Life is Better Endings with the Healer as Your Ally

What, to you, is a “better ending”? Whether we apply this notion to a preferred fictional ending in novels or films or to outcomes in our own life conditions, a better ending is in some fashion more satisfying or ultimately more fulfilling for all concerned, even if it is not necessarily happier than some other conclusion or set of conditions.

This month we will focus around the metaphor of life as better endings, pairing this with the collective and personal archetype of the HEALER.

Certainly a Healer might facilitate or impart a better ending, whether by effecting a cure or healing of an illness or in some other manner improving upon a set of deleterious or less than ideal circumstances. I like the notion of my personal archetypal HEALER Ally–a part of my greater Self–having the capacity, the agency, to bring about better endings in my life. I can look to this part of mySelf–and you to yours–for healing a broken heart or to seek a solution that improves upon an out of balance situation.

So I invite you this month to get more in touch with your own inner HEALER and to contemplate the meaning of potential Better Endings in your life. Always feel free to share your insights or stories (which I would publish here). 

The Process of Manifestation

There is nothing more satisfying for me in this life than engaging a project—especially one with creative and service aspects—from inception/conception through to implementation, delivery or performance. I find the process or the principle of Manifestation to be exciting, challenging and deeply fulfilling. This might take the form of something as simple as designing a curriculum (as a teacher) and then delivering the course over a semester, or organizing and presenting a workshop series or an individual life coaching program.  Recently–as an example of the law or principle of Manifestation–I engaged a group of ten students in a research project about perspectives relating to Natural Resources and Sustainability that has led to a full panel presentation at a major conference in Vegas two weeks ago and will go forward further to a community and campus workshop in the Fall and potentially four publications.

It all starts with an idea, a focus to place your creative attention upon. The first step in this process or Law of Manifestation is Vision or envisioning a desired goal accomplished. Then comes the process itself, involving ideation and planning and requiring flexibility and adaptability. As the research class was forming our interview survey instruments for this sustainability project, for instance, a 100 year flood occurred in our state of Colorado, with smaller but damaging floods also in our own area. So we added pictures of the flood including a flooded oil well and gas drill derrick and included questions about these on our survey.

Then comes diligence and dedication to do the required work as a labor of love with respect to the mission or goals of the project and its desirable outcomes. The students interviewed some 50 people and I taught them how to code their interview data in a computer software program to study patterns in the responses in relation to the backgrounds of the interview respondents. They discovered some emerging themes, such as that some perspectives were polarized as a chasm between perspectives, while other issues produced shared understandings, a potential Bridge.  This process of arriving at findings and producing results—whether in a study like this or in writing or art or for a performance event—is the heart of the endeavor. It grows from trial, continual editing, receptiveness to insights, expansion or winnowing, and inspiration.

When the research team arrived at meaningful results that they were excited about wanting to share and to apply, I knew they were ready to do a presentation. They worked in smaller teams to refine their findings and write papers for a panel, then we went to Las Vegas for the conference that had invited the panel. While in Vegas, we listened to all of each others’ presentations, refined the powerpoint slides, and conducted further editing and polishing for an oral presentation.

The time came to present the panel. The students were excellent! They shared interesting findings and were able to field a wide range of questions. Next we will present the panel back at our home locality, inviting the interview respondents for a feedback discussion and workshop. We aim to help people come together around these issues rather than remaining in polarized positions. Especially given the urgency of recent wildfires, drought and flooding in our state, we believe our findings indicate that this is a community ready to address difficult issues such as how, for instance, to realistically bridge to alternative energy sources.

So, manifestation or implementation are all about vision, dedication, flexibility, focus, and the intention to deliver useful, meaningful or inspiring insights that can be of benefit to those for whom the presentation is applied or performed. It is important to envision a complete though flexible process, to flow from inception or an IDEA to its full development and useful or meaningful sharing, rather than having a step here or a thought there, but without a fully integrated procedure or body of material.

I share this as an inspiration to anyone who wishes to manifest a concept or to effectively express a ‘big’ idea.  Allow the process to unfold and wend from its point of inspiration to its delivery. Then it becomes its own gift, with a life of its own, both for the audience/receivers as well as for you as the artist or producer. You have something great to release and share; trust the process to show you a Way to let it shine!

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I welcome your insights and stories!

Expand to New Horizons

As a principle associated with this week’s theme of Travel that can help facilitate Better Endings in your life, I recommend Expanding your Horizons to arrive at new vistas of understanding and awareness.  Even in the most familiar of locations you can expand your outlook by being more mindful and attentive. Do you know that feeling of visiting a museum and becoming absorbed in the artwork there, then when you leave the museum everything around you seems more colorful and full of beauty? You can do this even while standing in line at the bank or supermarket, by being attentive to what is happening around you, appreciating the sublime texture of the Moment.

In Julia Cameron’s The Artist’s Way she introduced the idea of taking yourself out for a weekly Artist’s Date. This might mean going somewhere like a museum or a botanical gardens, or it might just mean taking a different way to work once a week, or buying a cup of coffee in a downtown location and sitting to observe the passersby. Your Artist’s Date can shake you out of overly routine habits and open you to new experiences and awareness.

So take a trip today, even if it is just a daydream. Allow yourself to LET IN new observations about your surroundings, to HEAR people more deeply than usual, to LAUGH at the mundane for all its Beauty.

If you are feeling stuck about a decision or experiencing an artistic block, expanding your horizons can free up areas of your brain you may not be using. Create a Better Ending simply by opening to new possibilities in your Present Moment.  Allow the universe to reveal Itself to you in new and amazing ways!

I invite your Insights and Stories from embracing New Vistas. May they bring you to Better Endings, daily!

Enduring Solidarity

“It is a very inconvenient habit of kittens

(Alice had once made the remark)

that whatever you say to them,

they always purr.”

    ― Lewis Carroll (http://catsatthebar.org/)

My mother Elizabeth, with her grandpup,

my Shorkie companion Sophie

I have been pondering all this week what is a First Principle of Better Endings associated with Family relations? And I have found the answer, at least for me; it is:

Enduring Solidarity

So I’ve been asking also, how does a family accomplish the principle of Enduring Solidarity? That’s where the above pictures are helpful.

Family is Forever. We know that from the start. It is unconditional love in action. This is what our pets also know; that we love them, no matter what. And they don’t even have to think to offer us the same, from the beginning.

Family members may not always be on the same side of some political or ideological issue. They might practice different religions, live in widely separated geographical locations, and vary in their unique experiences and extended family ties. I rarely get to even see my immediate family together any more at any one time, and my intensely busy life keeps my focus more on my life in Colorado than on keeping up adequately with my family, especially my cousins, aunts/uncles, and nieces and nephews. Nevertheless, Family remains a core value and when it is possible to visit or to speak on the phone, enduring solidarity is immediate and lasting.

How does a family achieve this level of solidarity despite diversity and change in our individual lives? In my family I think it has been mainly a matter of Acceptance. Beyond  expressions of well intended care or concern, neither of my parents nor my siblings have ever tried to influence the choices of their children or siblings, about careers or beliefs, lifestyles or relationships.  We have known from the beginning and somehow understand that a family encompasses diversity in the very Nature of things. Relating this to yesterday’s post, this value of acceptance of diversity in a family, I would say, reflects the underlying awareness that a Family is an archetypal asssemblage to begin with.  We expect to see the growth and development of diversity within a family; in fact we welcome and value the differences that only serve to expand the greater whole of our collective experience.

Enough said. I am deeply Grateful for the Enduring Solidarity that has nurtured my own and All My Family’s individual and collective unfoldment. This includes All My Family at every level and offshoot of connections.

Maximize YOU!

How do we manifest Better Endings in relation to our work & career? A number of factors come to mind, including: “Love What You Do, and Do What You Love;” “Aim High;” and “Be True to Yourself”.  We could merge these into a single Better Endings principle: “Maximize You!”

Lidiya’s guest post on Thursday, The Only Way to Get What You Want, reblogged from her Let’sReach Success.com site reminds us that commitment is important to success in any endeavor. Her suggestions reinforce the idea of “Maximize You”. Here below I repeat again her suggested 6 points to remember:

1. It’s absolutely possible to reach all your goals.

2. You already have what it takes.

3. You’ll need to work hard.

4. Then to do it repeatedly.

5. You’ll need to go the extra mile and go beyond what is considered average.

6. It will also take dedication and sacrifices.

Allow me to add some thoughts regarding the several aspects of “Maximize You!” mentioned above.

Aim High

Setting goals beyond the immediate project or beyond your current role can stimulate you to envision new possibilities for growth and development. When you complete your current project with excellence, how might it lead to something beyond that project that is worthy of your attention and adaptive skillset?

Be True to Yourself

Are you where you want to be, doing all that you are capable of in this context? Then good! You are where you are meant to be, where you can learn most, already! (Better Endings isn’t necessarily or always about change.) Is there something else you would like to be doing and that you could, by Aiming High, potentially achieve? Maximizing You means you get to BE YOU, wherever you are. Be honest and open with yourself, and with others. Goethe wrote: “As soon as you Trust Yourself, you will know how to live.”

Love What You Do, Do What You Love

This old adage actually encapsulates a dynamic principle of itself, which comes down to maintaining a positive Attitude. My father who grew up on a farm in Kentucky during the Great Depression and went on to serve as a bomber pilot in the Pacific in WWII then later earned a Ph.D. in metallurgy and worked as an Aeronautics Engineer on the first shuttle, used often to counsel me: “If you’re going to be a ditch digger, then be the very best ditch digger you can be!” (BTW, he worked for A&T digging ditches to lay telephone wire while in college, so he was speaking from experience.) No matter what you are doing, if you apply all of your capabilities to doing that job well, it will maximize your potentials in that role while also preparing you for something greater.

Ajaytao

As we develop our potentials, new potentials open up for us to move into; our lives expand according to the unfolding of our interests and abilities.

All this can be summed up even more simply: “Never Sell Yourself Short!”

If you can imagine a goal—and you can—you can envision a pathway to reach your goal. Follow that pathway you envision and you set a process into motion that will bring you into the Nowness of your goal achieved.

It helps as well, though, to conceive of your goal in terms of VALUES rather than as material objectives. If you Aim High to be Happier at your current job, for example, and you are True to Yourself, then in the process of giving that job or process your all, you expand your potentials so that, perhaps, new opportunities will arise.

But after all, I would also remind anyone, don’t “beat yourself up” if where you are is precisely where you need to be, even if you might wish it could be otherwise. You can Maximize You anywhere, in any current situation. Better Endings is not necessarily about “improving” a situation; sometimes it can mean simply being YOU within the situation you are in, as fully—as mindfully—as you are presently able. Sometimes we may simply count our blessings for all that we have, and give of ourselves from Here and Now, so that all good things can simply Be as they Are, and we grow accordingly.

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Your insights are always welcome!

Faith as a First Principle of Better Endings

What do all spiritual practices have in common as pathways to Better Endings? I would say that is Faith. Not just blind faith; not necessarily faith in anyone or anything beyond your own capacity to connect with or that you are not a part of…

I AM

THAT

   I Am…

 

but the Faith of the acorn, that is content to grow into the mighty Oak it already IS within its seed potential:

 

 

A mentor while I was in college, the philosopher Antoinette Paterson who wrote THE INFINITE WORLDS OF GIORDANO BRUNO, told me how one day in the park with her son, she picked up an acorn and put it in his hand. “There,” she said to her son, “IS God!”

 

Faith allows us to take our next step with confidence that all will be well, no matter what it is the next step brings to us overtly. We must simply step forward, as into a void at times. There are no mistakes, just further unfoldment. Especially if we are in alignment with the Allness, the interconnectedness of all life conditions, Spirit as Divine Love or as a unifying Life Force, however we understand this.

Faith anticipates a Best Ending or development, even sometimes beyond our own mental or emotional desires or intentions. Faith requires, as a corollary, Surrender to that which is for  “the better, highest interests of all concerned”. When we are in alignment with that, as “Thy will be done”, then faith can guide us to incredible insights and to creative directions and Wellness. Faith is well paired with Gratitude, for “all Good things received”.

Better Endings to All!

 

 

One Thing

Remember Curly (Jack Palance) from City Slickers I? With sage advice, Curly shares with Mitch (Billy Crystal) that the “secret of life” (holding up one forefinger) is “one thing.” But Curly shared this on his last breath and died before he could answer, what is that one thing? Mitch–and the film audience–had to wait for the sequel to learn from Curly’s twin brother Duke what that ‘one thing’ is.

It turns out that the ‘one thing’ is different for everybody. It is “whatever it is for you,” that ONE THING that makes you happy or allows for you to thrive.

Joseph Campbell might call that ‘one thing’ your Bliss. “Follow Your Bliss,” says Campbell in The Power of Myth, meaning for you to pursue that which truly fulfills you and empowers you to achieve your life purpose and manifest your Life Dream.

Establishing one new, good habit or an activity that can propel you toward a goal you might otherwise not pursue would be a positive, “one thing” to do.  Some eight years ago, for example, when I was just beginning to write in earnest about the life mapping process I was already developing then, at a therapy session one day, I reached a breakthrough. I could do one thing to help this project really get rolling; I could find a house sitter for one full month and go for a writing retreat. So, I did. I rented a ski chalet in Steamboat Springs, CO, where every day of the month I started to work on my book and a proposal package at 8 AM and I usually worked far into the evening. I brought with me my elderly, beloved Harlequin calico cat, Ariel.

It was wonderful. I set up the computer at a wooden kitchen table facing an alcove window looking out above an ocean of Ponderosa pine treetops. I had plenty of peace and quiet. I drafted the basis of several chapters that would, over time, develop into Life Paths, a book I aim to begin marketing with an agent this summer.  It was that “one thing”–something I needed to commit to and invest some money in, a writing retreat–that firmly established my feet and heart on a path I have continued to follow ever since.

So, what is your “one thing”? What can you do that is outside your normal “box” (remember though, “There is no box”); something that could move you in the direction of your Bliss?

Joseph Campbell spoke of Bliss on one hand and also Dragons, on the other. Your Dragons might be “threshold guardians”. Your Dragons might prevent you from taking an action that could help you manifest your goals, either from fear or a lack of self-confidence.

“It will cost too much to rent a chalet for a whole month;

 Who will take care of my other pets while I am away?”

A Dream that is close to your heart is worth risking your complacency. Go for it! I encourage you to DO YOUR ONE THING! You can plan for it now, and then, Follow Through!

Better Endings to You!

Wellness Affirmations

A principle of Better Endings that can facilitate this week’s topic of Health & Wellness is Affirmation or setting positive postulates. Most of us are familiar with the use of affirmations to frame our goals according to a positive mindset. One approach to using positive affirmations is called the “fifteen times” technique. You write a very positive statement that expresses the successful realization of a goal, writing that statement fifteen times daily. In relation to health and healing, for example, I might write 15x:

I am exercising weekly and eating fewer processed foods. (a behavioral affirmation)

Or perhaps:

I am mindful of all that I permit into my mind and body. (an awareness raising affirmation)

You can use this method to orient yourself to establishing values or behaviors you desire to integrate more fully into your consciousness.

As a cultural anthropologist I have learned about many fascinating cultural approaches to manifesting health and wellness, many of which employ practices that are similar to setting positive affirmations. The Hopi, for instance, attribute any mental or physical manifestation of illness or disorder as an indication that one is holding self-limiting or negative thoughts.  A medicine person might ask a person then to change their thoughts about themselves to positive, more healthy images or postulates. The individual must learn to “manifest” a positive state of health rather than a negative one. According to Don Talayesva as cited in Sun Chief , this is a capacity and a responsibility of the individual, to express hopi (harmonious) rather than kahopi (inharmonious) thought patterns and behaviors. While the medicine man might also practice ritual means of reinforcing positive postulates to help the individual to reorient to a healthy pattern, it is within the capacity of the individual to accomplish their own improvement of outlook.

Repeating positive Affirmations, whether 15x or in some other manner, is a matter of establishing a habit of thought or behavior that might replace other thought or behavior habits that no longer serve you.

It is important, however, to be kind to yourself. Practice acts of kindness with yourself, always. Fill your heart with unconditional love for yourself as well as allowing that love and consideration to flow through you to others and to your environment.

If you hold yourself in high esteem and give humbly of yourself to all of life, how can you be other than in harmony with life affirming, healthful realities? Illnesses or conditions need not impair your Wellness, and positive wellness affirmations—though they may not of themselves accomplish immediate or sufficient “healing” of such conditions—certainly will do “no harm” and may help you to manifest qualities and achieve relationships you might otherwise overlook by remaining ‘caught’ in the lair of negative postulates.

You deserve to SHINE, to Manifest Better Endings, Now and Always!

 

Just Listen (Doo-Da-DO!)

Saturday is First Principles day at Better Endings. We focus on a principle that fosters ‘better endings’ with regard to our weekly topic. All this week we have been emphasizing “mindful communication” or mindfulness as a Better Endings principle. The underlying behavior associated with mindfulness is: Just Listen. That can mean both listening deeply to another as well as listening deeply within.

We cannot HEAR if we are not in a LISTENING mode. WE cannot LISTEN while we are talking in our head.

So, how can we become better listeners in order to be better communicators or to engage effectively in “Alchemical conversation”?

Perhaps you might say–now I am listening inwardly–that it begins with setting a proper INTENTION.

Ah, yes. Well spoken. And how can I or we set a positive intention to communicate deeply and well?

Be open and direct about your intention; seek to establish common grounds.

But intention is not always explicit in the moment of exchange.

Then LISTEN so you may HEAR your friend’s intention, rather than swiftly react.

Does Listening need to be mutual for alchemical conversation to ensue?

Yes. “Your state of consciousness is your level of acceptance.” So is the other’s.

What can be HEARD when I/WE Listen deeply?

What can be SEEN is HEARD with the HEART.

So mindfulness is being Heartful.

Heartfulness is being Mindful.

Words fade in significance. Unconditional Love is All.

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Can you tell in the ‘conversation’ above Who is conversing with Whom? Alchemy is Archetypal!

Better Endings to You!

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The universe is always speaking to us.
… Sending us little messages,
causing coincidences and serendipities,
reminding us to stop, to look around,
to believe in something else,
something more.

~ Nancy Thayer ~

Reblogged from Soul Gatherings 

I welcome your Comments below, or you may send your insights for a Guest Blog, or your Story to be posted!

Change It UP!

This week I have noticed a theme in blogs and Tweets I’ve been reading from others. You have to fall sometimes, or take a step back, in order to go forward with greater strength and find success.

This past Thursday morning, while thinking about this theme, I dreamed about a football play. It was an unconventional play. The QB tossed the ball, underhanded, to a receiver some 5 yds ahead. He caught it, looked around, and saw the defense closing in; he could see he had nowhere to run. So, he threw it back to another receiver behind the QB. The player there caught it and, also seeing the defense about to close in on him, he threw it even further backwards to a teammate back near the other team’s goal posts. I knew as the dreamer that the intention was to open up an area without defensive players, so a player could run forward less obstructed after catching the ball from well behind the line of scrimmage. The last player trying to catch the ball, did not, but neither did the opposing team’s players intercept. The play was dead. But it had only been a 1^st or 2^nd down, so the same team lined up again at the line of scrimmage and the next play, the QB passed a regular forward pass that was caught for a 1^st down; forward motion was restored.

Writers and other artists are very often the Innovators for art itself and for culture. New ideas have to start somewhere and it often takes an unconventional thinker or artist to advance ideas and to “change up” how we think about or view the world. This is the basis , to me, of the Beatles’ wild success; it was not that they started by doing anything entirely new, but they ‘changed up’ the way it was being done. They set a new beat that perhaps changed up slightly the heartbeat of the collective world. They broke up thought forms by being unconventional in several ways. Their haircuts—at the time; in retrospect this seems silly now—astounded and offended many parents of their young, devoted fans. Teaming with the Maharaji, courting “revolution”, daring to “Imagine”, they changed up rock and roll and, with it, they elevated an entire generation around a basic theme: openly expressed, unconditional Love.

What’s the message here? CHANGE IT UP! What do we have to lose, really? We must be true to ourselves and forge new grounds where that seems the direction we are given to go with our talents.

If the backwards seeming football play I dreamed of this morning had succeeded, it would have been a wild success; it would have forged a whole new concept in how to move a football forward on the field of play. If, on the other hand, it had been intercepted back near the opposing team’s goal, of course it would be seen as a monumental failure. But, in the end, what does that matter? A “touchdown,” points scored, on this side or that, is only that. I admire the player who got the random idea to “Change It UP!” and started the ball rolling in an entirely new direction. In the dream, on the next play, his team moved conventionally forward again, anyway. Still, the game was forever changed. The other team now knew their worthy opponents might do ANYTHING to succeed. It would be more difficult to defend against this new form of play. It was, in my view, an artistic accomplishment. Perhaps, by the next game, it might become a formal new play in the team’s playbook, one they might incorporate into their team strategy, with tweaks, over time.

What, to you, is an example of this Better Endings principle of “Change It Up”? If you are forging new directions, pushing genre boundaries, Change It UP! Follow your OWN North Star!

3 REASONS TO DREAM BIGGER! by Jeff Moore

(Re-blogged from) February 4, 2014 · by Jeff Moore, Life Coach and author of  Everyday Power · in Show The World Your Greatness. ·

What has happened to your past dreams? What happens when you get excited? How often do you tell yourself things like, “That’s not possible for me, I need to be more realistic?” I truly believe that we might not be able to do everything, but we sure enough can anything, something or even just one thing, that will make a significant impact, not only on our lives, but in the lives of others. In today’s world and the way communication and information is – there are just too many real life stories of people making a massive difference in the world, for us to settle for being ‘realistic’.

The time to stop talking yourself out of your greatest dreams, desires and goals is over!

The time for wishing is over.

It’s time to make it happen.
Here are 3 Reasons WHY YOU should dream BIGGER!

1. If it’s not BIG, you’re selling yourself short. Before I moved to India 6 months ago to live and teach, I threw a going-away party so I could see all of my close family and friends together. I could have kept it low key and invited about 15 people. Instead, I decided to go a little bigger and invited more than 70 people from family, high school, college and the workplace. What I learned is that whether it was 15 people or 70 people, the same amount of planning, stress and energy went into the situation. So why not have 70 people show up? Why not plan big, love big and in this case – party big!

          Our dreams and goals are the same way. Either way, we are going to be tired in the morning, tired from work and looking forward to ‘me’ time at the end of the day. Either way, we are giving tons of energy, attention and time to our work and our responsibilities. We might as well direct that energy towards larger and more impactful dreams and goals. It just makes sense.

2. Think about all the people you can help, inspire and give too.There is a world out there that needs great people doing great things. Be one of them.

If you don’t go for your dreams and goals, the whole world suffers.Live your largest life. Make the biggest impact on as many people as possible so when it’s all said and done, you know that you did not tip toe through life, you lived with force, passion and power. It’s possible for ALL of us! As the French writer, Emile Zola wrote, “I am here to live out loud!”

3. How do you want to be remembered? What do you want to leave behind? What do you want to give to your children, family, your community or charity? It’s about legacy now. What can you give and do that will outlast you. Legacy doesn’t come from playing it small. What would your life look like if you committed to your dreams?

Jeff

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On Saturdays we focus on First Principles of Better Endings. Dreaming BIG is fundamental!

What are your dreams?  Are they “big enough”?  How can you expand your reach even further? You are invited to write in and share your Dream!  I love the idea that in in expanding our dreams, we will be of greater benefit to others in the process of realizing our own highest potentials.

So Thank You, Jeff, for reminding us that by reaching for a Star, no dream is impossible.

Trust–A Quality You Share with Your Innocent Child

 

Trust is a quality an innocent child possesses that is a key element in the Alchemy of childhood. A child’s trust can overlook many inadequacies of adults by virtue of their unconditional love and faith in the basic goodness of others. When maligned, of course, that trust may be damaged, shaken or broken altogether, in situations of callous neglect or abuse. But in a loving environment a child’s trust may know no bounds. They have faith in their dreams–however imaginary–and confidence in their ability to accomplish them.

From Goethe:

As soon as you trust

yourself,

You will know how to live.

I gave a poster with this Goethe passage on it to my little sister when we were teens. Somehow I associate it in the same memory frame with a printed passage I had taped to the back of a ceramic turtle in my bedroom: “Behold the Turtle! She makes progress only when she sticks her neck out.” These two simple passages were reminders to Trust, to remain open and accepting of my own inherent talents and to hold courage in stepping forth to germinate the seeds and ultimately to manifest my dreams.

Many of you who are readers of this blog are fellow writers and/or artists and dreamers.  As you focus on memories of childhood, you can cultivate the archetype of the Innocent Child to gain Strength for advancing your dreams. Trust in your own inherent goodness of heart and listen to your inner Child, who can lead the way in forging your next bold steps with imagination and a creativity that knows no bounds.

No matter how an adult’s trust may have diminished over time through weathering the harsh vicissitudes of life, we can rekindle that trust in OURSELVES by attending to the Innocent Child within. We can re-parent our Child if there is a need to do so.  Give your Child a name; Dialogue with him or her, either in a journal or by active imagination or meditation. Go out on a special day with your child, doing things you loved to do when you were younger. Prompted by a wonderful therapist some 25 years ago,I took my inner Child, April, to a drive-in theatre to see the Kevin Costner “Robin Hood” when it first came out. I bought her–represented as a pillow in my passenger seat–popcorn and candy and delighted in her enjoyment of the movie and of our companionship.

Many years later when I was developing the Life Maps Process, I learned about Archetypes especially from studying the works of Carl Jung and James Hillman on archetypal psychology. I developed an Archetype Dialogue Process that is a central component of the approach to personal growth I will be sharing with my upcoming book and self-help handbook, Life Paths.

Through dialogue with my own Innocent Child (a Descender archetype), I learned she has been primarily “underground” for many years because of dysfunctional family issues in childhood. She stayed “beneath” as I advanced into adulthood, preferring to stay in her own private space—like in a lower level, shadowy living room–alone, rather than dealing with the harshness of adults directly. Getting to know her—I now call her Little Linda—I have learned to visit with her on her own turf, going inward imaginatively to sit with her or to play with her in her own environment. Over time I have invited her to accompany me on a more conscious level, for fun outings together.

A couple of years ago I knew I had succeeded in helping Little Linda to ‘surface’. I was at a spiritual workshop. One activity allowed for quiet contemplation, during which I checked in with her.

“I don’t want to just stay down here alone anymore. I want to be a part of your Life!” she told me in that active imagination contemplation.

After the contemplative period I approached several ‘choice’ friends at the workshop. I told them I wanted to introduce them to Little Linda and I let her say to them directly, “I want to help and to know you, too!”

My friends understood (a good thing, for sure)! Little Linda had “stuck her neck out.” And we are going forward together, ever since, with Trust that we will accomplish our Dreams!

Turning Points and ‘Combustibility’

Our Better Endings Life Mapping activity for this week allows you to focus on what sorts of Life Lessons you are learning through the most critical, pivotal events of your life. See if you can list one or more events in your life that have been of such magnitude in terms of their impact on who you have become that you feel you were not quite the same person before and after this or these events occurred. These are your Turning Points.

Take some time to reflect on these ‘chapter turner’ events in your life. For each one, what did you learn because this event transpired in your life? Did it have a positive or a negative (or, both?) impact on you, in retrospect? Why? How? If you could go back, would you change anything about this event or situation? If so, what might have gone differently then?

One basic way to explore a Turning Point is to write or journal about it, talk about it with someone you trust, and actively contemplate its role or effect on your life. What LIFE LESSON have you learned because of this experience?

I welcome any insights you would like to share!

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Because a very special story has come through about our weekly topic of surviving disasters that I will share with you tomorrow (and another story also, for Sunday), I will add a second piece today about a Principle of Better Endings that I’ve been learning about this week:

Combustibility : a Better Endings principle?

I was having some difficulty early this week finding just the right principle of Better Endings to account for how disasters or personal hardships result so often in major Life Changes and Lessons. I awoke then Wednesday night at around 2 AM from a series of dream images: rocket ships! So the first word that came to mind was propulsion; that such heavy impact events propel us forward at great speed; they launch us into another level of awareness or situation or or purpose. Applying that metaphor to what happens within us that allows this launching to occur, I find the word combustibility!

A few weeks ago I shared the life metaphor from Will of a golden spiral. Will said the spiral he imagined had “launch pads” along it that would propel him to a higher level of awareness. Again then, we must have the capacity for ‘combustion’ to allow this to occur.

Or, are we the astronaut within the combustible rocket? Then we must be willing to be launched! And the ship must have enough fuel to propel us upwards at great speed.

Interesting how some natural disasters themselves exhibit combustibility—a wildfire, hurricane or tornado, for instance, all are very highly charged phenomena. Do these impart their intrinsic quality of combustibility upon those that they impact? Perhaps we either combust into an accelerated change in our lives and/or the experience burns us?

Heavy impact events in our lives have the capacity to propel us forward, upward, or downward at great speed!

Mazeway Resynthesis? Fortitude as a Better Endings Practice

for·ti·tude   fôrtəˌto͞od/

noun

1.

courage in pain or adversity.

“she endured her illness with great fortitude”

synonyms: courage, bravery, endurance, resilience,

mettle, moral fiber,

strength of mind, strength of character, strong-mindedness,

backbone, spirit, grit, true grit, doughtiness, steadfastness;informal guts

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This week at Better Endings we have been focusing on the difficult “rite of passage” of unemployment. People often feel “locked out” from the Doors of opportunity when they try to re-enter the workforce.

On Monday I shared how the anthropologist Victor Turner would describe the experience of being un- or underemployed as a “Liminal” condition, a feeling of being between and betwixt a job identity one has had stripped away and a new identity someone is trying to achieve. Turner also said that when a group of people experience this “marginal” feeling of liminality together over a prolonged time period, at some point they might group together to share empathy and to try to develop common strategies to regain a stable place in society.

Turner found that many historical ‘cultural renewal’ movements have come about because a group of marginalized individuals came together to collectively forge a new pathway. Such cultural renewal movements can result in a whole new way of thinking—for example, about the value of work or identity—that Turner called a ‘mazeway resynthesis’.

Big words for a blog post, maybe, but I believe it might help people to hear what Victor Turner might have to say about our structural unemployment situation if he were alive today.

The US Great Recession hit in 2008. In 2010, it blossomed for many liminal people into the Occupy Wall street movement. Turner would likely view this as a predictable, cultural revitalization movement that could result, over time, in a new way of framing values and thinking about work and social identities.

This leads me to recognize the Better Endings principle and practice of FORTITUDE; something we might well learn more about from listening to the voices of today’s underemployed.

Fortitude. Check out its definition at the top of this post. You endure what must be endured, while never losing sight of your deepest goals. Your goals might shift, from being external goals—like getting a specific job you are qualified for—more to internal goals, like expressing your personal integrity and creativity or redefining yourself in ways that are meaningful and fulfilling to you. Fortitude could involve joining with other people who are also feeling locked out from opportunities, to forge a new pathway forward, together.

Do you know full the story of Hiawatha? During a time of social disruption with a vicious blood feud going on among tribes, Hiawatha’s wife and three daughters were murdered by a chief from his own Onondaga village. Hiawatha wandered alone and bereft in the woods, nearly driven to madness by his grief. Then he had a Vision of a godlike figure, Deganawida, who told Hiawatha what the Iroquois peoples needed to do collectively to restore peace and balance to their society and to resolve the blood feud.

Hiawatha delivered Deganawida’s message. This led to the formation of the League of the Iroquois, which developed into a harmonious confederation of six Iroquois speaking tribes who agreed to share a council-based, democratic form of government. This resulted in what Turner would describe as a mazeway resynthesis for Hiawatha, and one could say eventually for the Iroquois people overall. The League of the Iroquois was so successful that Benjamin Franklin used it as an example of democracy in the Articles of Confederation that formed the basis of the US Constitution.

Out of the forge of Fortitude, new forms emerge; a new Season, new Hope.

Giving ‘UP’ — The Way of Surrender!

Never Give Up, but you can always give UP—or, surrender—to attain Better Endings. Giving UP means, to me, releasing a problem or an attitude to a Higher Force and Higher Awareness, however you choose to define that. “I give UP!” releases my attachment to a situation or to a specific outcome. Then, what is truly needed or appropriate is free to manifest.

Surrender. What a concept this is, riddled with a dual character. A warrior might regard surrender as a failure of mission, although it allows for them to survive to another day. I imagine the Wicked Witch of the West on her broomstick, spelling out “Surrender Dorothy!” in the sky over Munchkinland. “Never!,” we think. At the same time, though, surrender is a path to freedom from attachment; letting go, or letting God. Surrender your fears and anxiety; be willing to “Take the Journey!” Here’s the double entendre: what if the witch’s message was actually a positive invitation to Dorothy, a wake-up call in the form of a waking dream?

When we hold tightly to a fixed position, attitude, belief or desire, we might be limiting our flow of creative potential and insight. Release your grip just ever so much to be open to the Way. I had a Quaker friend who used to tell me, whenever there was any confusion about what next step to take, “Way will Out!”

So, Give UP; surrender to your higher awareness; Way will Out!

Persistence and Resilience–Well Paired for Better Endings

What personal qualities might most help us to “make lemonades out of lemons,” when needed, or to appreciate and develop insight and wisdom from our Significant Life Events? Two principles come to mind: persistence and resilience. In fact, these two appear on closer look to be two facets of the same attitude a person might rely on to manifest Better Endings.

Think about it. Persistence helps you to remain focused on a goal. It requires resilience, though, to “bend but not break,” to continue forth no matter how long it might take or how alone you might feel with your cherished ideal, project or intention. Resilience allows you to “bounce back” after a loss or setback. It facilitates persistence but at the same time, resilience prevents rigidity or becoming overly fixed on a specific form or outcome.

Dr. Carol Dweck, a Stanford University psychologist and author of the best-seller Mindset (2007), talks about “fixed” versus “growth” oriented mindsets. It is interesting that persistence might be considered an attribute of a ‘fixed’ mindset (being fixed on an idea or a specific goal), yet so long as it is paired with resilience–which seems more a ‘growth’ attribute intrinsically–it will facilitate flexibility and hence, real growth in both perspective and outcome.

Once, at a regional dramatics workshop during high school, our drama coach organized the participants into circles of 8-10 students each. He placed one person (at a time) into the center, with the rest of the group forming a circle around this person. Then he asked the middle person to think of one line in which they believed strongly. They were to repeat this line over and over, while everyone around them in the circle would try to get the speaker to stop. When it came my turn in the center, the line I chose was from Wooden Ships, a Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young song I used to play on the guitar:

When you smile at me I will understand, 

because that is something everybody everywhere

does in the same language.

As I repeated this one line, over and over, it became like a mantra for me; a single focus for my entire life purpose and identity. People laughed, prodded, tried to overtalk me; they mocked and ridiculed the line. Their cajoling only made it seem all the more imperative for me to repeat my universal mantra. I spoke it loudly, softly; I sang the phrase, whispered it; but I never varied from repeating this truth and secret of all existence, that which I was deeply convinced everyone should hear! It was a strong line–one that I have often remembered since–, strong enough that I was able to outlast the opposition and maintain delivery through the full time allowed.

Persistence and resilience support and strengthen one another, pairing intention with adaptability that can empower you to gain insight through any eventuality. So, hold to your Center and speak from your Heart. With a worthwhile purpose, Better Endings will prevail.

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Was there a time in your life when persistence and resilience bore fruit? Or is there a project you are working on now to which you are applying these principles, or maybe that you can envision using in fun and creative ways? Please feel free to Comment below to share your insights and stories. And if you have a friend you think would have a good insight to share or who might benefit from Better Endings, please Like this site on Facebook or you can share with your friend by email.

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Flexibility for Mastery of Better Endings

Life Metaphors  are a variety of “core metaphors” that reflect “idealized cognitive models” (ICM’s), according to anthropological linguists George Lakoff and Paul Johnson in their groundbreaking book, Metaphors We Live By. Such core metaphors govern our conceptions about whole domains of experience by having multiple metaphoric entailments. My example yesterday of Life as a Carousel or Merry-Go-Round shows this well. Life has Its Ups and Downs; It goes Round and Round; we may find ourselves reaching for “the Brass Ring”. Yet, of course, all of this is imaginary, or…well, embedded in our cognitive mindset. Because of the all-encompassing nature of the conceptual model that a key metaphor creates, reality itself is mapped onto our ICM of It, and we become somewhat bound to our model, or, schematic cognitive mindset.

This week’s general topic is about transforming self-limiting beliefs and personal myths into Bettter Endings scenarios. Merry-Go-Round horses leaping from their platforms overnight changes the Life Metaphor of Life as a Carousel by adding a new dimension of FLEXIBILITY into the model. As another first principle for creating Better Endings,then, flexibility is on the top shelf of our toolbox!

Flexibility incorporates lots of Better Endings principles in itself, doesn’t it? Creativity, Acceptance, Adaptability, Mindfulness; all of these are activated in a genuinely flexible thought or action. Flexibility involves a willingness to bend and to adjust, so it is helpful and often necessary for transforming self-limiting attitudes, beliefs or behavior.

I am reminded of two poetic images, both penned by Robert Frost.

The first, on “Acceptance“:

Ah, when to the heart of man,

Was it ever less than a treason

To go with the drift of things,

To bend with a grace to reason

and bow and accept the end of a love or a season?

 

             The second, from Frost’s “Birches”:

When I see birches bend to left and right

Across the lines of straighter darker trees,

I like to think some boy’s been swinging them.

But swinging doesn’t bend them down to stay

As ice-storms do. Often you must have seen them

Loaded with ice a sunny winter morning

After a rain. They click upon themselves

As the breeze rises, and turn many-colored

As the stir cracks and crazes their enamel.

Soon the sun’s warmth makes them shed crystal shells

Shattering and avalanching on the snow-crust—

Such heaps of broken glass to sweep away

You’d think the inner dome of heaven had fallen.

They are dragged to the withered bracken by the load,

And they seem not to break; though once they are bowed

So low for long, they never right themselves:

You may see their trunks arching in the woods

Years afterwards, trailing their leaves on the ground

Like girls on hands and knees that throw their hair

Before them over their heads to dry in the sun.

Mandi’s Guest (Re-)Blog on Thursday shares her “life secret” of Letting Go. This is part and parcel of flexibility, to RELEASE. Robert Frost’s image of birch boughs laden with ice and snow in winter and then winging back to the sky and freedom–though forever arched by the experience–evokes the suppleness and fresh vitality needed for, or perhaps resulting from, a shift of attitude: from holding on, to letting go and ALLOWING a new way come into Being.

Sometimes I think this is much of what the effects of physical aging are about: what we hold onto and then, eventually, what we are able to release. My mother who is 86 with Parkinson’s has had to release so much already (her mobility, most household possessions, solid food) and, over time, she will release the rest of her burdens from this life–and her loves–so she can move on to the next cycle of death and rebirth; however your belief system frames that. (By the way, I highly recommend reading Eben Alexander’s Proof of Heaven if you are struggling with a loved one’s or your own physical mortality.)

A spiritual author I regard highly, Harold Klemp, in How to Survive Spiritually in Our Times, says that one’s “degree of acceptance” determines one’s level or state of consciousness. What are you willing to Accept means, how flexible are you; how far are you willing to bend and what can you let go of to allow a Better Ending? I agree with Mandi that  this is what it takes to transform our lives or habits, from rigid to supple, from stubborn to wiser; bringing well-being and a fresh, vital, childlike perspective into our daily actions and choices. Flexibility allows us to transform self-limiting beliefs or fixed models so we can follow through on our most conscious, mindful decisions.

Flexibility is the essence of our willingness to grow, to learn, to unfold in greater freedom rather than being pinned down by the accretion of rigid thoughts or withered attitudes. And so, flexibility empowers us to transform self-limiting mindsets into life affirming gestures of allowing ourselves and others to grow, to explore, and to achieve the life of our and their dreams.

What is it that you would love to be doing, if you could release self-limiting concepts? Allow yourself to be all that you care to be, to do all that you mindfully dare to do, to become all that you ARE!

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Please feel free to share your insights with others in the COMMENTS box below. FOLLOW to receive Better Endings daily to your email address. And if you enjoy this material, please LIKE  and SHARE with your friends!

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Respect–A Key Ingredient for Better Endings

As a first principle for manifesting Better Endings, respect goes a long way.Catherine mentions as this week’s guest blogger how important respect can be for an entire nation to advance. Respect for difference on a collective scale allows innovation to thrive and fosters a climate of shared abundance instead of petty conflict or divisiveness. I always tell Anthropology students that the degree to which we respect diversity at home is a measure of how well minority cultures and languages, e.g., will be maintained for the sake of the development and sharing of different sources of adaptive knowledge and values on our planet. Variation is a key to the continued evolution of an entire species, including ours.

With regard to our weekly topic of relationship changes, mutual respect for one another’s goals, needs and talents is vital for fostering growth and success for one another. For both partners  to thrive, respect must flow in both directions, supporting each other’s dreams and providing a refuge from external challenges.

Self respect is also a top ingredient for creating Better Endings in our lives, which benefits not just ourselves alone but those we serve. Healthy self respect engenders patience and fortitude to stay the course on a project you believe in, even when others haven’t yet caught onto the idea. Aim your dreams toward that Star that others will not even see or appreciate for its beauty until it is fully risen.

Answering this week’s Life Mapping prompt of ‘What Do You Want to Be When You Grow Up?’ allows you to give respect to your own Life Dreams. ARE we ever really “all grown up”, anyway? People who answer this question as they would have as a child and then Now often tell me they are so much more practical now. But what do we give up in the process of settling into our ‘grown-up’ lives? That’s why I keep posing this question, especially to adults. Never give up on your dreams! Cultivate your creative goals and follow your inspirations, though they may come from a part of yourself–your childhood, as you might call that–that has been suppressed or neglected. Your imagination is your gift to use for the benefit not only of your own “spiritual evolution”–as Catherine alludes to–but also to all those you care about and to the world as a whole. Everyone has dreams to unfold. Whether it is that next best cupcake design or a way to deflect asteroids, respect and nurture your own ideas and ideals.

I tell each of my pets (and sometimes friends): “There has never been and there never will be again in the entire history of all creation another being that IS YOU!” Each of us has unique capabilities, viewpoints and experiences that we can use to benefit the whole of creation. So accept and respect your Life Dream, and you can begin to Live It, Now!

Related articles

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A First Principle of Better Endings: Gratitude

 

The greatest tool we can use for manifesting Better Endings day to day and moment by moment is an attribute of Gratitude. So often, the hairsbreadth difference between a “success” and a “failure”–or, for that matter, between a ‘good’ day or not–is simply the thankfulness we feel about whatever our circumstances might be. Are we home with a cold? How wonderful that the body has given us time away from workaday routines to reflect and repair. Have you lost a job? Okay, granted, with this sort of cloud bank it is harder to find a silver lining. Still, there will be valuable life lessons that will inevitably follow from such a potentially major turning point in life.

Usually once the tension eases around a difficult ordeal, we can look back and be grateful for certain aspects in retrospect. But this is watching our lives unfold in the rear view mirror. Gratitude in the Present Moment is more empowering, right Now, than appreciating what life has brought us in hindsight.

To establish gratitude as a character attribute, an engrained attitude and not just a passing feeling, can be empowering because our attitudes govern our interpretation of facts. In my Life Mapping case studies I have found that two different people can experience the same sort of accident or illness under similar circumstances; yet, one will regard the event as an opportunity to bounce back even stronger than before, while the other might crumble into a prolonged remorse.

Please, there are no judgments here! I am not saying one person is right and the other not for responding to challenges with either gratitude or remorse. Each person’s lessons–and timing–are their own gifts, or burdens. Sometimes we must simply  descend into the depths of an experience before we can resurface and go forward in life. Even in Descent there may be vitality so that perhaps eventually we may come to value and be grateful for even our sadness and remorse.

Booktopia image (by Jung) from Carl Jung’s The Red Book

Carl G. Jung, James Hillman, and Joseph Campbell–three authors who have written from the perspective of Archetypal Psychology–have shown that often Descent is necessary. It can be embraced as a potent, deeply meaningful experience. We can be grateful for the darkness as well as the light. For both can help us to eventually unfold, to Better Endings.

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I am adding with this entry a regular Saturday spot: First Principles for manifesting Better Endings. Please feel free to Comment and share what you find helps most to manifest better endings in your life! Also please send your story on Fictional Better Endings, or answer What Are Better Endings to You? for a Guest Blog spot. I look forward to reading and sharing your insights!

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