The Invitation

I wanted to share this because I loved it. It was hanging on the wall in the cabin I stayed in at Quantam Leaps in Golden. The words speak my heart.

The Invitation- Author unknown

It doesn't interest me what you do for a living. I want to know what you ache for, and if you dare of meeting your heart's longing.

It doesn't interest me how old you are
I want to know if you will risk looking like a fool for love,
for your dreams , for the adventure of being alive

It doesn't interest me what planets are squaring your moon
I want to know if you have touched the center of your own sorrow, if you
have been opened by life's betrayals or have become shivelled and closed from fear of further pain

I want to know if you can sit with pain, mine or your own
without moving to hide it or fade it or fix it

I want to know if you can be with joy, mine or your own, if you can dance
with wildness and let exstasy fill you to the tips of your fingers and toes
without cautioning us to be careful, or realistic, or to remember the limitations of being human

It doesn't interest me if the story you are telling is true,
I want to know if you can disappoint another to be true to yourself, if you can bare the accusation of betrayal and not betray your own soul

I want to know if you can be faithful and therefore trustworthy

I want to know if you can see beauty, even when it is not pretty every day, and if you can source
your life from God's presence, I want to know if you can live with failure , yours and mine and still stand on the edge of the lake and shout to the silver moon, YES!

It doesn't interest me to know where you live or how much money you have
I want to know if you can get up after the night of grief and despair, weary and bruised to the bone, and do what needs to be done for the children

It doesn't interest me to know who you are, how you came to be here,
I want to know if you will stand in the center of the fire with me and not shrink back,

It doesn't interest me where or what or with whom you have studied.  I want to know what sustains you from the inside when all else falls away.

I want to know if you can be alone with yourself, and truly like the company you keep in the empty moments

The Stories We Tell

   All of us have a need to be recognized for who we are.

   We learn to shape our identities through our interactions with other people, ourselves and our environment. Our whole lives, we create connections to objects, points of view, beliefs and behaviours  all to create a rounded picture of who we are as human beings. We create stories to explain who we are.

    One of the courses I took early on was about accountability. Accountability in a nutshell is about keeping agreements with yourself and others. It would be related to the statement I discussed in the book "The Four Agreements" around being "impeccable with your word". It is about taking responsibility for your life and how you got here without any judgement or blame.

    One of the important exercises in the course was around making an inventory of all the stories that we tell to help introduce someone to who we are. They encompass all the hurts, all the important lessons, the ways that we would illustrate to a new person how we came to arrive at this point. We were asked to choose ten. They asked us to go down the list and write one descriptive line for each of our "stories". Then we were asked to read all of them and try to see if there was a pattern to what was on the page. When you realized what the pattern was ( and there always was one predominant theme), most often it was the same message in each of the stories, no matter how different the stories appeared on the surface. And the stories tended to escalate chronologically. If you weren't getting the message, the message got louder. The facilitator then gently suggested that we flip the message around to find our purpose. So for example, if your stories centered around rejections, then perhaps your learning was around acceptance. Of yourself, and of others. How facinatingly reminiscent for me of those contracts I believe we make before we ever arrive here. If we forget why we are here, the Universe creates a string of reminders to help us out!

      Further on in my course work, I realized that when I had an emotion around something I tended to use stories to justify why, instead of just being with that emotion in the moment. My life coach was a great help in pointing that out. Helping me understand that the stories are like training wheels. We create them to understand who we are, and once we know that, it is okay simply to be that.  We don't need the camouflage of the stories anymore. We can trust that we can share where we are in any moment with clarity and honesty. We can speak our truth without fear.

      Like so many things on this journey, I am interested to step back and observe what I have needed to construct to get to this place, that I am now able to deconstruct and let go of. That is a reoccuring pattern in so many areas. Very much like needing to learn to control my environment to achieve success in my life and then stepping back to understand that in fact the biggest freedom is opening my hands to let that control go and trust in the mystery.

 In love and light,
Kathryn

Belief Systems- How We Limit Our Own Potential

    I know I refer to Personal Best a lot.  I can't help that! It is the place where I finally understood how we as human beings arrive at a point in time and become Aware. I am currently reading a book called "The Four Agreements". It is a very interesting read as it deals with how we are constantly limiting our own potential using our belief systems, having very little understanding or awareness even of how those belief systems are formed. That reminded me of the discussion very early in PB about what belief systems actually are. Did you know your belief system is actually fairly complete by age 6? And usually changes very little after that without some vast new awareness of the process?  Or that it is not actually you that decides or chooses it, instead it is formed by those around us in childhood who say things like "Kathryn a very good singer, but she can't play basketball to save her life!"

    Now to make it more visual for you, I then construct a big screen door and that little statement gets fitted into it along with a million others which become my "truths" about myself. I then proceed to carry that very heavy screen door with me everywhere I go and every time I approach a new experience I hold it up to view that  new experience through my framework. Would it surprise you to know that what was true about you at 6 ( if it even was true then, since you didn't choose it) would not be still true about you now? How many of us have actually stood back and even realized we were carrying a screen at all? For most of us, it is so close to our eyes that we have no awareness it is even there, separate from us. At the point that I first heard this, I could no more have told you what my beliefs about myself were than speak Dutch. They were there for sure, but below the level of my awareness.

     The same belief systems operate on an auditory level as well. Think about the following. We make the same sort of auditory screens in our relationships with other people. The way we percieve what is being said in the moment, is actually filtered through every other piece of history in that particular relationship. It is why dynamics in relationships are so hard to change.

      One of my teachers related this principle in an experience that happened within his own family. His sister bought an acreage. She was really happy about it. He shared her experience with his mom who immediately called his sister while he was there, and told her they were really happy for her and would be happy to come and help in any way, even coming to cut the grass. Later that week he visited his sister and she was really unhappy. When he asked why, she said she had recieved a call from their mother and that they felt she was not going to be able to manage the acreage on her own and that they were going to have to come and help her, which made her feel useless and defeated. He was stunned. He figured that there must have been another phone call made, but when he talked to his mother, there was not. He realized that the words that were said were not heard as they were intended but in fact were filtered through the entire history of the relationship and then given context. What a profound lesson in communication. How often do we not hear something the way it was intended?
 
    Knowing and understanding this, would make it critical if you are trying to change the dynamic within a relationship to TELL the person you are dealing with that you are wanting to change the relationship dynamic so that they have a cue they are going to have to use a new, clean screen to hear what you are trying to say. Otherwise they are not actually going to perceive that you have changed your approach at all. They will be stuck using the old filter.

     Once we have enough awareness to be able to step back from our screens and become an observer of our own behaviours, emotions and triggers, we then are able to actually start to look closely at each piece of that screen and remove the parts that no longer serve us. The parts that have become our limiting beliefs. And, we can choose to replace them with new beliefs that open us up to all of life's possibilities. Our words are very powerful and we can choose to use them for the betterment of all or to drag us down to the darkest depths. If we choose to use our words responsibly instead of as a way to injure others or reflect our own pain upon the world, those very words will set us free. Those words become our truth.

      "The Four Agreements" speaks about the first agreement which is Be Impeccable With Your Word. The word Impeccable means "without sin". When you are impeccable with yourself, you accept responsibility for your actions, but you don't judge or condemn yourself. It is in essence, the agreement to break down all the beliefs that bind you and treat yourself with love. It takes away fear and replaces it with love and empowerment.

     So sit for a moment and think about your screen. I am sure it is heavy if it is anything like mine was. There are so many choices. Drop it all together and start fresh, keep the pieces that serve you and replace the parts that don't. The most important moment has just occured. You can see it. You hold the recipe for change in your very hands.....

  In love and light,
Kathryn

How Will You Wield Your Sword of Truth?

  Sometimes on this journey, it is important to stop and recognize the people who are pivotal in helping shape our lives. There have been so very many for me, that I raise my hands in prayer and Namaste to thank each of you silently, recognizing God within you as you are sharing  your light and love with me.
  
   I had one such experience with a friend during my second Personal Best course. We were standing on opposite sides of a circle during an exercise and all of a sudden he got a very strange look on his face while he was staring at me. When the exercise ended, he made his way over to me at the break. He said quietly that he hoped I wouldn't think him odd for staring at me but during the exercise he had a strange vision. As he was watching me I became an angel standing with a flaming sword and the word "truth" beneath my hands. I didn't quite know what to say to that, and he seemed very moved. I stored that incident in my heart and often wondered what it meant.

    This imagery has come up in my life several other times in similar fashion, often with a stranger making a remark that stops me in my tracks and takes me back to that moment with my friend. Earlier this year when I made the decision to take my life back and stand in my truth,the imagery came crashing down on me and I suddenly understood what it was all about. I shared my process with one of my best friends, my partner Leah. She was sick that day, and as I poured out my heart to her, she was inspired to write.  She is an incredibly talented poet and the poem she wrote me that day brought me to tears. The words she wrote are the words etched in the walls of my heart. It was as if she knew me well enough to look into my soul and find the message that spoke of my journey. I would like to honor her gift to me by sharing it with you. These words changed my life and gave me the courage to stand in my truth and step into my own beauty and worth as a human being, unique and lovely just as I stand. Leah your words will someday change the world. I love you to death. You honor me beyond words with your friendship, your guidance as a sage teacher and your love.

I've been thinking about what it means to stand in your truth.  The path to finding your truth is difficult.  Having the strength to stand in it is even harder.  I think part of it is getting past the fear of judgement, and trusting that letting your truth shine its brightest will do no harm to yourself or others.  Hopefully we can all get to this place in our current lifetime, or at the very least, keep striving to get there.
                                                                    

How do you choose to wield your sword of truth?

Will you stand stony firm, hold your ground
Dare others to challenge you?
Will you dig its point into the earth
Until you become hard as the blade itself?

Or will you swing it wildly, angrily
Using it as a weapon
To threaten and destroy
Filling others with fear of its holy fire?

Will you cast your eyes downwards,
Examine it, explore it
Until you cut yourself on its blade
And bleed?

Or will you hold its hilt gently
Look up, open your eyes wide
And let its power speak for itself?

Will you be still with it long enough
To hear its vibration
Pulsing to and through you
Harmonizing with the song of your heart
And raise it high
Until you are a beacon of light?

It is heavy.
The one who chooses to stand still in its power
To raise it high for others to see
Must be strong.

The bearer of the sword
Shines so brightly
That others have no choice but to love her.
And this love nourishes her strength
And lightens the burden.

She is grace
She is beauty
She is courage
She is power.
She mesmerizes us with her fiery light.

You are the forger of your sword.
You distilled its silver light from the rocks of the earth.
You created the blade
That never misses its mark
And is unbroken by challengers.

You are the one who formed its hilt
Fitting it perfectly to your hand
As an extension of yourself.

You inscribed it with the words that resonate with your heart
Until together you sing the song of your truth.

For within its creation lies the power of the sword
The symbol you have created of yourself
Formed from the earth
Inspired by God
And having the power to destroy or inspire.

How do you choose to wield your sword of truth?

by Leah Gully

Control- The Exquisite Illusion

Here's food for thought.

  Most of you, like me, navigate through life pretty certain as we go along figuring out patterns, requirements, ways to accomplish what we desire to pursue in our lives, that we have a fair amount of control over what we set in motion. This is usually only true if you feel you have achieved positive outcomes. It involves a belief system that allows the idea that my ability to control my environment and my behavior allows me to effectively create change in my world. I would postulate that this theory is actually essential to formulate early in life, to set any of those processes in motion. In fact I believe understanding this process is the precursor to success. A pretty simplified version of cause and effect, but follow my logic for a moment.
  
   We start in grade school and we stumble by chance over a behavior that engages the teacher. Met with success we repeat that behavior and continue to modify it until we have created a very effective and systematic approach to interacting with our world. As with everything in life different people achieve different levels of success in life based on how effectively they understand this process from an early age and learn to navigate life's challenges with it. It is in essence a sort of " life algorithm".
Others will have a different experience of this process which sometimes leads to a "victim" perspective. Those operating from this experiential position will formulate beliefs about the world which are more along the lines of "no matter what I do I cannot seem to effect this process".

   I have grossly oversimplified this of course, but you get the basic premise. All of us fall somewhere between these two extremes. I guess what has become so interesting to me as I get older and I watch and analyze the patterns in my life, the interplay of all the pieces, the apparent evidence of Serendipity, coincidences or Kismet, is the dawning awareness that I cannot be controlling all the elements that guide my life. The scope of my control is actually too small and narrow for that to be possible. Belief in a higher power becomes somewhat of a must based on the evidence I create via my very existance. Each of us has full control of these things and these things only.  I control my own thoughts, behaviors and beliefs but beyond that I do not really have much ability to actually control the external environment or anyone in relationship to me. To try to do so is to waste precious energy.

    I exert my will in a sort of grand illusion, and suddenly realize that there is always a larger canvas being painted than I can see. A beautiful stage on which I step into the spotlight and dance my piece with passion and wild abandon to find myself in a chorus of ever expanding artists each playing out their own unique performances. We are beautiful mirrors for each other reflecting back our perfections and imperfections as we hold each other in deep embrace. The paths we trace are as old as time.
  
    I see the beauty. I am at a point where I am beginning to learn the art of surrender. The language of allow. But it is not an easy language to master. And although I have moments where I am fluent, I have many where I struggle with the need to maintain my illusions of control. But at least now I understand, it is an illusion. A bit of magic. A glimpse of truth beneath the veil. I leave you with my favorite poem by David Whyte.

    In this high place it is as simple as this,
    Leave everything you know behind
    Step towards the cold surface
    Say the old prayer of rough love
    And open both arms

    Those who come with empty hands
     Will stare into the lake astonished
     There in the cold light
     Reflecting pure snow
     The true shape of your own face.

 When we can release the expectations and embrace the unknown, we become free.

 In love and light,
with open arms,
Kathryn