as fast as an 86-year-old can run). This is the way she has always gotten through life.
I must admit that my approach has been somewhat the same through much of my life (I guess she taught me well). This got me to thinking…are we spending our days the way we really want to or are we driven much of the time?
New research shows that we are becoming less left-brain dominated; that the right brain, with it’s intuitive centers, is gaining in prominence. Successful people have a good blend of the two. Listening to our intuition means living more from a heart connection than before, and less from a task or deadline orientation.
This doesn’t mean we dispense with goals or ignore our tasks. It means we balance the functionality of our days with the messages from our intuitive side. For example, a friend may spontaneously come to mind while we work, and we may pick up the phone or go to their office to connect for a few minutes. It’s a win-win as we have a change of pace from our work and a heart connection with our friend. Or on our lunch break we may eat, then walk for 15 minutes if we feel moved to do so. This way we get fresh air and our body feels happier sitting again.
A fellow healer, Bree, decided to delay sending out her scheduled newsletter for personal reasons. When I commended her on giving herself permission to step out of the ‘box’ of ‘shoulds’ she replied:
“I felt this strain around the whole process. I became acutely aware that I had changed my heart-based sharing into deadline-based stress”
Bree has no idea how much she has helped me. I’ve been pulling back a bit after weeks of driving myself. I now allow myself to miss the odd blog entry in my every-other-day schedule, and I took a bit of time off last week. But she hit the nail on the head for me, and drove home the message at just the right time!
I challenge you to ask yourself: “How do I spend my days? Do I take time to ‘smell the roses’ as my day unfolds, or is it ‘head down and run’ most of the time?.
Today at brunch we ran into my dear friend Jean who is 88 years old. We met singing in a church choir several years ago; she’s still there, I left. Jean is one of the strongest and most positive people I have ever known.
I actually had a note in my appointment book to call her and visit for tea. What precipitated my note was seeing Jean on the street a couple of weeks ago. It was the most touching sight…Jean with her nicely coiffed hair was helping a very old eastern European woman named Helen push her cart of recyclables along the street. Both women are familiar to almost everyone in the community. Helen is known as the woman who “keeps Gibsons tidy”.
Jean is a BC native and has raised 4 sons and one daughter; she has 18 great- grandchildren. She does strengthening exercises each morning before getting out of bed, and still plays piano at the parent-tot drop-in 3 mornings a week. Our relationship at choir was a mutually supportive one; there was something of a mother-daughter energy in it.
As Jean told us more about her rich long life today and about the loss of her husband almost 4 years ago, we were transported outside ourselves and our narrow personal focus. We both agreed later that our conversation with her put things more in perspective for us.
Whatever takes us out of ourselves helps us move forward on our path. It might be a chance meeting like we had today; it could be a formal meditation session, perhaps a hike in the woods, walk on the beach, creating a painting or singing. The act of doing this allows us to step away from our everyday life for a moment and to view things slightly differently. It brings us closer to our center, that place where our true self lives.
Money is an energy. It ebbs and flows like other types of energy. Our attitude towards it can determine whether it flows freely or not. Money itself is neither good nor bad; it depends on how it’s put to use.
Sometimes it seems that we give money just too much power. For example, we may use it as a symbol of security, or to define our value or that of others. Many women apparently have a fear of becoming poverty stricken in old age…even wealthy movie stars.
Martha Beck says that the things we desire aren’t what we really want. What we really want is the good feelings that come with them, not the actual things or experiences themselves. When we’re seeking money and/or the things money can buy we may be looking for feelings such as security, personal value or self esteem, fulfillment or joy.
How much money is enough? My partner and I realized, after several discussions on the topic, that we have recurring thoughts that limit us such as “If we had just a little more money, we’d be okay…we’d be able to work less and travel more”; or “What if we don’t have enough down the road?” You fill in the blanks with whatever your repetitive thoughts are. They may be related to topics such as the type of work you want to do or to not working at all; to moving out of the city or to another country.
One of the main things we learned in India is that we are extremely well off compared to people in developing countries. Although we don’t live in a flashy way, we could spend the rest of our lives simplifying and never even come close to the standard of living of the average Indian.
My point here is that we have enough. We can do whatever our heart desires. It’s not so much the actual amount of money but the belief that we can succeed in creating the life we long for. Then we put into place the actions needed to make it happen.
