There are many faces of anger. Just like the Inuit who have some twenty-two words to describe the subtleties and nuances of what we call 'snow', there are many shades of anger. Let's explore some of these - to unmask them, shifting us into power - our ability to navigate our way through them and into greater joy. Frustration, irritation, edginess, resentment, passive aggressiveness, impatience, cynicism, sarcasm, pointed jokes, withdrawal, Continue Reading
The ‘Map of Emotions’ – #5 – Fear
Fear is the domain in which many people live. Our media feeds on this. Fear sells. Fear is an absence of faith - an absence of trust in ourselves, the universe and the ultimate goodness of humankind. Many people live in mind-made stories which evoke fear. Most fear is not 'real' - it is not a response to real and true danger in the moment. Most fear is a negative 'food source' of our mind. When you notice that you feel afraid, ask Continue Reading
Cultivating Courage – The Practice – Part 2
So what are some ideas – that I’ve tried and can guarantee work – that might start you on your way of ‘cultivating courage’? Here are a few that I’ve chosen in my first week … Leaving clothes unfolded in my pack sack when I knew they’d be going straight into laundry when I got home from my camping trip. (I’m typically a very neat person.) Repeating the same the next day – this time with the Continue Reading
Cultivating Courage
I had a recent visit with family in which I realized how little courage I have developed as part of our co-dependent culture. I am and have been courageous in remarkable ways in my life – solo dance touring, spending 7 ½ months alone attuning to the great mysteries of the world, launching companies and non-profit societies, backpacking alone in the wilderness … And yet, there are great gaps. And so, I Continue Reading
Abdication of Power – Part 2
When we retain our power, on the other hand, we become response-able again. We both maintain within ourselves the wisdom that is always there, that always knows, if we listen deeply enough, what it that we must do to pro-actively ensure our well-being and responsively course correct when it is amiss. And we retain the 100% responsibility for our outcome. This is frightening for many people simply because they haven’t practiced Continue Reading
Gandhi – Self-Reflection as a Way of Leading (Part 2)
In 1992, when I returned to my then-home of Vancouver, Canada following my participation in the UN Earth Summit’s Global Forum, I began meeting a quick succession of highly influential people – people who were leaders and initiators of powerful movements. One afternoon I was sitting in a quiet seniors learning centre by the sea (a beautiful heritage building), having tea with one of the founders of the Vancouver Peace March – one Continue Reading
The Wright Brothers
One of my favorite stories of ‘leadership’ and of ‘change’ is of the Wright Brothers. I’m an abstract storyteller, so please forgive me if the ‘details’ of this story are not historically absolutely precise! Imagine yourself … As if you were alive, in the town where the Wright Brothers lived, when they began publicly expressing their ‘visions’ that a silver bird could fly. Ha! Most people surely mocked them, Continue Reading
Underwhelming the Overwhelm – Part 2
And so the isolation of the millions of people who do have tremendous power to influence change – the everyday people of this world – was being essentially ‘turned off’ as a result of their overwhelm and paralysis. Flip forward nearly twenty years, and what is the state of our current civilization? Thanks to the Egyptian, Libyan, and other middle eastern people, we’re all waking up – and remembering the power, innate in all of Continue Reading
The Solution – Applying Our Brilliance to a Larger World View
Firstly, we have to care enough to change. We could, of course, let the natural world collapse beneath us and around us, and witness ourselves suddenly slip away - like watching our own mass death. (Who would want this?) Or we can have faith in ourselves. We can – through our healing, individually and collectively – rediscover our self-empowerment, tasting the exciting energy of possibility Continue Reading