Live Your Dream

“I dreamed it, man!”
– Aaron Donald
LA Rams defensive tackle
(2/13/22, after VLII Superbowl game)

What a wonderful contemplation seed!

The legendary NFL player, Aaron Donald, was not speaking figuratively after his team’s recent Superbowl win; he really did dream of his game-ending play.  Donald sacked the opposing team’s quarterback in the 4^th quarter on 4^th down with 1 yard to reach a first down, and with only seconds left to play.  Had the Bengals gained that first down they would have likely at least tied the score and sent this year’s Superbowl game into overtime.  But the lineman who sacked the QB to win the Big Game for his team had “dreamed it!” and so it came to be.

What does it take to synch your inner dream world of goals and ‘can do’ possibilities with your outer world of physical action, resulting in the realization of your deeply cherished ideals?  Here is a better endings question well worth pursuing.

If you can visualize achieving your goal, as successful athletes and stage performers learn well, then you can manifest that vision. You forge a thought mold, and then you fill it. There is nothing mysterious or magical or difficult or forbidden about this process of manifestation. But it takes dedication to a worthy goal, study and practice to achieve the skill necessary to enact the pattern (fill the mold), and strong belief in your own ability or talent.

images are from pixabay.com

Better Endings Story Seed:
Live Your Dream

Have you ever worked so hard at pursuing a goal that you literally dreamed of your success and then found yourself living out that dream in ‘real life’? How can you apply your faculty of creative visualization to realize or bring yourself nearer to fulfilling some worthy goal? Journal in your Better Endings Journal (any loose-leaf paper or blank page book) about a ‘dream’ or goal that you would like to bring into reality. Imagine yourself achieving your goal. What do you see? How DID you do it?

Message in a Bottle

Beached. En route to a Far Country, my small ship was caught in a storm and tossed to the shore, breaking under the wave that brought me to land on this remote island. Enough to subsist on—shellfish, nuts and fruit—but my voyage suspended, I long to proceed to my goal: the three mighty mountains, perpetually snow-capped, pouring forth with the light of a thousand suns and the sublime sounds of heavens rarely won.

On the horizon line where sky and water blend into foam, something bobbing. As I strain to hold the energy to keep this illusion in view, to manifest the ideal, gradually, wave by wave with the incoming tide, the form of a bottle washes to shore, with—yes—something like a rolled canvas inside.

I retrieve the bottle, offer up my gratitude to its Source and essence; uncork the weathered bottleneck, use a flexible green twig to coax the canvas, swelled too large without love, toward the aperture. With delicate care—I have all the time in the worlds—I hang the bottle from a low limb, wait for sun and wind to dry the canvas until it shrinks in upon itself, enough that with my twig I can finally, days later, extract the rolled canvas from its vessel.

It is tied with a leather thong. There is a gossamer seal, a fine golden stamp to hold the thong around the canvas. Do I break the seal? Would it be but hubris to presume the message so lovingly bound might be for me? Mayhap I should replace the canvas, cork this bottle, find some strength to thrust the vessel far beyond the horizon again with the outgoing tide, so it may reach its intended one? But it is here; my dreams have manifested this harbinger of truth, this message in a bottle.

Build a fire, toast nuts and cook the shellfish. Sit on a water pounded rock by the edge of reach of the incoming tide. Chant a mantra, purify my thoughts, quiet expectations, still the wayward hopes and fears. It is time, feels proper, in harmony with the emptiness without and within. Now to break the seal gingerly, loosen the thong, allow the canvas to unwrap itself, feeling its own freedom as it expands to breathe the warming air by the fire, mist from the tide falling lightly on the canvas and on the beach around the rock; the bottle on the sand, canvas unfolded in my open palms.

The message: “Be-long toward Being.”

That is it; I am that It IS. Close eyes, look more deeply Within. Open the Heart of Being: Here-Now! The mountainscape soaring; all IS Love.

images are from pixabay.com

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Better Endings Story Seed:

Message in a Bottle

Imagine you are a castaway on a remote tropical island. A bottle washes in with the tide. There is a message inside, meant for you alone. Contemplate and journal about the meaning of your being a castaway in relation to your life right now. The message is for you. What does it say?

Create A Golden Child Vision Board

Now that August is waning it is a good time to harness the Leonine energies of your Golden Child part of Self. I invite you to create a Vision Board of your future aspirations from the perspective of your Golden Child viewpoint.

An easy way to compose a Vision Board with your computer is simply by going to a graphics site you like (I recommend pixabay.com, as all its images are free to use online; or you could use clip art or simply Google Images).  Create a blank Word or Publisher page, set up in landscape mode.  Next, Imagine! Assume the perspective of your Golden Child persona, that part of You that is bold and adventuresome and often even gregarious. What does THIS You wish to project into your future with regard to any situation or with regard to your Life Dream as a whole?

Your Vision Board will be an image collage representing various aspects of your future (or, situational) Vision. All you need to do is to copy and paste from images you find online onto your ‘blank page’.  For example, if you see your future self living in Hawaii, find an image that evokes Hawaii for you and copy and paste it onto your page. Assemble your Vision Board collage by simply adjusting the size and shapes of the images you gather and arranging them in a meaningful way on your collage Board.

I always pilot every self-help Tool I develop first for myself before inviting others to utilize that Tool. So below is the Vision Board collage I created a few days ago to channel, as it were, my Golden Child vision for the future of our imaginings. Needless to say I won’t explain my images here; your vision is private. You can share it with others but be careful not to dilute its energetic force for you by explaining it overmuch to others. I can share that without even intending it as such, the little writer-girl image I placed on the bottom right of my collage does portray my Golden Child persona very directly.

I invite you now to create and compose your own Golden Child Vision Board. Be sure to use images of what CAN BE and include images that portray your means of manifesting your Dream!

all images used above are from pixabay.com

After you complete your Vision Board, I encourage you to save it on your computer Desktop but also to print it out in color and place it somewhere important to you where you can see it often. Let your Golden Child Vision Board remind you of your Dream, of your Vision and of your CAN-DO attitude.

I welcome your Comments, Insights, and Stories!

What’s Around the Bend?

Here’s a fun game you can use to contemplate your own Better Endings. Think of a situation in your life that could have multiple outcomes. Draw a circle that fits just within an 8 ½ x 11” page.  List several possible outcomes (without judging them) and then create as many pie slices—PLUS ONE—as you have listed possible outcomes. Write an outcome onto each pie slice, saving the extra slice for OTHER.

Next, get a piece of any-colored, medium thick construction paper.  Cut out the circle on the pie slices page and then use that circle as a guide to cut out the same sized circle from the construction paper. Also draw and then cut out a hole on the construction paper radiating from the center and exactly the same size as ONE pie slice. Please leave yourself some space between the very center and where this cut-out on the construction paper occurs.

 

Now then, punch one hole to insert a brass push-clasp through the very center, the kind where you can open the two brass wings to secure your two pages together at the middle, so that your pie slice alternate outcome descriptions face toward the back of your construction page circle. If you like you can write the situation whose multiple endings you are contemplating outside on the top construction page circle.

Now you are free to swerve the construction paper circle on its axis, exposing one pie slice option at a time. Which option feels most desirable to you? You can journal, write about or talk with a friend about the option you like most and how you might best be able to bring about that outcome.

What is ONE THING you can do now or in the foreseeable future to move you definitely in the direction of realizing your favorite outcome? This action is a SEED for your Better Ending.

Write out a PLAN for realizing this Better Ending, and in your life start taking all of the ACTIONS you have envisioned according to your design.

When you focus your pie slice on a less desirable option, you can also think or write or talk about how to prevent that outcome from occurring.

Have Fun! I welcome your insights and stories.

Establish Your Goal Totem

One valuable tool–or, Seed–that can support your commitment to realize your purposefully meaningful life Goals is finding or creating a Totem and keeping that symbol with you or in a special place you visit often. A TOTEM is a symbolic token that represents some value you associate with your Goal or it may represent a personal Strength you draw upon in the process of manifesting your Goal.

A carefully selected or creatively composed Totem stands for something meaningful to you. It focusses your love and your dedication and intention to accomplish your worthwhile  mission, purpose, or goal. It may focus your commitment to be of service to others in realizing your Life Dream.

Your Goal Totem might be a spiritual or religious emblem or it could be an animal figure representing those personal qualities by which you aim to realize your Goal. You might fashion your totem as a piece of jewlery or clothing that you can wear and hence keep close to your person daily. Or it could be a collage you create or pictures you assemble and place in a personally meaningful place as a reminder of your intentions and Goal.

I welcome your insights or stories!

The Oak in the Acorn

A primary tool I will be offering with the upcoming book Life Paths is the Archetype Dialogue Practice. This approach lets you use active imagination and journaling to engage directly with your unconscious archetypal parts-of-Self (personae) so you can get to know these ever present aspects of your own Self and so you can enlist the Strengths of your archetypal cast as Allies in the pursuit of your most integral goals or Life Dream.

The process of active imagination has been well described and exemplified by Carl Jung.  Wikipedia explains:

 As developed by Carl Jung between 1913 and 1916, active imagination is a meditation technique wherein the contents of one’s unconscious are translated into images, narrative or personified as separate entities. It can serve as a bridge between the conscious ‘ego’ and the unconscious and includes working with dreams and the creative self via imagination or fantasy. Jung linked active imagination with the processes of alchemy in that both strive for oneness and inter-relatedness from a set of fragmented and dissociated parts. This process ultimately resulted in the Red Book.

A simple method for engaging in active imagination yourself to explore or to meet & greet some of your own archetypal energies (or, synergies) is simply to close your eyes and imagine going down into a subterranean cave or down a set of stairs where your archetypal sub-selves can meet with you. Use this or another active contemplation technique to encounter or to observe these aspects of your psyche, then when you return to your usual conscious awareness, as if waking from a meaningful dream, you can record what you experienced or learned. You can also use any artistic media to represent this encounter or what you have learned from it.

I find it easy after long practice with this approach to simply “shift down” to a subconscious perspective and to journal a dialogue directly with my own archetypal aspects. It is important to be receptive and allowing; create an internal environment of acceptance and offer a safe space for the dialogue to occur. Note that the ‘voices’ you will encounter will feel naturally to be aspects of yourself; they are not external ‘entities’ (you can discontinue your session if these voices do feel external). You will know you are ‘in the zone’ when the alternating perspectives in your dialogue feel inwardly to be authentic and clearly distinct parts of Self.

So for this week’s pairing of Idealist archetype traits with the metaphor of life as a Long and Winding Road, allow me to demonstrate, and I invite you to encounter your own “inner Idealist”, too. Remember that your archetypal personae might manifest either as masculine or feminine images and they might present in either Strength (positive) or in Shadow (repressed or feeling suppressed) modalities.

LW: Calling Doña Jeanne [a combination of a female Don Quixote and Joan of Arc!; I  used to address my fencing foil by this name]; come in, Doña!

DJ: We like how you animated and personified your blade in this way; ‘et la!’ we would say…

LW: Thanks. How are you doing these days?

DJ: We—Let’s say I—am always available. I wish lately you would allow me and the rest of us to shed light on why it is so important for you to maintain your trust, your faith. It is one thing to claim a faith but quite another to demonstrate the ‘faith of the mustard seed’, remember?

LW: Or of the Acorn?

DJ: Tell the story; have you ever found its message for you?

LW: Ok… One of my greatest mentors, Antoinette Paterson (Toni), loved oak. All her furniture, mostly from Salvation Army stores around Buffalo, NY, was made of oak. She once showed her young son an acorn while under an oak tree in a park, saying to him, “There is God!”

DJ: And the meaning, dear?

LW: I have always figured she meant that the Acorn, as the seed of the great Oak it will grow into, is a manifestation of the divine principle of Creation. Isn’t that the message?

DJ: But there is more, much more.

LW: What else then?

DJ: The Acorn IS GOD, as God IS the essence of Everything and No-thing—the Alpha and the Omega; Yin and Yang; beginning and goal achieved; inner and outer; Spirit and form; Sea and Foam. Do you see?

LW: I like the sea and foam image.

DJ: It is no metaphor. It Just IS! From out of the Formless, Form emerges. Then and Now, Once and Forever, IS. What does this imply for you?

LW: I look into the Acorn to see therein the Oak in full expression. It is not now and later but it is One. The Oak already exists in the Acorn. Is that what you mean?

DJ: Can you apply this to your recent displays of frustration and impatience?

LW: You mean re. the arduous, nebulous publishing process?

DJ: How can you bring about the bend in the Road you desire?

LW: By focusing on the End achieved.

DJ: No!

LW: By further editing?

DJ: Not even!

LW: Hmm…just by allowing the process to be already complete from within?

DJ: Indeed.

LW: So when I dreamed last week that several large boxes of books were ready for delivery…

DJ: Precisely! On the Inner first; the Outer is a reflection. “All creation is finished in the lower worlds.” (Paul Twitchell)

LW: So trust, allowance, acceptance!

DJ: Love is All! Love is the acorn is the oak and all its roots and branches and leaves. Even its corpse is Love.

LW: Thank you.

DJ: God Bless!

LW: God bless you too, with Love.

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I invite you to your own Idealist dialogue. I welcome all your insights and stories!

Anchor Your Dream to a Totem

Goals may come and goals may go, but a worthy Life Dream deserves persistence, patience and flexibility. Because it may take quite some time to manifest your Life Dream fully, as you gradually live into this Dream it is important for you to “anchor” or ground your Dream in mindful consciousness. That means you will want to keep your Life Dream in view, always, no matter where you are at in the process of manifesting this reality.

Anthropologists have long observed that humans around the world and from the very earliest times have learned to ground their goals as well as their primary group values by using TOTEMS. A totem is what Emile Durkheim called a “symbolic representation.” It is a symbolic object or artistic expression that reminds someone of the idea or goal in a meaningful way, thus reinforcing the significance of that being represented.  Religious symbols, such as sculpted icons of religious figures like saints or gods, remind believers of the values associated with that figure and might also be a central symbol around which a congregation will socially bond. Or a rabbit’s foot may symbolize the sort of “luck” a baseball player might wish to have by keeping this talisman in his or her pocket while playing ball.

I believe once you have established a meaningful Life Dream—one that accords with your highest sense of Purpose or Mission in your life—, this can become a focal point for much that is Sacred in your own Life Story.  To center your dedication and focus around manifesting this Life Dream, I encourage you to create a TOTEM (or a set of totems) that represent key attributes of your Dream in symbolic form.

Your Life Dream Totem can take whatever form feels appropriate to you and that form might depend on what features or aspects of your Dream you are wishing to anchor.  For example, if you relate a particular Archetypal aspect of your Self with your Life Dream, you might represent your Dream totemically by creating or obtaining something symbolic of that Archetype. If an archetype you associate with your life mission, for instance, is a Warrior, maybe you could use a Lion, or a sword, to represent that. If it is a Lover archetype you are identifying with, maybe a Heart image of some sort will work; or if it is a Communicator or a Teacher archetype, you can find or create symbolic totems to remind you of these personal attributes important to you for manifesting your Dream.

 

So what Life Dream do you aim to manifest in your life? What is one (or more than one) key value or major ideal that you associate with your goal? You may create or find some object that represents this value clearly to keep as a Totem.

Does your Life Dream relate to strengthening or expressing one or more archetypal aspects of your Psyche? (The twelve universal archetype forms I have identified through this blog site—based on the archetypal psychology of Dr. Charles Bebeau and his consociates—include: Elder Leader, Lover, Warrior, Nurturer, Artist, Idealist, Golden Child, Descender, Teacher, Communicator, Healer, Mystic.) If so, you can represent your archetypal Allies totemically, too. For instance, you could create a pendant or a charm bracelet with charms that represent your archetypal character strengths, and wear this necklace or bracelet to remind you always of these important internal aspects of your identity that you aim to deepen and strengthen as you realize your golden ambitions.

Have fun with this. Imagine and create or obtain the “perfect” Totem for your Life Dream. This can help to anchor your attention so that you always remember what you are aiming to realize in or about your life, from day to day!  Next week–the final week of this Life Mapping series before a new annual round is to begin at Better Endings–is about how to Live Your Dream, Now! So this week I am inviting you to find that perfect Totem you can carry forward with you in manifesting your Life Dream both in consciousness and in the reality of your active life, to express your high values and your meaningful purpose. You can root yourself in your Totem to help to nurture and focus on the beauty and integrity of your unique and fulfilling Life Dream.

I invite YOUR Comments and your Stories!

WHAT IS YOUR NEXT STEP?

Action, like a sacrament,
is the visible form
of an invisible spirit,
an outward manifestation
of an inner power.

~ Parker Palmer ~

(The picture and quote above are from Theresa of Soul Gatherings [click to link].)

This week I have been focusing on tools to help you manifest your Life Dream. First you can envision your Future Goal deeply (see Sunday’s post). Then you can contemplate a pathway that leads from where you are Now to the gradual realization of your Goal achieved (see Tuesday’s post). Today I invite you to focus on discovering your NEXT STEP in the direction of manifesting your Goal. The difference between “magical thinking” and effective implementation of the law of Manifestation can be summed up in the concepts of VISION plus ACTION. Clearly envisioning your goal allows you to create a Plan of Action that will deliver you TO your goal, step by step. The ‘trick’ is to establish a practical yet at the same time a creative and idealistic or value based Process.

I invite you to review the Yellow Brick Road life path image from Tuesday’s post (reprinted here above). Here you were invited to fill in the winding path to a meaningful life goal by envisioning stages or phases you can anticipate experiencing en route to realizing your goal, or your Bliss. If you completed that game board design, you can review it now again. If not, I invite you to create one. Choose a Goal that you truly hope to manifest on your own road to fulfillment of your life Purpose or Mission.

Now then, zoom in on what you have included or described on this game board “life path” as your very next phase or stage of the Life Path journey you have envisioned toward your Goal. Focus only on that next phase itself to explore and expose more deeply. Now then, what ACTION STEPS can you take NOW in your life or in the foreseeable/ plannable future in order to accomplish this one next phase of your journey en route to your more distant, Bliss related Goal? Focussing in what you can do NOW helps you to establish MOVEMENT in the direction of your Goal, to overcome any inertia based on how far away your goal might seem.

Explore and more fully develop this one next phase, only. Create a Plan of Action that will manifest this next step. When you focus on “one step at a time,” before you know it you will be well on the Road to YOUR GOAL!

I invite and welcome all of your Comments and Stories!

Magical Thinking or Manifestation? Seeing, Knowing, Being

Is the future (or many possible futures simultaneously) a parallel reality? On Tuesday I linked this blog to physicist Brian Greene’s YouTube airing of The Illusion of Time (check it out!) If time is ultimately an illusion, then different time frames—e.g. yesterday, today and tomorrow—can be considered Parallel Realities. That means when you learn how to shift perspective, the future is perceived as an Alter-Now, as is a past moment or “memory”; for everything is Now.

What imaginative and practical implications might we draw from regarding “the Future” as an array or matrix of Alter-Nows? Personally I believe this opens a pathway from the actualized Present to the to-be-actualized Future that we desire to manifest by conscious intention. You can set a specific future condition as a destination; not to be arrived at, but rather to “manifest”. This is what the credo “Live Your Dream, Now!” within the approach I’ve been presenting of Life Mapping is all about. Set a course, Cosmic NOWness Sailor, and Go (Just BE HERE)!

This past Sunday I read an engaging, passionate blog from Rachel Mankowitz in which she discusses Hope as potentially merely a matter of “magical thinking.” Hope, though, can be channeled effectively via the “law of manifestation,” which may only sound like “magical thinking” by those who do not believe in the power of their own intention and imagination. I know Rachel does so believe; in tandem with her dear dog companions she continues to apply her intentions with skill and hopeful steering.

I have invited a fellow writer, Denise Naughton,to share her insights with us today about the spiritual Law of Manifestation. I have been in helpful writing classes with Denise as the teacher where we have studied this “law” as a definite, dynamic process. In my own life, I have always been strongly motivated by the almost magical-seeming process of moving a project from the point of conception/ideation through gradual implementation into outward manifestation. Nothing compels me more in life than to facilitate this Law of Manifestation in everything I have “set my heart upon”.

So, as a gift to you all, here are insights from my good friend, Denise:

The Law of Manifestation

What is the difference between manifesting and magical thinking? As I heard one person describe it: magical thinking is here’s my plate where’s my dinner, while another begins by imagining what dinner will look like, how it will come to her, what it will taste like, etc. Think about the little girl in “The Little Princess”. When she and her friend were hungry and cold, the little girl sat down and described everything from tea in a cup to a fire in the grate. She tasted it, even pretended to eat and drink, and what happened? She and her friend woke up to a transformed room. In the story we know how it came to be, but that’s also part of manifesting—not devaluing the gift because it didn’t fall out of the sky.

I’ve been studying two books titled The Flute of God, by Paul Twitchell, and The Science of Being Rich, by Wallace D. Wattle. Both are similar in describing the principle of manifesting. It’s not important why I’m studying this principle per se except to say that I just love seeing how it works. By “studying” them, I mean when I finish the books I begin reading them again because manifesting is not about what I think consciously, it’s about what I believe unconsciously.

Both books bring out three principles about manifesting—seeing, knowing, being. This translates into, first, imagining what I want. Second, having confidence in the universe, Spirit, or however one wants to term that which is larger than we are, that this will come to me. And third, living as if I already have it, I have accepted the gift, etcetera.

One day I was walking a very busy street in San Francisco. I was having a daydream about receiving an Oscar for a terrific screenplay that was made into a film. The film was up for an Oscar as well as the writer and director (this is all imagination). I imagined the gown I was wearing, and the speech I was going to give. I walked up the street carrying my newly received statue. I was there, not on the street where I was walking. Before I knew it cars were honking. I couldn’t understand why. Traffic was flowing smoothly, and then I realized that I had put myself so into the moment of my Oscar acceptance that drivers were seeing me that way. There was no doubt that’s what was happening.

I end this with something that I also read to myself every day. It’s a composite from aspects of both the books I mentioned. I don’t need to be worthy of any experience in this life. I don’t have to earn it or get it as a reward. I just need to accept it. I simply learn to accept my good and that good comes to me here and now. I learn to collapse time and remove the barrier between my desire and me. Life is nothing but a series of experiences, and whatever I want I can have. After all every person is having right now what they subconsciously expect to get.

Denise Naughton is an author, a public speaker, and a Ph.D. Candidate (ABD) at Union Institute and College. She is completing her dissertation on Jungian archetypes related to stock characters in Australian film.

 

 

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Thanks, Denise!

To all, I invite your Comments and Stories!

Growing Up

Dear Readers and Visitors: You may find the  Comments in the right panel (“What people are saying”) and I absolutely welcome your input! Joshua shares about his own Vision Quest which led him to discover his purpose as a Teacher. Gail reveals how she and her husband are trying new things in a Nurturing manner. I hope you can all relate to how we express deep aspects of our Soul-Self (Jung called it Psyche or Soul) as we develop our various life potentials. What are some of your archetypal cast of characters that show up in what you love and are drawn to do and be? -L

PS: Since these posts will be up for a few days each,I will use prefaces like this to integrate your comments and insights! So check back between posts and always feel free to add to the running conversation!

When I was in High School, around 9^th grade, I wanted to be a gym teacher, because I loved running the obstacle course that my school’s gym teacher created for us. Then in 10^th grade, I wanted to be an English teacher and a Stage Director, because I loved the English classes and the reading material of my favorite teacher, Mr. Scelsa, and I served as his assistant for directing two memorable student plays.

Now that I understand Archetypes, I realize these high school ambitions were about wanting to express my inner Teacher as a primary aspect of Self, with Artist, Idealist, and Communicator character traits also desiring expression. One day in my senior year Mr. Scelsa talked with me between classes. He told me that if I would be gratified with the prospect of a student remembering 30 years later some line of poetry or some insight I had shared as their teacher, without even remembering where that thought had come from, then it would be appropriate for me to pursue becoming a Teacher. I have never forgotten that, and Teacher has been my primary Archetypal mode of manifestation of Self.

 

The new approach to working with your archetypal traits that I will be introducing in Life Paths is based in part on what Jung would call “Situational Archetypes”. Some of the archetypal aspects of Self we all experience are associated with the ROLES we enact in our lives, and it is this subset of your dynamic archetypal influences that I will be acquainting you with as we go forward with this blogging process over the next six months and in Life Paths (my upcoming book and self-help Handbook kit). So, Teacher is one of my Primary Archetype Allies, and I have grown into its expression over the past 35 years. Understanding this helps me to appreciate the dynamics of being a Teacher so that over time and experience I have grown into being a role model—as Mr. Scelsa was for me—for some of my own students. But Teacher is only one of my Primary Archetypes; there are others, some of which I have yet to fully manifest and aim to develop further in the next Chapters of my life.

Can you relate? What is the PRIMARY mode of Self-expression you manifest in your life? When you answer this week’s Life Mapping prompt of WHEN I GROW UP I WANT TO BE…, what sorts of ROLES are you wanting to more fully express as you aim to “Live Your Dream, Now”?

Last Saturday on the heartfelt FINDINGMYINNERCOURAGE blog, author Dawn posted the following insights and picture about “Energy Flows”. It is a propos to our Life Paths topic this week of Planting a Vision Seed of Who you wish to Become:

Energy Flows

31SaturdayMay 2014

Posted by findingmyinnercourage in BLOGS

 

 

 “Energy flows where intention goes.” – James Redfield

Have you ever thought about where your energy goes? Or where you’re putting most of your energy into? By focusing on all of what we wish to accomplish, all of our energy is directed towards enabling us to achieve our vision. Good intentions and attitudes will influence the positive to surpass the negative. The only thing it takes . . . happy thoughts!

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Don’t you just love Synchronicity? I do!

Please feel free to share YOUR stories and insights.

PLANTING SEEDS

Sunday’s post introduced the Life Path Mapping weekly activity of “Seeking a Vision”.  The journaling or contemplation post, WHEN I GROW UP I WANT TO BE…, invites you simply to plant a seed about the values you desire or aim to realize in your life from the perspective of how you wish to unfold your Personhood. Of course, this is only metaphorically a form of Vision Quest…which as an authentic practice would involve a ritual ceremonial context and an arduous physical as well as psychological and spiritual ordeal. But it is vital to look inwardly to envision that which you are aiming to unfold in your Life Path in order to Plant a Seed that sets the goal that you wish to nurture and manifest.

Ellen Langer, a PhD Harvard psychologist and author of a book titled Mindfulness, was interviewed this week on National Public Radio. She is interested in how the way we TALK about possibilities influences our attitudes and behavior. She distinguishes between whether we ask “CAN I?” when we approach a goal, versus “HOW CAN I?”  to accomplish that same goal. Planting a Vision Seed sets up something we CAN unfold to; then our mind and spirit are free to discern and to facilitate the Means.  Although we might have the faith of a mustard-seed that all that is in our highest nature and interest WILL manifest, when we consciously shine the Light of Attention upon a worthy goal, this allows us to mindfully and flexibly steer our process in the direction of nurturing that seed and realizing the Growth we are aiming to unfold.

I also invite you to reflect on how you would have answered the prompt: When I Grow Up I Want to Be… both when you were young and then Now, and then to reflect on how and why those answers might differ as well as how they are similar. When I ask this in Life Path coaching, people often tell me they are necessarily more “realistic” and more “practical” today than they were as a child, or that their increased responsibilities preclude earlier idealistic ambitions. What I find though is that what they wanted to be as a child has archetypal aspects to it which might still be part of their adult desires, if less obviously idealistic. For example, “I want to be a Superhero” might be a child’s reply. That could be expressing the desire to develop the potentialities of a Warrior or Healer or Communicator archetype (I will introduce a special set of 12 primordial archetype images later in this process).  So, if you now still do wish to be a soldier or Guardian of some sort, or a doctor/healer or a writer/communicator, you may yet be intending to realize these same important aspects of your unconscious interests and potentials. I will say these archetypal impulses define aspects of who you ALREADY ARE, so it makes sense and is very realistic that you can develop and more fully materialize these essential components of your intrinsic Self.

So, WHAT/ WHO DO YOU WISH TO BECOME; WHY; and later you will be invited to focus on HOW CAN you germinate and fully manifest your natural potentialities? Do feel welcome to share if you like!

There Is No Box! A Concept I Live By, by Denise Naughton

Dear readers: Thank you for your patience during a month of Best of Better Endings, while I am finalizing a major project that you will hear about soon. Meanwhile, though, I am re-blogging los=ts i=of the early posts that most readers haven’t seen anyway. Today’s Best of Better Endings is by Denise naughton, whose principle of “There is No Box!” is one I often go back to whenever I begin to think too rigidly. As a Better Endings principle, “There is NO BOX” is a tool for expanding your approach to any situation and opening to greater flexibility… – Linda

A few years ago a friend of mine, Jay, and I were putting together a talk about some ‘spiritual laws of life’. In order to do the talk well, we decided we should experience at least one of the laws we would talk about very consciously by working with them inwardly. Both of us chose two laws and began doing the work. My two spiritual laws were the ‘law of imperfection’, and the ‘law of progressive continuation’. Both of these principles were in harmony with one another because both imply there is always another step to take—which can be frustrating in one way, but so freeing in another.

Of course we all want a rest, but that rest is always up to us. Let’s say I’ve climbed this mountain, and I’m sitting on the peak to enjoy the accomplishment and the view—literally and metaphorically. Though I’ve never climbed mountains, my brother does, and I’ve read his stories.  The reality is, one can’t sit on the peak for too long—the lack of oxygen, weather moving in, or the need to get off that peak to move on to the next one propels your journey onward.

My grandmother used to say to me that she’d never been bored a day in her life, and she said that almost to the day she passed away. The first time I heard her say that, I decided I would never be bored either. However, I’ve always felt that a constant striving for something better also becomes boring. It can become a sense of restlessness without contentment, without loving the moment of accomplishment.  If I’m always looking outward, then I’m not developing inwardly, and that’s where the real relationship with life begins.

With this workshop, Jay and I wanted to each share a personal statement that came from our deep understanding of the spiritual laws we had been working with. My friend’s statement was that, “Each doorway brings me into a higher state of consciousness.”  I, on the other hand, wasn’t getting anything that excited me, though I could hear the excitement in Jay’s voice over his phrase. It made life sing for him.

How the image of a box came to mind I really don’t remember. I thought about the phrase ‘thinking outside of the box’ as being relevant to the laws of imperfection and progressive continuation, but that phrase bothered me. Somehow it was still a form of containment. Then I realized that what I was aiming for had nothing to do with thinking. It had everything to do with being, which can only be experienced inwardly by the individual, so that even writing about it takes away from the sensation.

Jay and I talked about my dilemma over the phone, and he said he knew without a doubt that I would find the right phrase. I hung up with huge doubts, and walked into another room. In that moment I said, “There is no box,” and with those words my world changed. I actually felt everything line up for me inwardly and suddenly I was standing at the edge of a new world filled with brilliant light and a sound current that I cannot describe. I knew I had found the right phrase. Where else this phrase would take me I didn’t know, but I was ready for the adventure.

I did a great deal of work with that phrase, “There is no box”.  I created workshop exercises around it, and I took it into a daily contemplation. Where it took me initially was turning a talk into a workshop, and with my personal experience and Jay’s we were able to work with other people, helping them to develop their own personal phrase that came from deeply contemplating upon spiritual laws they chose to work with. After doing the workshop three times in Colorado, we were invited to Australia to share it there too, and we received many compliments on how this workshop helped people to move forward in their own quest to take another step.

What I love most about this story is that ever so often someone will come up to me now and say, “There is no box!” Usually it’s when I’ve boxed myself in with fear, and doubt, or an image of what I think something should be rather than what it can be. Having no box takes away limitations and brings nothing but possibilities.

Denise Naughton is an author, a public speaker, and an ABD Ph.D. Candidate at Union College. She is completing her dissertation on Jungian archetypes related to stock characters in Australian film.

Related articles

• Spiritual Laws of Success – Intention (hunt4truth.wordpress.com)

Maximize YOU!

We are exploring in this blog site the sorts of principles that lead to or facilitate Better Endings. For today’s Best of Better Endings we revisit the principle of Maximize You! Martha Graham made a famous statement that I have kept on my office bulletin board for many years:

“There is only one of you in all time, this expression is unique. And if you block it, it will never exist through any other medium and it will be lost.”

Much of what we sometimes call humility is misplaced self-negation. When you accept your Strengths and your awareness and when you aim to Live your Dream for the highest interests of all concerned, you can be the vehicle you are Here to Be! – Linda

Thank you a second time to Lidiya and to Ajaytao (linked below), whose images are embedded in this re-blogged post:

April l 4, 2014

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.

******   ******

Your insights are always welcome!

• Leave a comment

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.

******   ******

Your insights are always welcome!

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!

******

I welcome your insights and stories!