Tuesday, March 23, 2010

FOLLOW YOUR HEART- AT ALL COSTS!


Nick Williams, author, spiritual life coach and co-founder of Inspired Entrepreneur, a network which provides support, seminars and training to people who want to change their lives by following their hearts, kindly agreed to answer some questions I posed to him. I hope you will find inspiration in the following Q&A with Nick which is followed by my video pitch of a story of personal transformation I have entered in The Next Top Spiritual Author competition, I hope you will find inspiration here also.





What do I feel the ultimate purpose of human life to be?

To remember that in this world of seeming separation, that we are divine spiritual beings, all part of the same one creation, that we are the light. We remember our true identity by letting go of erroneous ideas, beliefs and thoughts about who we believe we are and by sharing our creative gifts with each other. It is to remember that we are loved, we are loving and that ultimately we are love, and that the creator places no conditions on their love for us.

What is the greatest fear that I have overcome?

Probably listening to, trusting and acting from the wisdom of my heart when I was in the corporate world and left the conventional career path. I had a good job and the trappings of success, but I didn’t have the experience of feeling a success and fulfilled. It took all the courage I could muster to leave it behind and trust both in my own resources and unseen powers and that there was a greater life beckoning me. I followed a crazy dream of inspiring people, teaching, being creative and creating a truly meaningful life, but discovered that was in fact my life purpose and calling beckoning me. As I have had the courage to follow it, I continue to be transformed.

What is the single most important insight I would like to share with people?

That your existence is a blessing and you do have purpose for being here. But that purpose may be the thing that scares you most, that you most resist and try to logically talk yourself out of, but is in fact the truest direction of your life and the direction that will lead to your greatest fulfilment. Your hearts deepest dream may well not be a fantasy but your soul revealing to you the grandest path for your life. And you can create an abundant living doing the work you were born to do.

Nick Williams is co-founder of Inspired Entrepreneur and is passionate about helping people find the work they were born to do and build successful businesses around it.

If you are not yet clear about the work you were born to do, you can download your free copy of a nine part programme to help you discover it and become an inspired entrepreneur now at: www.inspired-entrepreneur.com


To vote for me please visit the following link:


Friday, March 12, 2010

INTEGRITY INTEGRITY INTEGRITY


INTEGRITY INTEGRITY INTEGRITY

Antony De Mello began his bestselling book Awareness with the words Awareness, awareness. awareness. With good reason. Most of us are not aware of ourselves, others, our motivations, or the potential consequences of our actions. This is causing us all a lot of problems, for example, on a purely practical level, the economic state of this country and the world as a whole, is based on that very condition – lack of awareness coupled with lack of integrity. Certain individuals in positions of power saw opportunities to increase their wealth and, irresponsible of the consequences, pursued those opportunities, thereby sacrificing the livelihoods of others. These powerful people were assisted in the pursuit of their business interests by governments whose sole concern was self preservation, and by a culture which has become innured to corruption and material self interest.

While there are individuals within government; within corporations and institutions who uphold a high moral code, it became practically impossible for those people to effect change to a system they saw spiralling towards wrecking havoc on the lives of the masses. The web of collusion in croneyism and hubris amongst their colleagues, and the media, effectly silenced their protests and most of them either shut up, resigned their positions or continued pressing warnings against deaf ears. The fat farce rolled on until it smashed up against a wall of it’s own making. Some simply sidled away unscathed by the ensuing fracas, others, remaining in power hide behind a new wall of spin, and most of us will spend the rest of our working lives paying for the latest measures hastily put in place to safeguard the interests of the economic elite.

HONOUR IS A GIFT YOU GIVE YOURSELF

“Honour is a gift you give yourself.” I remember reading this a number of years ago. I don’t remember where, but it struck me as being so true. Sometime later, I heard Ricky Gervais repeat it in an interview, and thought, there goes someone I’d like to meet. Integrity is something we need to foster in ourselves, and, no matter what happens around us, it is up to us to keep checking with ourselves whether our thoughts and actions match what we know to be the best option for us to take. If we can’t look in the mirror and like the person we see, we become diminished in our own eyes and, ultimately, will have no one else to blame. No one can take away our honour but ourselves.

There was an article in The Irish Times recently in which a priest spoke of the culture of The Victim. He maintained that people in the church didn’t speak out about the abuse they witnessed because they were indoctrinated to believe they were powerless to do anything about it – they had become victims. It wasn’t their place to do anything, they didn’t feel they could. This is so sad.

This same attitude applies now as it did then, and not just to the clergy, but to the community as a whole. We all wait for someone else to do something, it’s the classic “Somebody get help!”

Not everyone is a political leader, a mobiliser of change on a grand scale. But we are all capable and indeed supported, to live our best lives for ourselves. By that, I mean to pursue a level of Self interest which supports what will nurture and nourish us on a soul level. When we each commit to honouring our true Self, we make it impossible to dishonour another. This is a challenge we each meet everyday and in almost everyway. The question always is:

DO I LOVE MYSELF ENOUGH?

When I love myself enough I will safeguard that self esteem and won’t risk diminishing it by actions which will damage it. All of us, responding to our souls calling to Love can create an environment of change which will benefit all. In this, if we but realise it, we are totally supported by our souls essence which holds us in infinite love and compassion. Everything which occurs in the external world, the everyday life in which we engage, exists to provide us with opportunities for growth.

Those opportunities often appear as challenges in the form of other people who ‘get up our nose’ or threats to our financial or physical wellbeing. In order to respond to these challenges from a place of awareness and integrity, rather than from a defensive kneejerk standpoint, we need to be in touch with our True Nature or souls essence. There are many ways of doing this. Spending time quietly with ourselves, or walking in nature will help us to gain a fresh perspective on matters. Writing out a list of our deepest values helps to clarify what is truly important to us. Practising Yoga, , Chi Kung and Tai Chi is an excellent way of replenshing our energy and maintaining health on all levels from the physical to the spiritual. Meditation helps us to connect deeply with our Soul Self, that essential root from which we project our energy enabling us to learn over lifetimes in the slower vibration of the material dimension. This is where we will find the support needed to face life challenges from an honourable and authentic perspective. It is from the place of our Soul Self that we realise we have the strength to form our own opinions and follow through on them. It is through strengthening the realisation that we (each and every one of us, without exception) are pure at our core that we are enabled to walk an enlightened, more responsible path in the everyday.

I collected this image a while back and can't remember from where so haven't credited the author - if it is yours please email me your web address, I'll check it out and credit you for your great artwork.

Friday, March 5, 2010

SLOWING DOWN AND SEEING

I live in a beautiful place and enjoy the forty five minute drive to and from work (twenty five outside of rush hour). The light is constantly changing and I often yearn to spend the day photographing instead of teaching in a darkened studio, lecture theatre or darkroom. As I am also a mother, am always a student: of psychotherapy, of philosophy, shamanism, Tai Chi and Chi Kung; of writing and entrepreneurship, and, first and foremost, of my own spiritual journey, I can often miss the entrancing details of that almost daily car journey.

The other evening as I drove towards the orange and mauve streaked glow of the Western sky, my attention was drawn upwards to the birds perched on their nests in the tall bare branches of the winter trees. Every now and then the silhouette of a lone bird caught my eye as it's dark shape traversed the sky in front of me, now carrying a twig, then carrying a tuft of lambswool or dried grass. The age old movement of the bird population signaling Springs arrival and the portent of new birth, in a visual synthesis with the natural environment of budding blossom and spring lambs. Something about the beauty and depth of the changing scene, as each bird made a different shape swooping poetically across my path carrying its building material, enriched me with the prompt, You and I are One in Life and Nature.

Later, slowing down behind a trailer, packed high with organic matter whose pungent aroma filled my car, I spied an almost angular pocket of mist, hanging spectral like, alone in the graceful dip of a large darkening field. Wondering at its presence, I traced its source, barely discernible; a thin trail of smoke wafted silently across some fields, river, and road, towards the chimney of a large farmhouse quite a distance away. Somehow, this quiet scene, of smoke and landscape in the twilight palpated with the pure elegant presence of Being....

The tractor and trailer turned off and I pressed on the accelerator, my thoughts gathering apace and projecting into the future once more, towards dinner and further list of the demanding To Do's of the everyday.