The Moment of Choice ~ Breathing Life Into Your Vision Plan

Karen Blixen: "Do you remember how it was on safari? In the afternoons I would send you ahead to look for a camp, and you would wait for me."

Farah: "You can see the fire, and come to this place."

Karen Blixen: "Yes. Well, it will be like that. Only this time I will go ahead and wait for you."

Farah: "It is far, where you are going?"

Karen Blixen: "Yes."

Farah: "You must make this fire very big, so I can find you."

(Excerpt from the film, Out of Africa. Transcribed by Drew, http://www.script-o-rama.com/)

When I think about this scene from the movie, Out of Africa, I realize that there is a significantly deeper meaning to this exchange than I first realized. Certainly, over the years, Karen and Farah had developed a friendship that transcended their domestic roles: hers as his employer, his as her man-servant. Although this brief exchange highlights that friendship, it also reveals that there was an intimacy to their friendship that, perhaps, developed from a mutual respect of each other as human beings, and possibly even as divine beings. So, even though the fire they speak of literally makes reference to the actual fires that Farah would build on safari to guide the party to him, I believe it also signifies the internal flame that Karen and Farah acknowledge within each other, the divine flame, or connection, that will keep them bound to each other, no matter time or distance.

This flame that each of us has within us, our life force, is the essence of who we are. So, it is inevitable that we will keep coming back to this force ~ this fire ~ this flame, as we practice self-love and grow in our self-love. "A strong flame propels us into higher states of conciousness, where self-love and emotional freedom reside" (Ford, 2003, p. 12).

This flame is also the most critical element for creating our vision plan, and staying on track to manifest our vision. "A healthy flame fills our minds with vision and inspiration and gives us the stamina to envision our dreams and go after them" (Ford, 2003, p.12). Keeping our flames healthy brings us back around, full circle, to the choices we make. Remember, we can make choices that dim our flame, or we can make choices that make our flame roar. "If we wish to stand in all our light, if we wish to express ourselves authentically, and if we want the power to bring our purpose to the world, our first committment must be to keep our internal fires - our life force - strong" (Ford, 2003, p. 14). Thus, we can clearly see now that:

• it is in our power to choose to build a healthy flame,
• having a healthy flame will inspire us and empower us to live our soul's purpose,
• our vision plan is the physical representation of that inspiration ~ an actual map for manifesting our purpose, and finally,
• back around to our choices once more, we are able to stay on track and follow the map that leads us to our soul's reason for being.

How profound then to know that three things we can choose to do to make our flame roar are:

1. doing what we love
2. going after our dreams, and
3. making choices consistent with were we want to go (Ford, 2003, p. 19).

This is the most phenomenal "win-win" situation that I have ever come across!

Stevee and I were excited to share our vision plans with each other. We had created them around the same areas of our lives that I shared with you last week:

• financial
• physical health
• emotional health
• work/career/education
• personal relationships
• spirituality

Interestingly, we discovered, for both of us, that our emotional health is very intricately connected to our personal relationships.

We began our coaching session, as agreed, by taking an inventory of how strong our internal flames were at that moment. We discussed some of the challenges that we were each confronting in our lives, and were able to identify how our hidden commitments were influencing our reactions to these challenges, thus dimming our flames. We were aware that the challenges, in and of themselves, did not have the power to dim our flames. In fact, possibly by the mere virtue of having embarked on this journey, we had been given the gift of experiencing, as the silent witness, exactly how our hidden commitments were sabotaging us. We were concious of the thoughts, the emotions and the responses ~ the bag of tricks ~ that our internal critic, our self-saboteur, was using to keep us perpetually derailed.

This conscious experience enabled us to realize that our belief that we gain personal power by allowing the self-critic to micro-manage and control what is going on in our lives is just an illusion. In truth, allowing our self-critic to turn us into control freaks is terribly disempowering. We could feel the actual impact of this on our flames. The recognition of this illusion opened us up to a tremendous paradigm shift. We were able to see the truth: we become empowered when we surrender our control to, or as Debbie would say ~ have faith in, the wisdom of our Source, our Divinity, the Universe. You may call this God, Great Spirit, Yehovah, or Allah. For us, they are all names for the ONE.

We were well satisfied with our vision plans as we described them in detail to each other. We reminded ourselves that "it is essential to take a moment every day in which [we] focus on [our] vision and bring [our] goals into [our] concious awareness" (Ford, 2003, pp. 30-31). This is important because "this daily practice will inspire [us] to make the highest choices for [ourselves] throughout the day" (Ford, 2003, p. 31). I suggested that in addition, we should work on creating a picture on a foam board of our visions that we could show to each other next week. We have all heard about the power behind seeing what we want.

So, Stevee and I feel good about being on our way to creating an extraordinary life for ourselves. Daily, we are growing in our awareness and experience of self-love. If you have had any of your own enlightened insights as a result of this practice, please share them with us.

Next Monday begins the weekly study of each of the right questions. We will be talking about the first right question, Chapter 4, Will this choice propel me toward an inspiring future or will it keep me stuck in the past?.

Until next week, ask yourself each day, "How am I going to love and honor myself today" (Ford, 2003, p. 147)?

REFERENCES:

Ford, D. (2003). The right questions: Ten essential questions to guide you to an extraordinary life. New York: Harper Collins Publishers, Inc.

Out Of Africa Script - Dialogue Transcript. Retrieved January 18, 2010, from http://www.script-o-rama.com/movie_scripts/o/out-of-africa-script-transcript.html

Exposing our Underlying Commitments

First, I have to be honest and admit, that out of the 10 friends that I had invited to join me on this odyssey, only one actually took me up on the offer. That's okay, though! As Sathya Sai Baba reminds us, it is quality not quantity that matters most. This also presented me with an opportunity to use the right question, "Am I looking for what's right, or am I looking for what's wrong?," when I had to accept the fact that not only were 9 of my friends not going to participate, but the majority of them had not even acknowledged or responded to my invitation. By using this question, I was able to remind myself that:

1. everything is always exactly the way it should be, and
2. self-love is about the self.

Thus, whomever may or may not join me, this journey, ultimately, is about rediscovering my innate love for my ownself. No problem!!! Afterall, "when we love ourselves fully and freely, something magical happens. We teach others, without using words, how to love themselves" (Ford, 2003, p. 137). And that's exactly why I am writing this blog.

Stevee and I were both excited to get started when she arrived last night. We had already been trying to practice the right questions throughout the course of the week as little obstacles and large challenges confronted us. There were moments when we both had come face-to-face with our own self-hatred. (Yes, Debbie, I can say the word. I will not let it intimidate me!)

I suppose if you are travelling towards self-love, it is inevitable that you will meet up with your lifelong pal, your parnter-in-crime, self-hatred. (Or rather, self-sabotage, the term Debbie prefers to use in order to avoid the natural aversion to such a strong word.) However, "...from [her] perspective every act of self-sabotage is an act of self-hatred" (Ford, 2003, p. 139). Which brings us to the work of exposing our underlying commitments. For, "when we engage in self-sabotaging behaviors, ... we allow unhealthy underlying commitments to direct us away from our desired destinations" (Ford, 2003, p. 140).

Before we delved into this monumental undertaking that was going to require pick-axes and safety goggles, Stevee and I decided that it would be a good idea to take some time at the beginning of each weekly session to check-in on our internal flame, the flame that Ammachi showed Debbie during a meditation at a weekend retreat. "Each of us has an internal flame that is the keeper of our life force" (Ford, 2003, p. 12). As Debbie related her experience, I instantly recognized this flame to be the same life force that is discussed in Daishonin Buddhism. Through this Buddhism, we are taught that chanting the name of the mystic law ~ The Lotus Sutra ~Nam-myoho-renge-kyo, "enables us to...enjoy a life-force as strong and radiant as the rising sun" (Yamamoto, 2009, p. 4). So, Stevee and I agreed that we would check-in with our flame to see how bright it was on a scale of 1-10, and then discuss choices, concious and/or unconcious, that we had made during the day that either dimmed our flame or made it roar.

We both felt our flames were burning pretty brightly. Stevee said her's was a 9; I saw mine as an 8. We were both delighted about having such strong flames after the really hard week we had been through. It was very empowering to take an inventory of all the choices that had made our flames roar. One of the things I became aware of through this process was that I felt that some of the choices I had made the day before that had fed my flame enabled my flame to continue to burn brighter and start my new day from a healthier, stronger place. So, as I continued to feed my flame during the day, it began to roar as it grew in strength.

Here are some of the choices I made that allowed my flame to grow and burn brightly:

• resting (getting 9 hours of sleep)
• exercising (doing 40-minutes on the eliptical machine)
• eating well (staying within my Weight Watcher's daily points)
• spending my money wisely = taking responsibility
• creating a powerful support system (Champions of Self-Love)
• being with people who inspire me (my personal coach, Stevee)

Now, for the dirty (and scary) work.....

Initially, I thought it might be a good idea to identify various aspects of our lives for which we would attempt to excavate the hidden commitment. I got this idea from an episode of Will and Grace where Will was talking to Grace about a test he had found in the Lifestyle section of the newspaper called "The 5 Pillars of Happiness" (Kohan, Mutchnick & Greenstein, 2000):

1. Health
2. Family
3. Love Life
4. Friendships
5. Work

My list looked a little different:

1. Financial
2. Work/Career
3. Personal Relationships
4. Physical Health
5. Emotional Health
6. Spirituality

Ok, so I have six areas instead of five. It's still the same basic idea. You should come up with your own areas. If you think of one that's different than these, please let us know about it.

What we discovered in the process was that we both had 2 underlying commitments that were intricately tied to each other and permeated every aspect of our lives. This was a big "aha" moment for us! I promised Stevee that I wouldn't include her personal revelations, but for me, after 27 years of "being on the path" and "peeling back layer after layer," I finally dug through to that core place.

I have been sabotaging myself for my entire adult life because I have unconciously been making choices that would keep me from being in a position where I would have no voice, and having no voice keeps me from being able to defend my thoughts, beliefs, opinions, words, and actions, and being unable to defend myself makes me feel inferior. It is amazing how when the light shines onto this false-truth you are able to identify the most insignificant things in your life that have been impacted by it. For example, I was even able to recognize that because of this unconcious feeling of inferiority I have always settled for second-best, leftovers, and hand-me-downs. No wonder my life is so far and gone from where I want to be and where I should be considering my talent and intellect.

Oh, happy day! To be set free from this lie is like taking a huge breath of fresh air just when you think your lungs are about to explode.

Well, I hope your own discovery of your underlying commitments was as freeing for you as ours was for us.

Next week, Stevee and I are going to work on making our vision plans crystal clear. I spoke to her tonight, and she has already started working on hers. I have a few ideas in mind already for mine too. Take this time to start working on yours!

Until next week, ask yourself each day, "How am I going to love and honor myself today" (Ford, 2003, p. 147)?

REFERENCES:

Ford, D. (2003). The right questions: Ten essential questions to guide you to an extraordinary life. New York: Harper Collins Publishers, Inc.

Kohan, D., Mutchnick, M., & Greenstein, J. (2000, May 23). Ben? Her? Will and Grace, episode #2.23. Retrieved January 12, 2010, from http://www.durfee.net/will/scripts/s0223.htm

Yamamoto, S. (2009, January 30.) The light of the century of humanity. Retrieved January 12, 2010, from http://www.sgi-usa.org/memberresources/mensdivision/docs/The%20Wise%20Members%20of%20the%20MD%20Part%202%20January%2030,%202009.pdf

Happy New Year! It's an extraordinary life!!

It's a brand new year!!! The new year always inspires and motivates us to initiate BOLD action in our lives. This year, my inspiration comes from the #1 New York Times bestselling author, Debbie Ford, and her book, The Right Questions: Ten Essential Questions to Guide You to an Extraordinary Life. In the last chapter of this book, Debbie tells us, "...within each of us lies the ability to lead an extraordinary life" (Ford, 2004, p. 177).


THAT is what this blog is dedicated to, leading an extraordinary life.


Debbie goes on to challenge each of us, "What would you need to do to create a team around you to be your cheering squad? What would you have to create to make sure that no matter where you are in your life you have someone by your side who holds your highest vision in front of you and supports you in asking the Right Questions" (Ford, 2004, p. 179)?


THIS is it for me.


"[Debbie] once heard someone say, 'No one gets to the Olympics without a coach, so why would you try to win your best life without one?' ... Everyone needs a coach, and everyone is entitled to one" (Ford, 2004, pp. 177-178).


So, I am creating a neighborhood-based coaching team made up of the 10 women closest to me in my life as of this moment in time. I am inviting them to join me in this challenge to create and lead an extraordinary life. I am welcoming them into my home every Monday night from 7:00 pm - 9:00 pm starting January 11, 2010, so that we can be each other's champions through this journey of transformation.


As the facillitator, or rather "Spirit Coach," of this unique team, I am asking each of my friends to buy the following books that Debbie has written (http://www.debbieford.com/):


1) The Right Questions: Ten Essential Questions to Guide You to an Extraordinary Life
2) The 21-day Conciousness Cleanse: A Breakthrough Program for Connecting with Your Soul's Deepest Purpose
3) The Best Year of Your Life: Dream It. Plan It. Live It.


As a team, we will work through each one of these books successively. This blog will be the witness to our hearts' desires and a testimony to the beauty and brilliance of our self-love.


We will step onto our path with The Right Questions.


During our first meeting, we will review the ten right questions. We will each create our own highest vision of the destination to which our dreams will lead us. Then, we will share our visions of where we wish to go with each other, so that we will know the goals we need to support each other in attaining.


In the second meeting, we will help each other expose the underlying committments that exist for each of us, "...our thoughts, our beliefs, and - most important - our choices;...the unseen forces that [have] shape[d] our realities" (Ford, 2004, p. 43).

Each week thereafter, we will focus on one of the ten right questions until we have explored each one in depth, so that we will each be able to "...make choices that are consistent not only with the highest expressions of [our]selves but with the greater good of the world" (Ford, 2004, p. 176).

Having realized the extradorinary indivduals that we are, we will then do the 21-day conciousness cleanse in preparation for creating the best year of our lives.

Debbie reminds us, "...it is our job-the sacred task to which we've been assigned-to learn to love the person that we are, as we are, in the moment" (Ford, 2004, p. 146). That is why I have chosen to name this blog Champions of Self-Love. "The fruit of the Spirit is love..." (Galatians 5:22). As we begin to make choices from our divinity, it seems to me that self-love will be the natural expression of our Spirit, our highet self.

I will update you each week as our team stretches, grows, transforms and manifests divinity on earth. I may even check-in between meetings to share thoughts and musings. If you would like to join our team from where ever you may be, I know we would be delighted to receive your support and encouragement, and in turn, offer the same to you.


REFERENCES:

Ford, D. (2004). The right questions: Ten essential questions to guide you to an extraordinary life. New York: HarperCollins Publishers, Inc.

National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. (1952). The holy bible revised standard version. Camden, NJ: Thomas Nelson, Inc.