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4
On Independence — Just Noticing
1 Comment | Posted by Bobbye in Purpose, owning your greatness
Happy Independence Day to my US friends. (and to my Canadian friends, celebrating independence on Canada Day, July 1). The roots of what was initiated here in the US more than 234 years ago started with great possibilities. Some of that purity of intent has gotten corrupted over time. But there remain bright lights and good hearts dotted across the continent. From these embers, we must ignite the new hope.
Eleven years ago, right about this time of the summer, I too had reason to celebrate a personal independence when I stepped out of the corporate publishing world to create my own venture. My journey over these 11 years has had ups and downs, but right now I am creating something new to lift the ceiling, so that greater possibilities open up like flowers before me and inside me and for all who choose to play in my circle. I’m raising my set point on good new stuff for myself and for the Write Synergies Circle that I am creating.
I completed 25 of the blog posts during the 30 day blog challenge convened by Jeanette Cates. Not bad considering I was unplugged at a retreat for 8 of those days. I received the “Mini 7″ award, which is completing 7 daily posts. I liked to joke that several of us completed multiple “mini 7s.” It was great fun shared with a cool circle of people. I truly appreciate everyone’s energies as we journeyed together. I look forward to the mutual support from this special circle of people as we move forward.
In Lake Geneva, as I reported here earlier, I fell into a circle of heart-full new friends. In Hawaiian, it’s called an “O’Hana,” or family. And that’s just how it felt. Energized from this gathering, and using it as a springboard, my process and creations are being magnified at an amazing rate.
Over the past year, I have been shapeshifting the copywriting I do. It’s not going away, but it is morphing as all living things do. For those who can benefit from coaching, even if they don’t need the copywriting, I am adding Full Presence Coaching as a sacred listening space to support people on their creative and business journeys. I realize that some people can benefit from entering into a sacred space as part of these Full Presence mirror conversations — a perfect way to metabolize the learnings that they are going through. Send me an email if you want to discuss the coaching option.
I continue to work deeply with Susan Castle, Paul Bauer, Jan Stringer, Alan Hickman, as well as my coaches Judith Sherven and Jim Sniechowski. It’s interesting to observe how the mentors most important in my life right now are committed couples. Just noticing, that’s all.
AND YET: “Just Noticing” is absolutely crucial. Think about this. Act on this. Aim, for a week, to build “just noticing,” into your everyday life. As I write this at the kitchen table in my personal Shangri-La, the crows visit. Crow has become one of my totems since I began noticing crow’s presence in my daily life at crucial moments over the past year. Crow, like the yin and yang bracelet I wear, symbolizes the unity of the polarities.
“Just noticing.”
See what you notice, then report back. What are you able to notice when you pay attention to what is around you? What about when you pay attention to the story behind the story? I look forward to your shared insights and stories.
Here’s to independence and noticing!
Bobbye Middendorf
The Write Synergies Guru
Lake Geneva, WI — Just across the Wisconsin border from the greater Chicago area’s suburbs, the spring-fed Lake Geneva beckons summer vacationers into a delicious playground amid idyllic small towns and groves of 100-year-old trees. Dotted along its 26-mile circumference, resorts, summer homes, conference centers and camps abound. A public path circles the lake, so that all can enjoy its pleasures close-up.
On June 22, I was heading into the third night of my retreat with the Dreams Alive and Relax-Online partners, Paul Bauer and Susan Castle, along with their Hawaiian friend and co-leader, Keahi. We convened a sacred circle of like-hearted fellow-travelers on a path of growing ourselves, our consciousness, and our ability to flow from the heart with whatever life tosses in our direction. (Think curve balls.)
On Solstice Monday morning, three of our heart-full friends departed, making our intimate group even more so. During the week-long retreat, I entered deeply into the magic of the moment, a serene setting and powerful teachers moving internal energies that have been stuck seemingly for lifetimes.
I’ve gotten myself off schedule for the blog challenge. I realize that I didn’t even finish editing the post that I automatically posted on Father’s Day. I cringed when I saw that it had published. “Oops,” I thought.
Lesson: Make sure you’ve completely cleared /cleaned the post before you schedule it!
Trying to put this retreat experience into words is a challenge and beyond. The transformations are so profound that to write about them somehow diminishes the power in the moment. Words that embody the essence of the experience simply can’t do it justice.
For pragmatic business people, doing personal growth and development work at deep levels like this is both crucial and yet seemingly impossible. It appears to be the opposite of practical.
Yet I suggest that this process of finding the essence of your life purpose and clearing the obstacles that have kept you from living fully into that purpose is among the most practical and foundational work imaginable. It opens the door for the right business relationships to grow from the rooted heart of who you are and why you are here.
The retreat was all-consuming for seven delicious days. The internet connection was something that, if used at all, had to be mindfully approached. Although it was available, it was not convenient and ever-present.
So, I got off track. I didn’t manage to pre-write the posts either. This is coming to you a week after I wrote it. I want to express my appreciation to each of you for your love and support.
From my heart,
Bobbye Middendorf
The Write Synergies Guru
If your family was anything like mine, bragging was discouraged. Do you remember being admonished not to brag? Not to be too full of yourself? And now here we are — many of us — entrepreneurs, soul-preneurs, professionals in private practice, the tribe of Conscious Creators, caregivers, healers, writers, authors, artists.
Everyone is being asked to market — not only products, services, but ourselves! With the old family tapes running in the background, it’s not easy. How are you supposed to talk about yourself, your services, your projects, creations, ventures, and businesses without what sounds suspiciously like “bragging” — at least to those old critical deeply internalized voices?
And some of us are pushing the envelope even more: We are determined to stand fully in our power and presence, to finally shine our light full on. Now that’s something those internalized voices of yesteryear really perceive as over the top. It’s like an internal thermostat. Nope. Not THAT visible. “That’s even worse than bragging,” the internalized critic seems to say.
What to do? How do we work around the critic? How to come out with the work and be able to stand in our own power and possibility?
What if that inner critic is doing its best to protect you? Based on the old programming, of course, but doing its best nevertheless. What if we could enter into a conversation with that inner critical voice? I can hear the guffaws already.
Here’s an excerpt of what I told Ronna Detrick over at her Renegade Conversations site. It’s all about an approach that befriends those troublesome inner voices.
In Ronna’s post, she wrote: “…far more about my deepest, age-old insecurities. They rear their ugly heads in times of fear. They are familiar. And I fight to keep them at bay.”
What I suggested is: “What if you didn’t? Fight to keep them at bay? What if you were simply able to be curious? What if you had a conversation with them? What if you sat with them and let them sit with you? What if you said, “Thank you. I’m curious. What are you trying to protect me from? You’ve done such an amazing job of protecting me. Can we talk about this?”
Open a dialogue. Put it on paper. Say thank you to the parts who are doing their best, perhaps based on old programs or instructions. And talk to them. Take your strength and your gift, (and yes, Ronna is amazing at nurturing deep conversations) turn it on that part of yourself that seems so troubling. Bring it into the conversational circle. Let it have its say.
Your protectors are there to protect you. You don’t have to squash them or get rid of them. You just have to talk to them, get them to work WITH you and your dreams and your purpose instead of against it. I know…it’s a lesson I have to keep learning over and over again. But it merits consideration I think.
This advice is inspired in part by the True Purpose and parts work of Tim Kelley and Jeffery Van Dyk over at True Purpose.
There’s also a Parts work workshop. To find out more: Audios from Aligning Your Psyche Teleclass 6/11 & Understanding Your Psyche Teleclass 5/25
Own Your Greatness. Claim the name of your being and purpose. Why you are here. Your gifts. Your vision. Your greatness. Maybe it’s sleeping or lying dormant. And the way to claim it is in the name of love. Wake it up. Wake up the power and capability sleeping within. Claim your name. It is time for Owning Your Greatness.
Do whatever it is at the root of your being with great love and care. Do it with love for the words you use in the creation and about and around the creation. Do it with love for the backstory behind the creation. Do it out of love for the challenge you address. Love the problems you solve, because those “problems, issues or challenges” are the gifts that have tested you through the fire to create the person you are today. And love the solutions and answers and suggestions and approaches you can offer to others out of the fire of your own experience.
Of course you do it out of love and care and compassion for the people in your circle and community, the ones who can only hear it from you. You love your peeps! They are the reason you do all that you do.
Awaken yourself. Claim your own true self that emerges from your deepest love and compassion.
6
Focus on what is mine to do
11 Comments | Posted by Bobbye in Purpose, owning your greatness
“Focus on what is mine to do.” –Tomar Levine
Your Time to Bloom: Tomar Levine has a gracious online home at this link. Her voice is gentle and her toolbox is extensive. It’s especially yummy for those with creative yearnings who feel they haven’t lived into their fullness — yet.
Tomar and I have been in online classes together here and there over the years. We share a passion for learning and maybe a bit of reticence in “putting ourselves out there.”
In an email note that followed up a recent phone conversation the other day, she said this. “Focus on what is mine to do.” How timely. That’s exactly where I am too. Julia Cameron in The Artist’s Way: A Spiritual Path to Higher Creativity 
I’ve latched onto Tomar’s simple phrase that is so rich in reverberations. It sounds more grounded and less grandiose than “Owning Your Greatness.” But it tills much the same ground.
Both frame a way of Being that taps into life purpose, into the reason why we are here. They speak to the ongoing process of giving our gifts, of manifesting and embodying the service we are here to do with the people we are meant to help, the contribution that our creation is meant to make.
Whether you approach it in a matter-of-fact way (“Focus on what is mine to do.”) or in an expansive and out-there “Owning Your Greatness” sort of way, the bottom line is to generate from the root of our Being the tasks of Doing in the world. Being comes first, the foundation. Then the doing, the action.
By doing the doing, by taking the action, even imperfect action, we create shifts. We make things happen. It’s time to pull back the curtain of reticence. The proponents who advise listening to the still small voice speak perhaps more softly than some others. That doesn’t mean the message is any less important than the ones who “shout.”
In fact, you might consider that the opposite is true. I acknowledge Tomar for the inspiration that started this post. And thanks also for this 30 Day Blog Challenge. It is helping me show up, take action, be on the page, as I build the bridge for myself and my tribe.
“Perhaps we need people to sweep the floor or clean the deep fryer. But it doesn’t have to be you…”
“Surely not everyone” was the subject on the email. I read Seth Godin’s latest post via Feedburner subscription that landed in my inbox. I loved what he had to say — Except for that sentence above. I was all ready to take exception, to do a post that points out another way of looking at the floor sweepers and deep-fryer cleaners.
There was a bit of the same attitude in Linchpin: Are You Indispensable?
Why? Because everyone, no matter what job, can bring to it a sense of purpose, dignity, and commitment to shining their inner light. No matter what job. It’s the inner light that counts. So I was all set to start my rant, then clicked over to Seth Godin’s blog post for today, what is now online.
Lo and behold. That sentence (above) was gone. It was replaced with this: “Perhaps some people will insist that there are jobs where no humanity is possible. But you don’t have to work for them.”
Well, true enough. But people need the jobs. And they can still bring their light and their humanity to the process of their work. It’s not ideal. It’s an uphill battle. But even a tiny candle in the darkness creates more light than was there before.
Visualize lighting birthday candles. If you’re like me, you light one candle, then ignite the rest of the candles on the cake using the first candle you lighted. One candle can light many others.
And what of the assumption that “we” don’t want those types of jobs? Who is this “we?” I take it to mean people making a commitment to making a difference. Ultimately doesn’t everyone want to own their greatness? Isn’t making a contribution the reason that we’re here?
Ultimately I agree with Seth Godin: Potential Linchpins lurk inside nearly everyone. And I’d say an important part of stepping into that Linchpin role is to uncover whatever it is that makes us shine, that lights our fire and helps us come alive.
Bringing that light and aliveness into the workplace or the endeavor or the creation — that’s the starting point. Then you’re keeping the light alive, coaxing and cajoling the flame, stirring the embers, so that you ultimately get the fire to a point that it helps you cook up whatever is important and will make the difference — the connection. The connection within. The connection with your perfect people, your tribe. The connection with your creation, the gift you give.
He knows how to end strong, Seth does. “We make a difference to other people when we give gifts to them, when we bring emotional labor to the table and do work that matters… your ability to create and contribute isn’t determined at birth. It’s a choice.”
Agreed. Thanks for revising, Seth.
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Embrace Your Vision — Project, Message, People — Blog Challenge Post 23
4 Comments | Posted by Bobbye in owning your greatness, vision
Embrace the heart and soul of your Vision.
Why would you not? Well, sometimes it’s the very bigness of it. The profound meaning it holds for you goes right into your bones. Or owning that the vision really is yours — it’s your project, venture, or creation; it’s your message, and it’s all directed to your tribe, community, circle — this is just more than you can take in, especially when you are feeling small, depleted, or lacking in self-esteem or self-confidence. (Or, as my colleague Evelyn Roberts Brooks in the #blog30 challenge pointed out, “Hey I’m feeling fragile today.“)
Sometimes it’s like trying to get your arms around an elephant. It’s impossible. It’s too big. You’ll get trampled. It hurts. A million reasons to not embrace the big vision that unfolds along with the purpose for why you are here.
To embrace the vision, we have to own the bigness and greatness of ourselves, to stand in owning our gifts and greatness AND the greatness of the project we are here to create. We have to be strong enough, big enough, flexible and adaptable enough to be able to open our hearts and wrap our arms around the big vision. Hug it. Cherish it. Encircle and enclose it. Welcome it. Call it forth into the greater whole of our lives. It lives inside as the gift of our expression we are meant to bring out into the world as our service to our people.
It’s important to embrace these three elements that make up the vision, so as not fail it or yourself or your greater purpose.
First, you need to create the thing, the creation –the “art” as Seth Godin would call it in Linchpin: Are You Indispensable?. That is, the business, the painting, the writing, the project, the novel, the web site, the passion for service however it plays out in your world. Your need and desire to create it? Driven by love, a profound love for the project.
Second, you need to be willing to share the creation, to find a way to communicate the essence of what you have created. It’s the message of the creation, the ways that it can transform the lives of the people you have created it for. This second step is the bridge between what you create and the people it is meant to serve. It means sharing the story of the creation. It means loving the telling of the project’s story.
Third, you have to love the people, your people, the ones who can only hear it from you. Without all three, all powered by love as the bottom line, the vision does not stand strong out in the world. This is all another way of reiterating the importance of embracing these elements as part of your foundation
We have been taught, in every situation, to play small. We’ve been admonished — from the time we were great spirits inhabiting small bodies — not to be “too big fer yer britches.” I officially deem it’s time to bust the seams on those too small britches. You are WAY too big to play small. Your project, creation, and message are far too important to the people you came here to serve, the people who need to hear it from you. Britches be damned.
Go ahead. Hug the elephant.
Post 23 in the 30 day blogging challenge, #blog30 on Twitter.
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Add Accountability–Blog Challenge Post 19
1 Comment | Posted by Bobbye in owning your greatness
On the Write Synergies Path to Owning Your Greatness, the first step, awakening awareness, is an inner movement. To balance that, the second step is an outer movement, add accountability.
Adding accountability is the step where we make promises (like dates and deadlines and word counts) and then develop the systems and support to help us meet the deadlines and keep the promises. By meeting the deadlines and keeping the promises, we are more likely to complete the project, what Seth Godin, in his book, Linchpin: Are You Indispensable?
Seven Ways to Add Accountability and Own Your Greatness
To add accountability, you’ll want to write out your milestones and trail markers. Then you need to share those markers in a public sphere, even if it’s just a one-on-one support system. Here are seven possibilities – some of the proven ways you can write your list of commitments and grab some accountability. Use one or a combination, or all seven.
1 Hire a coach.
2 Set up a one-to-one accountability peer partner.
3 Join or create a Mastermind group and then make your commitments within that framework.
4 Sign up for a course — and do the homework if that will lead you to completing your commitment.
5 Gather a community around your commitment and make it a group challenge. (like our 30-day blogging challenge)
6 Have a deadline and someone expecting your work or project.
7 Make a promise in a public sphere. (to your client list, on your blog, on a radio interview).
Adding accountability is a crucial step to Owning Your Greatness. Why? Because the promises to ourselves are the ones most often broken. What lies closest to the heart of the matter, what is dearest to your heart, is somehow the thing that is most often overlooked. Promises and intentions to create from our deepest gifts are too often forgotten or overlooked, and our brainchildren become like orphans.
And in the interest of full disclosure, this is one of my weakest links. I help other people and my clients with this all the time. It’s part of the process, but it is the part that I have the most challenges with. My own creative projects have been the ones that regularly get moved to the back burner. That’s what has been so delicious for me with the 30 Day Blogging Challenge. It has been a chance to create my own work within a framework of a community.
Adding accountability is how we can be there for each other.
As we move into the final third of the 30 day blog challenge, it’s a special time to thank all the fellow travelers in #blog30. The accountability of having this group, of making the commitment to play together, of carrying through together and cheering each other on, has been spectacular. And it also seems an ideal venue for reiterating the importance of adding accountability. In our case, it’s been a process of writing to add accountability.
Follow the blogging challenge on Twitter at #blog30 and #mini7.
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How Self Awareness Connects to Owning Your Greatness — Blogging Challenge Post 18
1 Comment | Posted by Bobbye in Writing, owning your greatness
As you go through the process of awakening self awareness, you might ask, “What does this have to do with owning the gifts and greatness I came here to give?” The exercise of awakening self-awareness as outlined in the previous post did not specifically tie back to the process of owning your greatness.
So where does that come in?
Usually our gifts are hiding in plain sight. Everyone else can see them, but we can’t. We are the fish in water. What does water mean to a fish? It is a given. So, too, our gifts are invisible to us because they are so integral to how and who we are.
We yearn to share our gifts, but we sense they are hidden. So there’s this yearning to express the hidden gifts. We don’t even realize that we can’t help but express them. We have been expressing our deepest gifts (and purpose) every living moment without even being cognizant of it.
So I recommend using this awakening self awareness process to listen to the yearning of our gifts to be heard and brought out into the world. For all we know, the gifts are hidden. Why? Because we are not conscious, not aware of how we are expressing those gifts. This process helps bring our gifts and greatness to our conscious attention, thereby healing the yearning.
The free guidebook with meditation — available for no charge when you sign up with your name and email in the box at the very top of the right sidebar – goes into more detail on this aspect of awakening self awareness. The guide/workbook offers perspectives and exercises specifically around using our self awareness exercises for listening to the inner yearning to express our gifts, owning that yearning, healing it, and finally taking steps to mindfully own and express our gifts and greatness in the work we do in the world.
It’s all there — the gifts, the greatness, the purposeful vision — patiently waiting for us to awaken to what is with us, within us, and has been with us our entire lifetime.
Post #18 in the 30 day blogging challenge from Connie Ragan Green. Follow us on Twitter #blog3o
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Writing to Awaken Self Awareness–Blog Challenge Post 17
5 Comments | Posted by Bobbye in Writing, owning your greatness
The Write Synergies Path to Owning Your Greatness starts with Awakening Your Awareness. There are many paths to do this, many helpful ways to wake ourselves up. This particular path follows the trajectory of the written word as a way to get present with who you are right now, your Being in the moment and in relation to a particular issue that you consciously want to wake up around. (Or to put it another way, you want to shift your energy or boost the mojo or heal the shadow.)
So that this doesn’t become all floaty and ungrounded, start with your intention, identify the issue, then do brief five-minute timed writings answering the questions posed at the end of this post.
First, create an intention of safety and openness around doing this “awaken your awareness” process and following this particular path. For example, you might start by saying, thinking, or even writing something like:
I intend to be fully present with this Awakening Awareness exercise. I am willing to allow the download of words onto paper, trusting the inner wisdom will flow from Source (the Universe, God, Soul, or whatever term you are comfortable with). I will communicate with honesty and generosity, integrity and authenticity, and with the deepest and most profound compassion for the highest good for all concerned.
The wisdom lives within you, if you can just slow down long enough to listen. Writing in this focused yet open-hearted manner can tap into your remarkable inner resources, or, if you prefer, your inner connection to something greater than the “you.”
Second, select an issue (problem, challenge, question) that will be your focus for this Awakening Awareness exercise. It can be something in-your-face, what wakes you up in the middle of the night, or spins the wheels of your brain so you can’t get to sleep in the first place. Or, you might choose a smaller but annoying issue, something that keeps cropping up to bother you. As you write down the issue at hand, phrase it nonjudgmentally, as though you are simply an observer, curious about this particular situation.
Third, get grounded and present by taking at least three deep breaths, full inhales, complete exhales. Release all the tension, stress, judgment. Review your intention. Observe your issue dispassionately. From this observer perspective, allow your the words to come out in answer to the following questions. If no words come, then just write the question over and over. Or write, “I don’t know what to write.” Either way, just keep the pen moving. Something usually breaks free. Write uninterrupted, no stopping, for five timer minutes.
Give yourself at least five minutes for each of the following questions. See what appears. If all you get is resistance, then so be it. If so, try this question when the process isn’t opening up: If you DID know the answer, what would it be? By keeping the pen moving, surprising things emerge.
The Questions for your Writing to Awaken Self-Awareness Reflection:
1 Who are you Being right now as it relates to the issue you have chosen?
2 Where are you right now, as it relates to the issue you are facing? (Where as in physically, intellectually, emotionally, spiritually, creatively, financially, relationally, etc.)
3 What are you thinking about this issue right now?
4 What are you feeling about this issue right now?
5 What ELSE is present right now in your five-sensory present-moment universe? What is filling your five senses?
6 What is tickling at your sixth sense?
7 How might you place this issue (problem, challenge, question) into a larger context? What would that make it look like?
8 Why is it important to wake up about this issue right now?
There’s your start, your writing to awaken self-awareness written reflection, all done in less than an hour, even if you give every question seven minutes instead of five. You might be surprised by what comes out in the flow.
