Let's just look at one belief. If one thinks they are not good enough they might not believe they deserve a raise, a kind partner, a body they can love, time off, or wonderful work. The list is endless. I once asked in a more than one hundred person audience, “does anyone here think they are good enough?” Few hands were raised. It's a comfort to know this is our human condition. This was a workshop on “authenticity” so folks were prone to be honest.

Our egos are made up of our core beliefs. If we try to supress them, they get  stronger. Acceptance is what heals them. When forgiveness touches a core belief, they melt.

Here's what happens when one's core beliefs are integrated (not perfectly, but just layer by layer and in this particular moment.)

When I KNOW I AM GOOD ENOUGH

My interests expand. Current new interests are classical music, kayaking and bird watching. Who knew I would love these things?

My relationships expand. Every friendship is more mutual, my marriage is more fun and has more depth, it's easy to be kind to every single person I meet.I don't have to try so hard. I can work less while still producing work I am proud of and can offer enthusiastically to potential students. I am happy to be paid well for my work.

My compassion grows. I see how most humans are unconsciously stuck in their 'not good enough spell.' When I am able to step out of my own spell, I hold space for their transformation. I see others as totally good enough.

I can be happy about my body, wear what I love, go dancing without being concerned that everyone is watching me on the dance floor. I just started giving myself full body massages the other day – I hadn't thought of that before. My body loves this new idea.

The list is longer, but you get my drift. If you'd like to play more with the idea of working with and through your core beliefs, one option would be to join us at the first conference call virtual retreat on October 24.  Details follow.

Details on the Virtual Retreat.

Knowing we are ENOUGH, even if we forget it l00,000 times,

Patricia

“You wander from room to room hunting for the diamond necklace that is already around your neck.”    Rumi

In the late 70's while I was living at Cornucopia, a human potential school based on the “Handbook to Higher Consciousness” by Ken Keyes, we had what was called a “consciousness reprogramming room.”  So, I'd be up in the middle of the night yelling in a pillow.  It was a padded room so you couldn't wake anyone up.

Anyway, I'd yell “ I love my body the way it is, I LOVE MY BODY THE WAY IT IS,  I LOVE MY BODY THE WAY IT IS!”.   Sometimes when I came out of the room, my voice would be horse or lost entirely.  And, as I was walking down the hall after the primal scream, I'd be saying to myself, “NO I DON'T, I REALLY DON'T.  I DO NOT LOVE MY BODY THE WAY IT IS. IN FACT, I RATHER HATE MY BODY THE WAY IT IS!”

What's the point here?  Well, all my attempts to suppress, express, eradicate, eliminate, pound down or even drown the stories didn't work.  Perhaps you've had a similar experience.  In my training as coach/therapist, I learned to see these stories as the critical parent, the internalized parental critic, or the limiting beliefs, etc. I've worked with students to name their egoistic stories as a way of remembering that this critical voice is a part of us, but not all of us.  That was helpful.  THE EGO IS NOT BAD, IT'S ONLY HUMAN!

Another, more palatable and even kinder way to name the ego's dance, would be to describe these voices as unruly puppy voices.  The unruly puppy does not need to be smacked upside the head, or shamed, or ignored.  The unruly puppy needs to be loved and disciplined.  The unruly puppy needs the alpha, more soulful, more adult part of us to speak up.  That puppy needs someone inside to offer a message like “hey cutie, I love you AND I'm in charge here.  It's time to go to obedience school so that our lives work better.”

I don't hate my body so much anymore, though those thoughts do arise on occasion.  The large percentage of the time I do actually love my sweet body.  And the limiting beliefs do not run rough shod over my life.  My capacity to be aware of the belief, accept it and the accompanying emotion, forgive them, set them aside and go on with my day is large and growing.  That's what I want for you!

Our old stories, as mentioned in the first paragraph of today's blog, bring us to our knees and then drive us to the place where the Spiritual Truth can emerge.  So if we hang out in the idea that “I am not good enough or I don't do enough” long enough, feel the pain of that thought, and forgive it – we come to know the truth, which is that WE ARE BEYOND GOOD ENOUGH AND HAVE ALWAYS DONE WHAT WE CAME TO DO.  I AM AND WE ARE ENOUGH.   It's about 'remembering' and 'forgetting' throughout our lives and our soul's path.

Perhaps this blog has served as a reminder to love yourself amidst your own old stories and this reminder is  just what you needed.  If so, thanks for listening.

If you'd like more support on how to recognize, accept, forgive and set aside the stories that undermine your personal and professional life, consider joining us for the upcoming virtual retreat on October 24th.  Just imagine how your life and work might open up if your True Self (more divine self) stepped to the front burner and your False, (more human) Self stepped to the back burner.  Remember, though, it's natural and necessary that your human or egoistic self be on the stove.  I believe the ego's stories actually drive us to our True Home, our knowingness deep inside the wellspring of our beings that we are E N O U G H!

More info on Virtual Retreat
 

Bowing towards you,

Patricia

“There is a deep place within, where hidden and growing, our true spirit rises...
Each of us holds an incredible reserve of creativity and power, of unexamined and unrecorded emotion.  The place of power within us is neither white nor surface, it is dark, it is ancient, and it is deep.”  Audre Lorde

 

In the times in my work life when I'm facing a 'highpressure deadline' (since I'm self emloyed this deadline business and the high pressure is made up by me), – by the part of me that has been walking though life with a sharp stick in her butt.)  When I retreat, even if its for 10 minutes lying in a hammock, my perspective shifts, and I can return to professoinal activity holding the outcome more lightly.

In years past, when I decided, for example that I was going to pay off the mortgage over the next three years, I was driven.  I doubled my hours with clients, wrote my first book mostly in the middle of the night, and remodeled part of our house.  My husband, while not as driven – kicked in a sizable chunk from his tax business.  We met the goal.

I'm not judging this DRIVE – it really was the ONLY way I knew how to get the task done back then.  And, I'm very grateful the mortgage has been paid for a decade.  Had I not, at that time, had some capacity to retreat, I'd probably be a dead woman today.  Taking a half a day, even once a month, to head up into the mountains or occasionally napping on the couch with a good book was also PRACTICAL.  Those simple rests, made it possible to keep going til the ink on the paid mortgage dried.  Without the retreat times, I probably would have collapsed with overwhelm and possible illness.

We can retreat for 5 minutes, 2 hours, a half day, a day, a week, a month, (and I must confess, I once retreated from my professional life for two years).  The time frame is not as important as the intentionality.  The idea that “I am choosing to give myself this pause, this deep rest” matters most.  Coming up with content is a creative adventure.  For countless creative ideas on how to structure your retreats, see Jen Louden's “Woman's Retreat Book.”

I mentioned in the title that there is an incandescent power to retreating.  By that I mean I return to work with a new spark, I might even be aflame, with an impassioned desire to return to my life's work.  I just took a 3 day weekend and now that I'm back at work, that old fire in my belly has returned.  I was replenished by the garden, by some old movies and some old friends.  I even went dancing with my husband. 

Back in the olden days, the folks who thought up the idea of Sundays being the sabbath day, were on to something.  It is so NOURISHING to know when we intend to rest and to know that rest is coming right around the bend. – When we plan our rests, both consciously (as we so choose) and consistently (we can count on its regular occurrence), our life force and capacity to contribute expands and deepens.

What your soul is calling you to do in the context of your retreat – whether that is sitting with your back against a favorite tree, coloring, dancing, journalling, watching a comedy or a romance movie, writing poems or playing jax – doesn't matter so much.  What does matter is that you are clear your activities will feed your soul and that work related things do not happen in your sacred space.  So that means, unplugging the phone. the computer, even the television.  It means letting go of child care, laundry and anything else that is shouting at you from your “to do” list.

For those of you who might like support and structure  with this idea of retreat, I just happen to be offering a 6 hour virtual retreat coming up on October 24.  We'll be meeting by conference call from around the world.  I'm attaching your invitation right now and if you are feeling sparked by the idea, please jump in.

More info on the Coming Home to Your Sweet, Old Soul Retreat.

Thanks for listening today.  It's my fondest hope that this blog will encourage you in an entirely new level of self care and that you'll leave it having set aside some sacred time for your own sweet soul,

ALL HONOR TO YOU,

PATRICIA

“That is what is strange—that friends, even passionate love, are not my real life unless there is time alone in which to explore and to discover what is happening or has happened.  Without the interruptions, nourishing and maddening, this life would become arid.  Yet I taste it fully only when I am alone here and the house and I resume the old conversations.”  May Sarton