May 5th, 2017

May 5th, 2017


Affirmation: I am free to take the journey of a lifetime.


Word of the Day: drupe (n):

1. Botany. any fruit, as a peach, cherry, plum, etc., consisting of an outer skin, a usually pulpy and succulent middle layer, and a hard and woody inner shell usually enclosing a single seed.

What Was Said to the Rose

What was said to the rose that made it open

was said to me here in my chest.

What was told the cypress

that made it strong and straight,

what was whispered the jasmine

so it is what it is,

whatever was said to the inhabitants

of the town of Chigil in Turkestan

that makes them so handsome,

whatever lets the pomegranate flower

blush like a human face,

that is being said to me now, I blush.

Whatever put eloquence in language,

that's happening here.

The great warehouse doors open,

and I fill with gratitude,

chewing a piece of sugarcane,

in love with the one

to whom every that belongs.

_____

Purpose and Power

When you declare your independence from any person or any thing, recognize that doing so is a beginning and not an end. It is not a one-time decision and is rather a commitment that will require daily – and sometimes moment-to-moment – recommitment. It is a powerful statement of determined intent, and not a guarantee of outcome. In order to be successful at declaring your independence from something, you must be willing to challenge your self-defeating, self-flagellating, and self-hateful, beliefs and inner dialogue. You must also be willing to take the risk of claiming your personal power long before you believe or know for sure that you possess that kind of power. Connect deeply to your sense of purpose and allow it to fuel your declaration. Then, live by your declaration, as watch as you begin to see your personal power flourishing. Here are some examples of what this might look like in practice:

a) If you believe in the importance of commitment in your marriage, even if you have a long history of leaving or sabotaging relationships when the going gets tough, you might declare, “When the temptation to run shows up in the relationship with my spouse, I will face that temptation directly and do whatever it takes for me to say no to it.”

b) If you were taught that you are best off just settling for whatever you can get in life, you might declare, “I will pursue what I want in my life, and I won’t let old, outdated, false beliefs about myself and my worth or my competence stop me.”

Living as a hostage to self-condemning, self-sabotaging, power-sapping thinking is much like being in a basement of a building (with no windows to the outside) and coming out to discover that a tornado touched down close by and wreaked havoc all around or that the area was struck by a freak mid-summer snowstorm. In other words, this type of thinking leaves people completely cut-off form “the external weather conditions.”

Personally, when I am stuck in this frame of mind, I am trapped in self-absorption and without any sense of my relationship to the world around me – without a connection to my sense of purpose. In order to make that connection, I must first make my declaration. I must stand up, walk out of that basement room with no windows, and out of the building that may feel like its protecting me, but that has also left me cut off and isolated from the rest of the world – and my life.

- In what ways have your beliefs and inner dialogue compromised your personal power?

- What declarations would you make if you weren’t afraid of or discouraged by fear or past behavior?

- What “external weather conditions” are you refusing to look at, acknowledge, or accept because you are “trapped in the basement”? What makes leaving the basement so scary? What are you afraid will happen?

- What is the cost of not leaving the basement to you?