Archive for April, 2010

What Matters Most

Sunday, April 25th, 2010

I RECENTLY STARTED WORKING with a new client, and one of the first things we do in coaching is identify something the client wants. Only after we’ve clearly identified a goal can we go to work on developing the skills, understanding and practices to convert the goal into a miracle. The goal must be true for the client – clear, pure, congruent and unflinching. And the client must be willing to be true to the goal.

My new client runs a restaurant, and he would definitely like to see his business succeed. He’d like it to attract a strong and loyal customer base, and he’d like it to pull a healthy profit. So I helped him visualize his success and create an intention statement to support that vision and we began the process of unifying thoughts, actions and emotions. One week of working with the intention statement and he knew it wasn’t true for him. He’s bored, and he’s tired. He wants something else more.

Knowing what you want – truly, honestly, enthusiastically and confidently want – can be challenging. Life is varied and complex. And so are you. One day you want health and vitality most, and the next day love and companionship moves to the top of the list. The next day your professional success becomes the brightest goal. And the next day torrential rains flood your basement, or you catch the stomach flu, and all you can do is deal with what’s in front of your nose or in your pants. Today we’re going to explore life-long patterns for clues about what matters most.

What matters most to you? is a multiple choice question with three possible answers: a) What you do. b) What you have. c) Who you are.

Of course, everyone acts, everyone possesses, and everyone exists. But we don’t all do so with the same emphasis, or the same priority, or the same energy. And on any given day we bring different levels of mindfulness or awareness to the various aspects of our lives.

We tend to fall back to our default positions when we’re tired, distracted, anxious, or focusing on something else.

Those default positions provide the clues we’re looking for. When you’re willing to examine them, rethink them and choose mindfully, you become truer to yourself and your life.

What You Have

Having equals possession. Several years ago, it occurred to me that what I had had me. Actually, I think I thought about it in terms of what I owned also owned me. Since I was fairly footloose and moving often, I hated being owned by stuff I’d acquired through the years.

Almost as soon as I put it in those terms, I began to see having in terms broader that just “stuff.” I saw my attitudes, beliefs, values, and relationships belonged to me. I began questioning one preference or idea after another. Do I have this, or does it have me? It became very freeing to claim the beliefs and values that mattered to me and discard the ones that didn’t.

As you assess what you have in terms of what matters to you, consider the following:

ATTITUDES: You’ve acquired attitudes throughout your life – adopting some, rebelling your way into others – until you have a pretty full set. Some attitudes derive from beliefs, some from values, some from experiences, some from the interpretation of events or the behaviors of others. If an attitude furthers something you value, such as your profession, or your well-being, or your prosperity, or your personal power, you can be confident it’s aligned with what matters to you. If an attitude gets in your way or slows you down, you might want to examine it. Sometimes such interfering attitudes provide hidden benefits, so there’s benefit in looking at it from all sides.

RELATIONSHIPS: Each of your relationships brings something unique to your life. Some – such as family and close friends – are more important than others. Some have more influence, some are more satisfying, some are more challenging.

Sometimes it’s not the intimacy of a relationship that matters, but what the relationship brings into your life. For most people, relationships are the most important arena for growth of all life’s experiences. Teachers, mentors, parents, and other models help us understand what works, either directly or by example. From our adversaries – competitors, enemies, challengers (or parents, partners, children), etc. – we often learn what doesn’t work. All relationships arise because we need them; many end when that need has been met. Sometimes we can tell how much a relationship matters to us by how long it lasts. With joyful relationships it’s easy to acknowledge what the relationship brings and why it endures. Long-term challenging relationships also serve in some way. They matter until they don’t.

VALUES: Like attitudes, your set of values is always a work in progress. You can determine how much a specific value means to you by becoming mindful of how intensely you cling to it. For instance, if you held bravery as an immutable value, you might insist on standing against a danger that could kill you. Sometimes, values are relative. For example, honesty might matter more than peace, or peace might matter more than honesty.

An aspect of having values is recognizing that you have value. The degree to which you matter to yourself can impact your intentions. It’s hard to be true to an intention that requires strength or courage or vision, if you believe you have none.

Recognizing what you have sets the stage for examining what you do with what you’ve got.

What You Do

Here in the U.S. one of the first questions we tend to ask of each other is, “What do you do?” And generally, what we’re really asking is, “What kind of work do you do?”

About ten years ago, I asked this of a man I’d just met, and he rolled his eyes and said, “Oooh, the do question,” and then he turned to talk to someone else, leaving me to gape at his shoulder. Yes, I was asking what he did for a living, but I hadn’t specified. Doing could mean do for fun, do in your spare time, do in times of crisis, do in bed, do with money, etc.

Consider this question from the perspective of what you do with your resources. In addition to the resources noted above, you use the following resources every day, and as such you do them.

TIME: The biggest chunks of time tend to be fixed. For most people, one third of what they do is work and one third is sleep. Only about one third of what they do can be considered discretionary. So look first at what you do with that “free” time, and explore what that tells you about yourself.

One of my default activities is crossword puzzles, and I don’t particularly like how easy it is for me to indulge. When I’ve explored why I don’t “kick the habit” I find I like that there’s no risk, just enough challenge, and I can’t fail. Another default activity is hiking. Again, no risk, some challenge, and I can’t fail. These choices tell me that although I like challenge I’m not much of a risk taker. Since I find this is also true in my work, I know that in order for a choice to be true for me, it probably needs those two qualities.

After looking at your discretionary time, take a peek at both sleep and work. Do you find struggle or satisfaction? Satisfaction usually indicates a high level of partnership with what’s true for you. Struggle usually indicates you’re not aligned what matters most.

TALENTS: When I was young, I had an uncertain idea of “talent.” I mostly saw it as what other people were good at and I wasn’t. I was surrounded by people who were better than I at art, music, dance, math, athletics, style, making friends – the list goes on. Recently, I heard a quote that we measure our insides against other people’s outsides. Since I evaluated myself that way until well into adulthood, I know the toll exacted by comparison.

You have talents, gifts, abilities, strengths, etc. What do you do with them? Do you nurture them? Do you trust them? Do you manifest them? If you do, they clearly matter to you. If you neglect them, something else matters more. So then it’s time to ask, “What matters more to me than this relationship?”

Again from my own experience, even after I realized I probably had talent as a writer, I avoided writing for years. I was content to hold it in reserve, to tell myself I’d be a writer when I grew up. One day – when I was about 34 – I realized I was afraid to test it. What if I tried and failed? Then who would I be? Holding the hope I was a writer mattered more than actually writing. So I took the plunge and started writing, and I’ve been writing ever since.

Talent covers an enormous range of skills and abilities, including anything that engages the mind, the body, the heart or the soul. Active engagement with your talents will support and develop them. Talents allowed to lie fallow still exist, and can be brought to life at any time.

MONEY: Perhaps what you do (or don’t do) with your money is more important or more urgent than what you do with your time or your talent. Perhaps you agree with the adage that time is money. Perhaps other uses of time seem frivolous compared to making money. Perhaps you see money as the primary prerequisite to determine what you do with either time or talent. Because in today’s economy money is necessarily high on the list of essential resources, what you do with money often reveals a great deal about what matters. Does it for you?

ENERGY: Energy as one of your resources includes your physical vitality. However, the degree to which you’ve mastered your emotions may be an even stronger factor. Yes, you will have more energy if you eat healthy foods, exercise consistently and sleep well. Those good habits will not compensate for energy depleted by such draining emotions as anger, resentment, anxiety, frustration, impatience, doubt, envy, greed, loneliness, etc. Every emotion generates an energy that affects your well-being. If having energy matters to you, look to your emotions and choose those that enhance feelings of well-being and vigor.

Who You Are

Rising directly from having values, is being what you value. For instance, it’s difficult to have resilience without being resilient, or have health without being healthy. And this same principle hold true in the other direction. If you are resilient, you will have resilience.

On every level, being true to yourself encompasses doing that which matters most and having that which matters most. I couldn’t be a writer until I actually wrote. I wouldn’t be a coach if I didn’t practice my profession. But in both cases, I knew it my heart I was before I actually did.

Just as doing and having help you be who you are, being who you are helps you do and have.

How it Matters

So let’s return to my new client. Could he create the miracle he wants? Sure. If it were true for him and he could be true to it.

He has a restaurant, and he’s starting to feel it has him more than he has it. He values the relationships he has with his staff, his customers, and his community. But he also has other values which aren’t being me. It’s no longer fun for him, and it doesn’t provide the stimulation or the adventure he yearns for. His waning interest breeds dissatisfaction, and that dissatisfaction affects his relationships. Therefore, although he still works hard, he may not be using other resources effectively. Certainly he’s not getting the full energetic benefit of his emotions, since his emotions are often those of frustration and struggle. It’s almost impossible for him to be a successful restaurateur when his heart isn’t in it anymore.

So we look at what matters most, starting with the kind of person he wants to be: adventurous, generous, and true to himself. Then we look at what he has: intelligence, education, experience, energy, the strong relationships of a loving family and a supportive community, and a strong history of successful endeavors. And then we consider what he wants to do with those resources. (Since this story is still in the making, it’s too soon to predict the end.)

I encourage you to use these three ways of identifying what matters most to you when establishing an intention or setting a goal.

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52. Energize Your Power

Sunday, April 18th, 2010

If we assume emotions are energy, it follows that emotions can be employed as other sources of energy can be employed. Emotions can be purposefully powered up and powered down to energize different results. Although the default position for most people may be to let their emotions be the choosers, every human being possesses the ability to choose and use their emotions the same way we can choose electricity or gas.

And while emotions are the basic energy source – like the sun – they convert into other forms of personal power. Today I’m going to address a few of these secondary forms of personal power. You do, of course, already employ these methods to one degree or another in every area of your life. Sometimes, however, you may lose sight of them, so here’s a reminder. You have . . .

The Power to Feel

To fully exercise the power of your emotions, it’s necessary to be mindful of them, to be fully present with them. Emotions motivate both your desires and your actions. When you exercise your emotions consciously, when you direct them to support your desires and reinforce your actions, they will supply the energy to bring about whatever you choose.

To empower yourself and your results, become more attuned to the range and extent of your feelings. Pay attention. By mindful. Recognize and name what you feel. Your feelings – those initial, instinctive responses to stimuli – perform many functions, including:

  • Warnings. A feeling can alert you to danger and/or impel you to take appropriate action.
  • Messages. Feelings can be communications from your soul regarding what’s true for you. Such messages often transcend beliefs and attitudes (although, beliefs and attitudes can misinterpret such messages).   Refer to#47 Communications From Your Soul

for more about such messages.

  • Aspirations. At the deepest level, you aspire to highest and best good. Your feelings can guide you in that direction.

Beyond the first rush of feeling, you have the power to choose what you feel. While a flash of anger can notify you of danger, stewing in anger strengthens your adversary (and infects others). A flash of happiness can fill the moment with delight, while radiating happiness can ease your way (and bring ease to those around you).

When you align your emotions with your thoughts, you create a belief. Without emotion a belief cannot exist, and you can’t create something you don’t believe in. On the other hand, your power to feel an intention as a done deal is the power of the miracle. This requires cooperation with your thoughts, since imagination originates in the mind. Imagine into the future. See the intention in its fullness. Then feel yourself in that fullness.

When you choose what you feel, when you generate the energy of a creative emotion, you engage in partnership with the universe.

The Power to Think

As far as science has been able to determine, human beings are the only creatures on earth who think in complex terms. We are the only ones who can conceive past, present and future. This ability to think in a linear fashion gives us an imagination. We can imagine what might have been, what’s possible now, and what can be. This is the basis of creativity. From this power, we learn, grow, experiment, invent and build. Ways you think include:

  • The ability to solve problems. Because you can see cause and effect, you can adjust a cause to get a different effect, you can change the parameters of a situation, you can pursue different hypotheses, you can discard tactics that don’t work and try new ones. When you can approach a problem with confidence in your ability to solve it (rather than fearing you can’t), you enlist the universe as your partner and answers will come to you miraculously.
  • Your ability to remember. The data banks of your brain keep your entire life on file. How much of it you currently access has more to do with habit and belief than storage capacity. Perhaps not all stored memories are “happy,” and not all stored memories add value, but if you genuinely appreciate your memories, you empower your search capacity. All will become more available to you, and you strengthen you ability to reach for those you want.
  • Your ability to imagine. Anything you can imagine is possible, if you can believe it. Let your ability to imagine reach beyond your belief system, to explore new frontiers of thought, to play with possibilities, to transcend time, space and physical limitations. Open your mind and let the universe be your partner.

Because you have the ability to think linearly, you can use the power of thought to change the past, live the present and create the future. Remove regret, doubt and fear from your thoughts and insert acceptance of what was, happiness for what is, and love for what will be.

The Power to Learn

Every human being begins to learn about the world at the moment of birth. In one way or another, you have been learning all your life. You are who you are as a result of what you’ve learned and how you’ve interpreted that knowledge. You learn in various ways, and from each kind of learning you acquire different understanding, such as:

  • From observation you learn how the world works. The quality of knowledge you acquire from observation depends upon many factors, including: a) your ability or willingness to gather all the facts available; b) the foundation you’re building upon; c) your desire for knowledge vs. any belief you want to substantiate; d) your emotional state.
  • From experience you learn cause and effect. You try something, you discover what happens. You learn what works and what doesn’t. It’s possible, however, to draw the wrong conclusions about either the cause or the effect or both. If you decide the lesson is to never try again, you’ve lost the value of the lesson.
  • From feedback you gain help along the way. Some feedback comes from other people – when they tell you directly what you did right or what you did wrong. (For such feedback to be helpful you have to trust the other person cares more about your well-being than their own agenda.) You can also get feedback from your own intuition and from testing cause-and-effect relationships. The more you operate from OBSERVER mode, the more you’ll be able to read such feedback accurately.
  • From teachers, you learn wisdom, methods, and how to operate in the world. You can recognize good teachers by their knowledge and facility and by their ability to transfer that knowledge and facility.
  • From your choices, you learn what’s true for you. If you learn, grow, expand, thrive or prosper, you know you’re aligned with your choice and the choice itself is aligned with your wholeness. If you flounder, struggle, experience pain or lack, or fail, some aspect of your choice is not true for you. The value in the experience is discovering what supports your wholeness and what does not – and then gaining a deeper understanding of yourself.
  • From the service you give to others you learn love. True service, the kind that comes from your heart, expands your compassion, your worldview, your skill set, and your ability to heal.
  • From being connected to the universe you learn wisdom and access your power. All the wisdom of the universe is available to you, and as your connection strengthens so does your ability to receive wisdom. You already possess infinite power, and as you strengthen your connection with the universe, you strengthen your ability to access that power.
  • From being true to yourself your learn transcendence. The truer you are to yourself the more you can transcend conflict, pain, limitation and any challenge you face.

Lessons come to you continuously from every angle. Love them. They are a significant aspect of your power.

The Power to Act

Doing is an essential part of living. Once you’ve chosen and you’ve energized your choice, you must act. You cannot receive the results you envision without acting, without walking through the door of opportunity when it opens.

If you’ve not been in the habit of recognizing opportunity, here are some clues:

  • An opportunity can seem like a miracle. In such instances, the only action required of you is to welcome it. However, if you are not as ready as you imagined, if you can’t quite give up your illness or your lack or your loneliness (or whatever you’ve been clinging to), receiving may require more active participation than you expected. Love the miracle, receive with gratitude, proceed with happiness.
  • An opportunity can appear in the form of an idea. An idea received in response to a true intention will be true for you. You then have the choice of acting on the idea from trust, wholeness and purpose, or holding back out of fear. The full essence of the miracle will manifest when you proceed from love.
  • Your talents can be your opportunities. For the most part, your talents are innate; they came with you when you were born. Talents are doors already ajar, and when you push those doors fully open, more opportunities will appear. Your part is to take full advantage of them. Practice them, hone them, use them, share them, live them. Believe in them and pursue them, for they are already the miracle.
  • A desire. Sometimes alignment with one intention produces another desire. The secondary desire often appears like an “aha,” an inspiration, an epiphany. You may have intended freedom from some personal prison, and in gaining your freedom you realize freedom is only a step toward something else. The miracle of health may reveal a desire for happiness; or the miracle of happiness may reveal a desire for health. Abundance may reveal a desire to explore or serve. The miracle of peace may reveal a desire to develop a talent.

In whatever way the door of the miracle opens for you, you must walk through the door. Miracles are almost always opportunities, not merely ends in themselves. Love your power to act, and you exhibit both love and gratitude for the miracle.

The Power to Serve

As a human being, service isn’t optional. To help, to cooperate, to give and to serve are inbred, instinctive, part of your DNA. The more scientists study cooperation the more they discover how much it is a part of human nature.

Selfishness, on the other hand, is a response derived from fear – and it must be learned. We learn it through scarcity, through the hoarding and aggression of others, through deprivation, and through any other experience that threatens our safety and well-being. When you operate from your inner strength, from your personal power, generosity and service will come as naturally as breathing.

Service is an integral part of your nature; it’s also integral to creation. When you can see a value to others in your intention, you empower your ability to create. Energize your power to serve and your creation always expands. When motivated by a desire to serve, your emotions, your thoughts, and your actions come into stronger alignment with each other, and you access more and more of your own personal power.

I believe the life purpose of every human being is two-fold: to grow and to give. Both aspects of purpose derive from personal power. We grow as we learn to access our power, and from our power we give to others.

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51. Mastery

Sunday, April 11th, 2010

Mastery

April 11, 2010

WHEN THE SUBJECT OF personal power comes up, what do you think of?

Some people consider personal power in terms of control, especially their control over the various situations or activities of their lives – time, schedules, priorities, action plans, interactions with others, to name a few.

Some people consider it in terms of results – implementing action plans, achieving goals, reaching milestones, creating outcomes, etc.

Some people consider it in terms of manipulating others, their ability to get others to do their bidding or respond in a certain way.

I want to suggest true personal power comes from self-mastery, from being true to yourself, from living authentically, and especially from mastering your emotions. Mastery is not control – especially in reference to emotions. Control has nothing to do with it. For most people controlling their emotions means not feeling them, not acknowledging them, not experiencing them, not showing them, and not learning from them. Denial, distancing, burying, ignoring, or resisting emotions is not mastery.

To master your emotions, you have to become fully mindful of them. You must respond to them and with them in ways that support you and empower you.

Today I’m going to review theModes of Power in terms of emotional mastery. The graphic model (included again with this issue) illustrates the hierarchical nature of different emotions in terms of empowerment. The mastery of emotions corresponds to the movement from minimal access of the power within (VICTIM mode) to maximum access (CREATOR mode). Keep in mind that except in extreme circumstances few people experiences VICTIM emotions 100% the time. You might experience these emotions only on rare occasions or only in one area of your life. Or you might experience them pretty consistently in one area of your life while staying in OBSERVER or PARTNER mode anywhere else. Those times when you do experience the lower-mode emotions can be wonderful opportunities to master them.

Victim Mode

VICTIM mode emotions, such as anger, fear, jealousy, woe, resentment, avarice and contempt, are so powerful in themselves, they act as a barrier, a sort of force field, between you and your power. Even though your personal power resides within you in its entirety and fullness, VICTIM emotions inhibit your access. When these barrier emotions are activated, they keep parts of you hidden, even from yourself, and restrict your access to your own power.

Yes, the emotions are real. Yes, they are strong. Yes, they like for you to give them plenty of room to play havoc with your psyche. No, they don’t want to go away, or be dismissed, or to let go of you. They do not want you to master them.

Mastery, however, is both desirable and possible. But it cannot be achieved by going into battle with the emotions. You can’t do it by fighting them or trying to control them. Master the following techniques, and you master VICTIM emotions:

  • Stop. Stop fighting. Stop resisting. Stop yelling. Stop hammering. Stop raging. Stop crying. Stop retreating. Stop hiding. Feel your emotions, but stop reacting according to them. When you let VICTIM emotions propel you into extreme actions, it’s like throwing yourself into a tidal wave. You become a triple victim. First, you’re victim to the situation, then you’re victim to your emotions, and finally you’re victim to your own actions. So, just stop and take stock of where you are, what you’re feeling, and what you’re doing.
  • Declare, “No more.” This declaration requires no analysis, no negotiation, no compromise, and no premeditation about what might happen next, what you will do instead or what consequences might ensue. You don’t have to have a goal or an action plan. You simply have to say, “I’ve had enough. I don’t want to live in fear (or anger, or woe, or loneliness) any more.”
  • Take a step away. Just one. It doesn’t matter how big the step is or whether it’s a “step in the right direction.” Just back away from the emotion in some way. These suggestions can help you do this:   – Refer to the list of emotions and pick something from INTERPRETER mode that seems accessible. For instance, from anger, move to bitterness or disgust or pique. From fright, move to suspicion or defensiveness or alarm. While the INERPRETER emotion you choose when moving away from a VICTIM emotion might not be one you find particularly appealing, it’s going to give you 100 times the access to your own personal power.  – Ask, “Is there any way I am being served by these feelings?” Anger might be a form of rebellion, which can provide a façade of power to cover a sense of helplessness. Hate, fanaticism, contempt and various extremes of anger can provide a veneer of righteousness. Distress and woe can elicit pity. Submission and loneliness can reinforce beliefs of unworthiness. Etc. When you can identify some way you subconsciously benefit from VICTIM emotions, you gain an edge over them. You begin to see they might support you rather than simply control you.

Imagine you’re in a runaway car and VICTIM emotions are dangerous cliffs. Every time you tap the brakes on a VICTIM emotion, you begin to realize you may actually be in the driver’s seat. Saying, “No more,” is like taking control of the transmission and switching gears. You take the steering wheel when you decide to veer away from the emotion.

And when you can do those three things, consciously and purposefully, you’ve gained mastery over VICTIM mode emotions. This mastery allows you to see yourself as an entity separate from both your circumstances and your emotions. You begin to catch glimpses of the untapped power you have within you.

Interpreter Mode

Mastery of VICTIM mode emotions often feels like a jailbreak. You were the captive of those fierce and debilitating emotions, and now you’re free. Whatever had you in its thrall is no longer the boss of you. You are no longer isolated by loneliness, or burning at the stake of anger, or immobilized by resentment.

Suddenly, instead of helpless, you feel more active, more alive, more motivated, more productive, more alert, more in the game. With the chains off, you don’t care about struggle or difficulty. You like the urgency, the competition and the freedom to aspire.

Sooner or later, however, you realize you’re churning with melancholy, or stewing in chagrin, or captivated by greed, or driven by lust. INTERPRETER mode emotions may not be incarcerating, but they withhold resources. You picked up the Get-out-of-jail-free card, but the Pass-go-and-collect-$200 card didn’t come with it.

Mastery of INTERPRETER mode emotions requires the practice of non-resistance. The only thing required for mastery at this level is the ability to let go of such emotions and their attendant behaviors. Most people find this very challenging. Most of us find ourselves attached to the “benefits” of INTERPRETER mode. INTERPRETER emotions give us a sense of being more active, more alive, more motivated, more productive, more alert, more in the game.

Yet the game’s hard. Damn hard. We struggle, we contend, we take wrong turns, we stumble. Obstacles loom at every turn. We meet enemies, adversaries, opponents, resisters, saboteurs, insurgents – sometimes even our family and friends make things more difficult. Why? Because the energy produced by INTERPRETER mode emotions invites struggle. Thus, mastering these emotions releases struggle. Here are three essential aspects of such mastery:

  • Recognize what you’re feeling. Become mindful enough to name it. If it helps, refer to the Emotions List so you can identify the emotions as accurately as possible.
  • Acknowledge the effect of the emotion. Acknowledge the strength of it; i.e. are you consumed with greed or merely wanting more? Is the emotion pervasive, or does some specific situation trigger it?
  • Take ownership of the emotion. Claim it. Say, I am choosing to feel ______.” At this point, whether you actually believe you chose the emotion is irrelevant. This is a communication to your subconscious. You establish choice as a possibility. When your subconscious accepts that what you currently feel is a choice, it automatically accepts the possibility of choosing something else.

The first two steps are exercises in mindfulness. By paying attention to what you feel, by becoming aware of your reactions and responses, by identifying your emotions and by acknowledging those feelings, you connect with the inner workings of your heart and mind in a new and more powerful way.   They open the way for Step #3.

Mastery of INTERPRETER emotions has two parts. First, you master non-resistance: You stop fighting your own emotions and acknowledge whatever you feel, and you stop resisting the events and circumstances of your life. (This is not to say you start agreeing with those events and circumstances; rather, you open yourself to other options besides struggle.) Second, you acquire a mastery within yourself regarding your emotions. You gain the ability to choose what you feel.

Observer Mode

When you master INTERPRETER emotions, the range of possibilities expands exponentially. Paying specific attention to a challenging area (or areas) of your life, notice what happens when you remove the struggle away, when you accept emotions as a choice. If you stop expecting something to be hard, you start seeing ways it might be easy. If you stop entering into battle with something, you start seeing ways to go around, to defuse, to buy time, to stay friends. To continue the earlier metaphor, you’ve gotten out of jail and you’ve collected $200 dollars. Imagine the dollar amount represents possibilities, and you now have 200 options.

That much choice, however, can be intimidating. Mastering OBSERVER mode is, in effect, mastering the multiplicity of choice. So here are three aspects to becoming more at ease with choice and then honing the ability to choose.

  • Detach. (See Issue 41: Detachment) I am not suggesting emotional detachment – emotions are key to personal power. (Of course, since you’ve already mastered INTERPRETER mode emotions, you will not be tempted to ignore or bury your emotions.) I am suggesting detachment from external circumstances such as:   – Other people’s emotions and behaviors. Let others experience what they experience, choose what they choose, react how they react. Because you’ve accepted ownership of your own emotions, you can more easily allow other people the ownership of their emotions. You cannot make someone feel something, anymore than someone else can make you feel something.   – Outcomes. As the observer you can watch, listen, allow. You can exercise patience and tolerance. You can choose curiosity over certainty, amusement over annoyance and courage over dread.
  • Practice neutrality. Recognize the full range of visible possibilities before you begin to sort, evaluate or judge. Honor the differences in those possibilities. Allow for variations of both opinions and priorities. Listen without bias to what others have to say. Look for opportunity in unexpected places. When you become the observer, you start to notice doors that were hidden or invisible before. Judgment kept those doors tightly shut, now your neutrality will burst them open.
  • Be calm. (See Issue 42: Calm and Curious) Calm is both the means and the end of OBSERVER mode. You can become the observer by becoming calm, and when you practice being the observer, you become calm. It doesn’t matter where you enter the circle.

Calm is the ultimate mastery of OBSERVER mode. From calm, and with neutrality and detachment, you can observe the range of possibilities and choose from them with wisdom and authenticity. With the mastery of OBSERVER mode comes one of the most amazing results – freedom from pain.

Partner Mode

With the new year (2010), I decided to master PARTNER Mode emotions. I’ve been practicing OBSERVER mode since the mid nineties (way before I came up with this model for looking at personal power), and during past fifteen years I’ve enjoyed frequent swings into PARTNER and OBSERVER modes. But there are a couple of significant areas of my life where the results I want have remained elusive: my relationship with money, and my concept of the value of my work.

In practicing PARTNER emotions, with an eye to mastery, I’ve been employing the following techniques:

  • Engagement. I have consciously and purposefully engaged with my emotions in these two areas. Every time I’ve explored either of these issues, I’ve gained insight, understanding of myself, and experienced “breakthroughs,” yet my basic relationship remained the same. So in January I engaged yet again. I set clear intentions, I worked with my intention statements until they resonated with truth, and I continue to probe for hidden pockets of INTEPRETER emotion.
  • Evocation. I have mindfully chosen the PARTNER emotions I want to use to achieve synergy with my work (gratitude and humility), and with money (confidence and exuberance). And I consciously evoke these emotions often. I take a few minutes to call up those emotions and let them expand through my body until I feel them vibrate. I recall them often. I relish them and I use them to connect with the results I want.
  • Choice. When I have a choice to make (not limited to choices about money or work), I evoke those PARTNER emotions first. I wait until I feel the emotions humming through my body, and then I choose.

After just 3½ months, so far it’s been an amazing journey, with some terrific results: My coaching practice has tripled since the first of the year, and this has, of course, increased my income. I decided to run for the Board of Trustees in my little town of Lyons, Colorado – to which I was elected this week. I’m experiencing an overall increase of eagerness and happiness. I feel a richer connection with my clients. And I hope, as a result, my clients are realizing more satisfying results.

Creator Mode

What I know of CREATOR mode comes from my occasional swings into that level of power and from my intuition. I believe mastery of the energies of this mode result in wholeness and wholeness is achieved through

  • Peace
  • Joy
  • Love

Some time in the future I may have more to say about these exalted states. For now, I encourage you to savor them and exult in them whenever you experience them.

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Intuition

Monday, April 5th, 2010

THE PAST THREE WEEKS I’ve explored ways the soul communicates: through the body, through the mind and through the heart. There’s one more way you experience often, which I call “gut” communications, for want of a better word. And actually, I read recently some researchers are calling the intestines the “second brain” because they’ve found such a high concentration of neural cells in that part of the body.

When we think of “gut” feelings, of listening to the “gut,” we’re really referring to intuition. When we pay attention and tune in, we will find messages of great value.

We’ve seen that the body often communicates with ailments, the mind communicates with ideas and the heart communicates with the energy of emotion. The gut communicates with intuition, with a knowingness we can’t precisely pinpoint or attribute. When we’re willing to listen, the instincts of intuition will provide valuable insights in the following ways.
Guides Toward Safety

Your soul, being somehow bigger than you are, has an awareness far broader than the reach of your five senses. I have no idea how far the sense of the soul reach, but they are unbound by the physical limitations of space or time. The soul must, however, communicate with us in physical ways. The senses are one of those ways.

Have you ever known something before you sensed it? Known someone was coming before you heard their footsteps? Known something was ahead on the road before you saw it? Known something was burning (or about to) before you smelled it? Known what something would taste like before you put it in your mouth? Such experiences are communications from the infinite, channeled through your intuition.

When you’re willing to trust them and recognize them, you enhance the safety provide by the five physical senses. You become, as Gary Zukav terms it, a multi-sensory individual.

Those people with very sophisticated intuitive senses are often called psychic. You don’t have to be psychic to allow your intuition to expand your senses. Since you already receive such messages, the more likely challenge is to tune into them.

Begin by becoming more sensorially aware. Become more mindful of what you hear, see, smell, taste and feel. Be more present when you eat, when you listen (to music, to the sounds of nature, to what other people say), when you look at something, to smells when you get a whiff of something, and to such textile things as heft, impact, and texture. The more you open your senses, the more intuitive your senses will become.

Your “gut” also enhances your safety by uniting with the messages provided by your body through ailments. If the ailment is a message from the soul, you will not heal from the ailment until you listen to the message. To truly know if some physical ailment is a communication often requires all four modes of soul communication.

1. Acknowledge what’s happening in or to your body – the ache, the illness, the pain, the stiffness, the injury.
2. Think about what the ailment might mean in a metaphorical or symbolic way.
3. Feel the emotion(s) embedded in or reinforced by the ailment.
4. Let your intuition inform the above processes or confirm your diagnosis.

A final important step is to consciously communicate back to the soul that you heard the message and you will heed it.

Attunes to Energy

Everything, everywhere around us, emits energy. Some energetic emissions feed the soul, and some feed on the soul. Not surprisingly, the soul likes the former much better than the latter.

The soul uses intuition as a primary way to recognize, evaluate and attune to these energies.

Intuition is a very powerful way to attune to energy – whether your own or that of what’s going on around you. Like sensory awareness, some people have naturally acute energetic awareness. Most of us have to develop and practice this awareness.

• Start by noticing what you are already aware of. For most people the easiest are the energies of music and/or light. Pay attention to your instinctive reaction to a piece of music: Do you feel more energized? Soothed? Stirred to action? More tense? Loving? Notice your reaction to light and how it relates to your mood: Do you feel happier when the sun’s shining? More thoughtful when it’s overcast?
• Be mindful of the energy conveyed in other people’s voices. You probably already notice this and respond to it subconsciously, practice identifying it consciously.
• Recognize the energy of different environments. Do some rooms of your home feel more welcoming than others? Is it easier to visit the houses of some of your friends than others? What businesses entice you? Are there some of the same type you’ve never visited more than once? Also try this while out in nature. What energy can you pick up from a tree, or a rock, or an animal?
• More advanced practice includes opening your intuition to the emotions radiated by other people. At first, practice in the company of one other person. If that person is willing, you can take turns consciously generating an emotion while the other person “reads” it. (Always start with the strongest emotions because they’re easier to pick up.) As you gain skill, practice by isolating the emotional energy of someone in a group. With mastery you’ll be able to recognize the emotion of someone passing by.

Another way to attune to energy is to pay attention to “gut” feelings.

The communications from the soul through the gut are generally of two types: Pursue this, or avoid this. If you haven’t learned to listen to your gut, it’s easy to get them mixed up.

Take, for instance, butterflies in your stomach. Say you get them before speaking to a group. Does this mean speaking to groups isn’t true for you? Or does it mean you’re stepping up to something your soul wants to learn, or gain, or give? It could be either. To find out which, employ the other means of soul communication.

• Do mishaps or ailments accompany every effort to speak in public? The message is probably to retreat.
• Do you have something important to say, a significant idea to convey? The message is probably to proceed.
• Are you emotionally committed to the purpose of the speech? The message is probably to proceed.

Guides Toward Truth

Intuition fuels all inspiration and all revelation.

Whenever you are trying to learn something, master something, attain something, or achieve something, and that something is true for you, your intuition will play a key role in your progress.

Your mind might be working through a problem, trying to put all the pieces together, stumbling through the processes. You can relax your brain and stop trying to control the process, and suddenly you know. The answer appears. It all fits. Your soul is involved and partnering with your mind through intuition.

Your heart might be confused by something – a relationship perhaps – or uncertain. You let go of expectation, open yourself to possibilities, and suddenly things are clear. You feel lighter, easier, freer. Your soul is involved and partnering with your heart through intuition.

The more you trust your intuition to speak truly, the more your soul can guide you toward truth.

Truth operates on two levels – both your truth and universal truth. Your personal truth derives from your talents, gifts, personality, attitudes, beliefs, and values. Universal truth holds true in every situation, regardless of religion, politics, education, or tradition. When you listen to your intuition, your soul can help you resonate with universal truth without sacrificing your personal truth.

Communicates With the Infinite

People communicate with the infinite in many ways. When I first started realizing the power of emotions, I began to see emotions as “prayers,” as communications with the infinite. I observed my own emotions and the emotions of the people closest to me, and I noticed a cause-and-effect relationship. I saw generosity and compassion result in peace, I saw fear attract whatever was feared, I saw anger cause conflict and division, and I saw love bring about healing. Everywhere I looked I saw emotions creating results that corresponded with the emotion.

Back then, I was still a novelist and teaching writing. I started paying attention to the beliefs and attitudes of my students, and I recognized a similar cause-and-effect relationship between thoughts and results. If someone (myself included) believed writing was hard work, they struggled through their novels. If someone gave more attention to something else (work, family, community, diversion), they experienced more success with that other thing than with writing. I realized beliefs, focus and attention – their thoughts – were also a form of prayer, another way to communicate with the infinite.

I also observed the difference between my results and the results of students who dedicated themselves to writing. (I liked teaching more than writing.) I concluded actions were yet another form a prayer.

So here were three methods of sending communication to the infinite. I began to wonder how the infinite communicated back to us. In each of these ways, the infinite communicates back to us through our results. Through our results we can know the focus and energy of our emotions, our thoughts and our actions. We’re going to get back according to the energy we expend.

We can also know the strength and energy of our connection with wisdom and truth through results of a more general nature, such as:

• Peace. When your soul wants to assure you of your harmony with yourself and with the universe, you experience peace. The peace might be physical, it might be mental, or it might be heart-felt.
• Confidence. When your soul wants to confirm your choices, you will feel confident of your direction, your means, or both.
• Serendipity. When your soul wants to reinforce your unity with your purpose, you experience serendipity. Coincidences, surprises, good fortune, opportunities, connections, synchronicities – serendipity can take any number of forms, and within such experiences you can hear the reinforcing messages of your soul.

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