Archive for the 'Get Inspired!' Category
-image-It Has Begun
Have you ever sat down and tried to figure out where you particular journey really began? I have; every time I think I have it pinpointed I remember a time a few months before that moment when…
Personally, I’ve come to the conclusion that life is one great long dance; that God is wooing us deeper and deeper into life and as long as we are willing to be challenged and to face our presumptions about the world (and God himself) then there will always be a deeper place that we can be drawn into. The journey and the wooing will just keep happening. After all, we live in a world of “more than we can ask or imagine” so how could we possibly run out of amazing and mind blowing things to discover?
Of course, there are some significant events - moments - that were definite beginnings in our lives. For me, many of them revolve around reading books (my primary source of mind stretching and belief challenging information). I can trace so many significant revelations or moments of waking up to a hidden truth to specific books I was reading (it doesn’t mean the books are life changing in and of themselves - but more that they served as a “time and place” nudge). Reading Writing Down the Bones, Jesus, Life Coach, The Artist’s Way, Our Father Abraham, and A New Earth (among many others) have all brought about great moment of introspection and revelation that I remember as New Beginnings in my life.
The problem, I think, with beginnings is that they too often happen by accident. We fail to mark them, to declare them, and so it’s often not untill we are well down our current path that we even become aware that there even was a beginning. So, we are always trying to work our way backwards and figure out where it all began.
What we really need to do is make a declaration; we need to decide that Today, right now is going to be the beginning. “Today is the beginning of the rest of you life” and all that jazz. Sometimes we have these great electrical moments happen to us (like Cynthia commented about on my last post) and sometimes we need to create those moments in our lives.
I figure we might as well create one of those moments right now. It’s simple enough, just make a declaration, an agreement with yourself (and with me, if you like) that: One year from today my life will be measurably different.
If you like, you can journal about this decision, you can make a piece of art about it or create a ritual that helps you to draw a line in the sand. But really, all that’s necessary is that you intend for it to be true - and then it will be.
It may not be dramatic. It may creep up on you unawares. But without fail, I can promise you, that the life you are living one year from now will not be the same as the one you are living today. As long as change is what you want, then change is what you’ll get.
Lesson #1 in How to Change Your Life: Sometimes we need to be intentional about our Personal Renaissances. Go ahead, choose to do something different and declare your new life to have begun. Now you are actively pursuing growth and Life instead of just aimlessly wandering through it all!
If you decide to take part in my How to Change Your Life series, or if you are declaring today to be your new beginning I’d LOVE to hear from you. Post a comment or shoot me an email (muse @ flamingrenaissance dot com) and I’ll be sure to join your personal cheerleading squad!
Posted by Megan @
5:19 pm |
-image-To Begin Again (On Renaissances and Changing Lives)
I’ve been working up to this blog post for a few days now. One day last week on my way into the store I was telling myself that I needed to blog, that I wanted (I really did) to blog - I just didn’t know what to blog about. Then, right there, while driving through the green light: I knew what to blog about.
Not just one blog entry - but something that would become a series (for as long as it takes me to feel it’s finished). You see, driving through that intersection it became very real to me that in the last year or so I had successfully accomplished what so many of us want to do: I had changed my life.
My life today - in every single way - is totally different than my life (than even my world) just over a year ago. And if I had managed to change my life, well then… so could you!
Not only that, but because I had succeeded in the change (not to say my journey is complete) if I sifted through the last year and a half of my life I should be able to put my finger on those very things that had been pivotal in helping me to successfully experience a shifting of worlds.
I could teach you how to change your life!
Or, well, I could - in a more specific way - come alongside you as you journey and share my insights and experiences in a way that would help you move forward.
For the last week or so I’ve been letting this idea and possibility grow. I’ve been recording blog post ideas and basically rolling the idea around my head to see if I still like it. Until finally, it just became about beginning - and finding time to begin. So, here I am. Words on page. Doing what always needs to be done: Beginning.
Which reminds me…
Have I ever explained my obsession with the word “Renaissance” to you before? I mean, my coaching business is called Everyday Renaissance and my blog is called Flaming Renaissance (I get a lot of search engine results on searches for information about the Renaissance (all those school essay writers disappointed to find I have nothing to say about the historical time period despite my misleading title)), but I don’t think I’ve ever really told you why I picked it.
It’s all thanks to Ellen Langer who, in her book On Becoming An Artist, talked about the personal renaissance we all go through as we grow and expand in life. I loved the idea of being able to have a personal renaissance - of being expected to have my own private reawaken, a rebirth of sorts.
And that’s really the thing about the word. It means:
French, from Middle French, rebirth, from Old French renaistre to be born again, from Latin renasci, from re- + nasci to be born (Merriam-Webster Online)
(emphasis mine)
Finally, I had found a term that totally encompassed what I had been longing for in my life, and what I was bound and determined to help create in the lives of other women. Everyday Renaissance is, of course, nothing more than an allusion to the secret of your own personal renaissance: it happens slowly, one day at a time. And Flaming Renaissance is a discreet reference to myself (I’m fiery don’t you know) and the fact that this is a log on my own renaissance and growth.
And that, I think, is where all the changing of lives begins: at the moment where you realize that Flaming Renaissance is all about YOU (not me), because you are ready - finally - to be Reborn and to be born once more into your new, Real Life.
WELCOME, to your Personal Renaissance! (I can’t wait to see how it goes.)
Posted by Megan @
11:05 pm |
-image-The True Secret of Success
Did I tell you that I was doing a correspondence/online course? It’s through the University of Metaphysical Sciences which has some classes that seriously intrigue me (and of which I can’t get enough) and some classes that are truly challenging my world view (which is a really polite way of saying that I’m not sure I agree with them!). But being as I am a person with a insatiable thirst for knowledge I appreciate them either way. I am basically eating my way through the classes (whenever I can find time for them).
I think one of the most fascinating and yet challenging units has been the World Religion classes. Last week I worked my way through the Witchcraft (more an intellectual conversation than a lesson in how to be one) and Shamanism classes and am currently halfway done Gods, Goddesses, and Mythology.
Yesterday, when I was reading through A New Earth he echoed one of my favorite comments that the Shamanism course had shared. It was the very thing I’d been considering blogging about the other day; I figured the repeat was a good reminder to come by and share it with all of you.
The comment had to do with the true secret of success:
Tolle said:
In order to attract success, you need to welcome it wherever you see it.
If you read The Artist’s Way (Julia Cameron) in one of the chapters (seven actually, I just looked it up) talks about Jealousy. She says that jealousy is nothing more than a mask for fear:
… fear that we aren’t able to get what we want; frustration that somebody else seems to be getting what is rightfully ours even if we are too frightened to reach for it… Jealousy tells us that there is room for only one - one poet, one painter, one whatever you dream of being.
Which means jealousy is, of course, a fabulous guide for helping you to realize what it is you should be doing with your life. And who you truly want to be.
But it seems, according to my Shamanism course, that Hawaiians have a relatively simply philosophy designed to help you attain a joyful life. Basically, their prescription is to:
Bless everyone and everything that represents what you want!
According to Aloha International to bless means “to give recognition or emphasis to a positive quality, characteristic or condition, with the intent that what is recognized or emphasized will increase, endure, or come into being.”
Which just means instead of seething with jealousy we should be blessing (recognizing, emphasizing, multiplying, celebrating) the successes of others so that we can see that very same success coming to pass in our own lives.
You see, the inherent problem with jealousy is that it’s rooted in the idea that there just isn’t enough. Enough of what? Well, whatever it is you want. Enough money. Enough customers. Enough recognition. Enough (you fill in the blank)…
But, if there really is enough; if we live in a world of enough (rather than a world of too little) then there’s no real reason to feel jealous and we really can afford to be happy for all the success happening around us. In fact, instead of their successes signaling one less thing we get to accomplish they become a reassurance, a chorus of reminders that success is, indeed, possible. After all, if they can do it, so can you (as cliche as that expression is, it’s true)!
And of course, success comes more readily to those who believe it will arrive than to those who are too busy being angry about what others have to see success when it passes by.
Posted by Megan @
2:34 pm |
-image-Jealousy Map
Here’s a little exercise from Julia Cameron’s The Artist Way to help you move from jealousy to blessing. It’s called the Jealousy Map (TAW p.124) and all you need is a piece of paper:
When jealousy bites, like a snakebite is requires an immediate antidote. On paper, make your jealousy map.
WHO - WHY - ACTION/ANTIDOTE
Couldn’t be simpler. Just fill it out. Who are you jealous of? Your friend? Your sister? One of the bloggers you read?
Why are you jealous of them? She has a good relationship with their husband? She’s taking painting lessons? He’s getting his book published?
It doesn’t matter whether the person you are jealous of is famous and well-entrenched in the field or your dreams, or just your next-door neighbor, the solution is always grounded in action. If that’s what you are jealous of, what can you do to start working towards making that a reality in your own life? Should you ask your husband out on a date (or even look into counseling)? Maybe you need to pull your paint brushes back out or look into classes yourself. Or maybe it’s finally time for you to settle down and start writing that book.
And, if I were to add my own wisdom to Julia’s exercise it would be to add a column called
BLESSING
and challenge you to think of a way you can bless the success and forward motion in their lives so that you can start to see a bit of it seeping into your own life!
Posted by Megan @
12:06 pm |
-image-About Boxes and Experiences
Phew… I finally have a chance to breath. I kept wanting to post after the opening weekend; then after the second weekend - but now here it is, our Grand Opening has come and gone and I haven’t had the breath or energy to come by and write, till now.
On that front the store has been going well. Each week we have, at the very least, made enough to pay our bills and replace the stock (an exciting thing!). Word is spreading and I’m truly enjoying the customers who come in. Up until this week, even slow customer days had me working non-stop on all the little things that still needed to be done, but since the official Grand Opening weekend I’ve finally had some time and space to breath - for which I am eternally grateful.
If you are waiting for an email reply from me, I imagine I’ll finally be able to get it to you in the next day or two.
I started reading A New Earth (Tolle) in time to follow along with the Oprah class (I can’t resist a free class!). As soon as I started reading it I knew that Wakizashi needed to read the book, so I promptly began nagging him to do so.
When he finally agreed I put my own reading on hold so he could catch up.
Now, when I say that Wakizashi is reading something, understand that I use the term loosely. Wakizashi needs complete quiet to actually be able to read a book, so, needless to say, he doesn’t find a lot of time where he can lose himself in a book. Instead he listens to audio books. What with a one hour commute each way to work he gets a lot of “reading” done.
Which is why I expected him to catch up to me in no time. But, it seems that Wakizashi found Tolle’s narration style hard to follow and he abandoned the book for better listening. What with all the store stuff happening I also ended up putting the book aside and getting lost in busy-ness.
Anyway, it seems that last week sometime Wakizashi started listening to the book again, and now he’s not only caught up to me, but far surpassed me. So, I’m trying to squeeze the book into my days so I can catch back up to him.
Yesterday, I finished chapter three and went back over my workbook questions for chapter two and three. I ended up making a list of suggested exercises that I could do and come back and fill in the answers later. This morning I did the exercise from chapter one:
Spend some time with something you find beautiful without naming it. Write about your experience.
Our store is located in an area of town called Port Dalhousie right next to a public beach and the Lakefront Walking Trail. Yesterday morning I got to work early and decided to find a nice place outside to take my devotional time and ended up discovering a little corner of the beach just at the end, that is cut off from most of the rest of the park. It’s just a tiny corner with a tree and waves crashing on the rocks, but the only people who seem to have discovered it (or care about it) are ducks. It is perfect.
This morning when I knew I was going to work on the chapter one exercise I made a bee-line straight for my little corner of the park. I sat under the tree (where I wouldn’t bother the sleeping ducks) closed my eyes and listened to the crashing waves - while trying not to think of them as waves. I tipped my head to stare up at the tree and tried not to remember that it was a tree.
While I was doing this I was reminded of an experience I had had years ago while reading a book on the Jewsih roots of Christianity. For the life of me I can’t remember what I had read that prompted the moment, but I distinctly remember driving home one night (probably from reading in Starbucks) and being distraught because I had discovered that God was not who I had previously thought he was.
Not only that, but I realized that the only reason I was only just discovering this aspect of God’s nature was because I hadn’t been willing to hear it before. God, I discovered, is always ready and willing to show us all of himself (or, as much as we can handle at anyone time) - he wants to be known as much as any of us do - but I had been (and most of us are) so busy telling him who he was I’d never left any space for him to actually tell me who he really was.
I had created a definition, a label, for God that in truth confined Him - or confined my ability to know him. It was a heart breaking and life changing moment.
This morning as I sat under the tree and stared at it’s branches reaching up and over me, saw the green buds that were the beginning of leaves I remembered that moment crying in the car and I thought - maybe this exercise is like that discovery. Maybe if instead of telling the tree it’s a tree (and having an idea in my head of all that that means) what I should do is just let the tree Be and then I’d be able to discover more about what the tree really was - rather than what I thought it was.
It was an amazing experience. When I actually fully let myself go and really felt the tree… I was surprised at how powerful an experience it turned out to be.
It was like I suddenly saw that the tree is so much bigger - so much more powerful - than I had ever seen before (because I’d never really been looking?). I could clearly feel and understand why so many cultures have worshipped and revered trees. It was a fascinating experience.
Now I think I’d like to repeat it with a nice piece of art (something else that they suggest in the exercise) - I’ll let you know if anything worthwhile comes out of it!
Posted by Megan @
12:28 pm |
