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TAG | Purpose
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.
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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.
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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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Write Synergies As Sacred Circle–Blog Challenge Day 11
4 Comments | Posted by Bobbye in Writing
In convening this sacred circle community, I am putting into it everything I know about writing, communicating, creating, and publishing; about consciousness and spirituality; about marketing, connection-making, and tribe-building; and about co-creating a community of compatible, purposeful, like-minded conscious creators. I invite you to join me on the journey. It encompasses wild and unbroken territories that we will explore together and so create the maps so that others can follow.
Now is the time and we are the ones. Jean Houston
I have been frozen like a deer in the headlights for a while. Or maybe it has been the seed deep underground, slowly putting out tender shoots into the light. In so many of our conversations, you have heartened me with your love and support. I am breaking free, extricating myself from this thrall of inertia. And, yes, the 30 Day Blog Challenge has been instrumental in a shift to public presence.
In such times as ours, dire emergencies call for us to come together in love instead of fear. Partnering with like-minded fellow travelers, together we are blessed with the right words to initiate our dialogues and open our space, to connect the many dots that our multivalent and interdisciplinary explorations have brought to light. We are creating new and collaborative partnerships for birthing big visions, creative brainchildren, and the gifts and greatness we came here to share.
Together and in collaborative community, we unpack the knowledge and insights long-buried. We tread the pathways that are our sacred circle, creating the safe haven for shining our lights.
Keep shining!
(This is post # 11 in the 30-day blog challenge. Follow along on twitter at #blog30.)
Legacy, “something transmitted by or received from an ancestor or predecessor or from the past,” says Merriam-Webster online: It is most commonly considered something you leave behind. It is how you are remembered. Will your words paint the stories of your purpose fulfilled, your passions pursued, your life lived fully in the moment with a presence of love?
Forget the tired old definition, and don’t LEAVE a Legacy. LIVE Your Legacy instead. Live your legacy with your words and writings as well as your actions. Writing to live your legacy: it’s a stunningly powerful way to leave something of value behind.
In reality how you are remembered is created one day and one moment at a time, through interactions, conversations, and yes, the slipstream of your written words. Those synergies make up the raw materials of your legacy. If you are writing, it’s your presence embracing the moment of the writing that creates the memorable and remarkable.
- Have you considered, rather than “leaving a legacy” behind you, instead to live each day as you wish to be remembered?
- Have you considered, as you write, to bring to the page the conscious presence of your deepest truest self in the moment?
- Have you thought it just isn’t possible or it’s too hard to express your gifts as a legacy?
You create what is memorable by how you passed through this world one moment at a time. Doing it with words makes your presence all the more powerful.
Your legacy is constructed of the bricks of consciousness, of the moments of your days stacked one atop and next to the other. It’s much like a dry stone wall–one rock fitted inevitably and perfectly next to the neighboring rock. No filler. No mortar. Just rock by rock. (Similarly Anne Lamott’s famous anecdote in Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life
gets at this too. Bird by bird, her brother got the report done.)
Whether it’s rock by rock or bird by bird or word by word or tweet by tweet, your legacy is created like that–day by day, word by word, moment by moment. You construct your legacy a day at a time, one moment and one interaction at a time, just as you live it. How you will be remembered? Will your legacy stand like some of Ireland’s dry rock fences, for centuries?
Follow the 30 Day Blogging Challenge on twitter at #blog30.
“The ultimate test comes when you try living from your new purpose.”
–True Purpose: 12 Strategies for Discovering the Difference You Are Meant to Make by Tim Kelley
http://cli.gs/hDtvRP
Enjoy the sheer delight of randomness, but a mindful and intentional randomness that somehow reinforces the process of owning your greatness as you work to live your purpose! Falling into the digital rabbit hole today, connecting with the wisdom of old friends, still trying to make all the digital media connections. Following my friend’s instructions (below), I came up with the quote (above).
Instructions from my friend Elke Siller Macartney from InspirationU (http://www.inspirationu.com)
“Grab the book nearest you. Right now.
* Turn to page 56.
* Find the fifth sentence.
* Post that sentence AS YOUR STATUS. Then POST these instructions in a comment on your status.
* Don’t dig for your favorite book, the coolest, the most intellectual. Use the CLOSEST book.”
We find meaning in the random uncovering of what is there waiting for us. Following the above instructions, a kind of bibliomancy–divination by means of a book, esp. [but not in this case] the Bible, opened at random to some verse or passage, which is then interpreted.” [from dictionary.com]— I have happened upon something that is meaningful. But is it meaningful because the book was the nearest one? Yet consider that the reader found meaning in the 5th sentence on a particular random page. Such coming up with something meaningful speaks of larger purposes and synchronicities and synergies where we all find meanings greater than the sum of the parts through random walks through the nearest book. Bravo to bibliomancy!
