Are you committing emotional and spiritual suicide?

Recently, whilst I read this post, I read and re-read the following:

The only thing standing between you and your dreams is the excuses and sacrifices you keep making. You’re comfortable and I get that. I am too. But this state of comfort is suicide season for anyone who dreams of becoming something more… Commit emotional suicide, or step outside your comfort zone and follow your dreams. The choice is yours.

It is that little step, that leap of faith, that choice to trust in the not known and doing it; stepping, leaping, choosing… and leaving the what is known and crippling behind in one decisive movement forwards.

Personally, I have years of not trusting, not leaping and not choosing. Has it been Hell? Yes! And I wouldn’t wish it on another.

Our natural state is innocent, curious and untainted by the confusions that so soon arrive in our little worlds BUT, we don’t have to either accept or agree with these confusion-causing factors. We are creatives, we have capacity to shift and become so much more than the suicides of believing that these confusions, pains and emotional and spiritual traumas have any power or control over us and our life choices.

How do we transition from our natural magic into fearing, fearful folk unsure of our capacities, skills and qualities? We copy what we witness and take as true when given by our families, our friends, our other life influencers and make them ours. BUT, we can transition back out from these challenges.

Our past is only real in our minds, our memories, in our stories we tell our selves. One thing for sure is that our pasts are over, gone, past and dead; unless we choose to resurrect them and make them into ghosts and ghouls that haunt and confuse and inhibit us in today’s world. We get to choose.

And, we get to choose how we live with the (dis-)comfort zones these life-affecting factors bring to us… a comfort zone is a place that holds us in where we think we are safe with that level of (known) safety or pain. Anything that’s further than these criteria, we think is unsafe, dangerous or may even kill us. That is often merely an illusion. And, I am living proof that having my discomfort zones challenged, broken and shattered, that I am in fact far more well than I have ever been in my life.

I’ve chosen to challenge my “suicide season” and move from fears that long-held me in my pains: what do you choose?

This is not meant to challenge – well, it is but only gently – it’s meant to get you out and exploring the extra possibilities you life has to offer when you’re not hiding (for comfort) from what’s richly available and waiting for you to discover… Go on: SHARE! Write your thoughts and comments below…

We are all baby ducks…

I’m reading an interesting e-book at the moment called Living from the Heart – currently only the first chapter called: We are all baby ducks – the title of which intrigued me and my creative juices got into flow…

In essence, like baby ducks – ducklings to be pedantic – we, as humans learn to bond onto other people, thoughts, situations, ideas, concepts, emotions, beliefs and ways of being. And whilst these bonds can prove useful and occasionally helpful, they (can) inhibit our natural ability to be true to our selves.

In bonding to something I’ve learned outside of my self – something I’ve been told or a thought that’s arrived in my thinking, an event in my life or the way someone else behaves, thinks or treats me – I am already narrowing my world to a place of no other possibilities and possibly self-destruction.

And, that, my friends, is dangerous! We are remarkable and beautifully created and creative beings with oodles of untapped potentials. Why, oh, why do we need to be pigeonholed or entombed in a box of our own construction by buying into bonds that destroy our very abilities to manifest the amazing?

So, perhaps this is a call to action: find what bonds you hold that simply limit, even hamstring your talents, your wonder or your Beauty, and release them. Then watch your self soar in the space you will find as a result. That space is yours to take and be in; it is your natural state.

Transitions take many forms – some are drastic in the painful sense; others momentous in an ecstatic spiritual sense; some are just plain small and seemingly insignificant, though they do trundle us forwards towards the next set of choices where we have options to make new decisions.

Are you ready to make different decisions and to move towards your natural grace of Being Love, free of bonds that harm you?

Perhaps it’s time to move from your current state … what do you think?

The Moment Everything Changes…

There are several constants in Life: death is one, thinking another, taxes a third. A fourth one seldom acknowledged is the constant of change. Here are some thoughts about change and the effects change brings…

* Each and every moment is a time of changes; some are so minimal, we don’t notice their shift; others can be more dramatic – in either a pleasing way or a way that destroys our world experience.

* The bottom line is that change happens all the time – some might call it entropy – but, whatever we call this “IT”, its influence in our life is often (and easily) ignored.

* Many elderly people I’ve worked with have all say the same two things: they never thought they’d be this old and how fast time has passed. Time changed them, they got older (too quickly). They aged moment by moment until one moment they reaslised they were old(er).

* A recent series of BBC 3 programs was about how people’s lives radically changed due to illness or trauma. One was about traumatic brain injuries, another about being disabled in an instant. Each taught me valuable lessons about how people, fellow human beings, are affected by life traumas and how they choose to deal with them.

* One thing that empowers us to deal with change is our innate resilience, the ability we have to manage and cope – how we choose to be affected by what’s happened and what we’ll do about. Another thing we have is the power of choice, the ability to decide how we want the events that have occurred to affect our lives.

Changes transition our life experiences and challenge how we’ll deal with the “what next(s)” we face as a result. And here’s where the beauty, the power, the magic of the human choice to do something remarkable, happens. We can do nothing about the past, it is already gone, some say dead; what nexts are the now, the future and they remain within our power to choose what we’ll do with them.

Sometimes, getting to a place where we can make choices to deal with what’s happened takes a little time, Love, exploration and the opportunity to share and in a supportive environment of listening. A kind compassionate, understanding ear can prove an incredibly powerful way to re-evaluate what’s happened and how to deal with it.

Anyone have any thoughts, feelings or comments on this? If so, please feel free to share…

Artists, poets and mystics occupy the threshold between life and death, between creation and destruction…

I follow The Re-Enchanted Life.com and part of a line in today’s post is the title of this post because it touched a very positive and curious nerve in me.

Whilst Creatives (read artists of all types) fulfil an essential part of all societies. We may be considered too “weird” to fit in the norm, the structures of serious life and yet it’s our very presence and contributions that make the magical difference. We connect the serious with the beauty-filled options of life via creativity and creative expression. We provide many of the things they enjoy, appreciate and (distract) away from the serious…

…when we think about and or enjoy music, paint, sculpture, the written word, the spoken word, singing, cinematography, buildings, design et al., we are in the realm of the Creative’s purpose, a place that meets chaos and then makes something real from its potential through interacting over a threshold where life can birth something solid from something until then, only ephemeral.

My grandfather was passionate about many things – most a complete mystery to me – among them was his passion for books. He would share about how amazing they were; using a desk, a fountain pen and paper, someone created a book; through them, taking the time, the effort, the risk to express themselves; using their brain, their mind, their hand and arm, they downloaded their thoughts and ideas and stories, observations and dreams, and they’d place them on paper.

That is a Creative at work: taking the risk to express, through whatever medium, they, like the mystic, face the threshold between the liminal and the solid and choose to be curious to see what happens when they engage and translate that relationship. Much like Michelangelo looking for the angel in a block of marble, the Creative risks all by gathering their talent to produce, to work, then sees what happens next…

How’s this topic about transitions? A Creative’s role is always about transitions: they follow their creative processes and their work is always about transitions from the virtual into the expressed. It is always the case when we ask curious questions about “what if…?” – the very phrasing is about creating a transition, a change as a result of asking, exploring, then implementing.

Spirituality and the Reasons for Transitions Mentoring

When unclear in myself or emotionally distressed, I find I lack the awareness I need to make effective decisions. Stopping and contemplating – being still, just being at ease – provides me the space I need to feel capable to choose what I need to do.

Transitions Mentoring came out of contemplating how life works and finding ways to make a difference. One key is to engage spiritually where spirit is about the essence of the being in human being; it is about connecting where we share and explore the purpose of our lives. And, deal with the consequences of changes that affect our experience(s).

When putting aside dogmatic (religious, societal, political or personal) views and “have to-s”, “should do-s”, “musts” and “oughts”, we have the chance to meet each other and deal with what we face in the world.

Each day, we are vulnerable to the effects of change; some days are easier to deal with than others. Personally, I’ve experienced all sorts of problems in my life and understand the power of mentors for many have shared their wisdom and been there for me.

Learning to accept contemplation, learning to be, Love, care and support have all helped me to manage, and even thrive, in adversity. I know what despair, grief, shock and depression feel like. I’m still breathing, I’m still here. Something must be working.

To thrive, we need to share, to be heard, to build bridges of spiritual understanding that care for and support each other regardless of ethnicity, religion, gender, age, creed or political persuasion. Caring for ourselves and each other in this way makes for a life that’s simpler than we ever imagined.

Contemplation and creating a contemplative space of stillness and allowing ease to be, is powerful. It’s about making a decision to empower your self. This is the beginning of Transitions Mentoring which explores further by listening to the story of who and how you are today, seeking clarity through utilising simple tools that empower you in the world you live in.