Posts Tagged ‘Uncertainty’
What Is the Call of Your Heart?
Wednesday, April 25th, 2018
How can we slow down long enough to hear our own heart?
How do we return to our wild, untamed selves?
How do we make plans and stay open to serendipity?
How do we sit in uncertainty and trust that the universe will provide?
These are just some of the questions I sat with during a recent meditation. I started my meditation by taking conscious breaths. I breathed into my heart center until it expanded more and more. With each exhale, I could hear the question, “What does my Being want today?”
I listened with my whole body. I took longer pauses and was willing to sit in the quiet. I had to let go of the noise that normally fills my day. I stopped my inner world and I noticed I wasn’t as busy as I once believed. As I sat in the emptiness, emotions rose and connections to myself deepened. My meditation was a reminder to release old ways and to be open to new routines.
My invitation to you is to break some routines. Take a new path to work. Try a new food. Do something unfamiliar. Listen more.
All this inner work has allowed me to expand and co-create in new ways. I have emerged from my time in stillness with incredible meditations that I will be sharing at the upcoming Wild Cosmic Heart Retreat in Hawaii at Kalani Retreat Center, November 4 – 10, 2018.
What is the call of your heart?
Why not try something new and join us on the Big Island for the Wild Cosmic Heart Retreat at Kalani and enjoy some magnificent tropical beauty while you explore your wild, untamed heart.
Leave the Nest of Certainty
Thursday, November 3rd, 2016
I’d rather live my dreams scared than look back and say I did nothing afraid. ~Mary Anne Flanagan
In Pema Chödrön’s book, The Places That Scare You, she writes about the experience of leaving the nest. In an excerpt from the book Pema Chödrön’s writes, “All too frequently we relate like timid birds who don’t dare to leave the nest. Here we sit in a nest that’s getting pretty smelly and that hasn’t served its function for a very long time. No one is arriving to feed us. No one is protecting us and keeping us warm. And yet we keep hoping mother bird will arrive.
We could do ourselves the ultimate favor and finally get out of that nest. That this takes courage is obvious. That we could use some helpful hints is also clear. We may doubt that we’re up to being a warrior-in-training. But we can ask ourselves this question: “Do I prefer to grow up and relate to life directly, or do I choose to live and die in fear?”
I sat in meditation to listen to the message of leaving the nest:
Leave the nest of the past. Continue to remove the covering around your heart and fly farther out into the world. You have experienced tremendous heart expansion and have gifted it to others as well. You have chosen a path of self-love and awareness. Spread your wings to more people. Soar higher and trust that you have everything you need. Leave the nest – it’s time to leave the comfortable and fly into uncertainty. Continue to fly with vulnerability and engage the world with your whole heart – your wild, cosmic heart. Some may think you are crazy. You are – with love. You love so deeply, you want others to experience that within themselves. Show the world your deep laughter, your love of nature, and your willingness to do it afraid. Leave the nest of certainty. For what awaits is far more delightful.
Amen.
What Is Your Good Life Manifesto?
Tuesday, March 12th, 2013
About a year ago, I applied to be a part of the inaugural launching of the Good Life Project™ (GLP) with Jonathan Fields.
GLP is a movement. A set of shared values. A community. A creed, bundled with a voracious commitment to move beyond words and act. First, as a manifestation of your soul. And then as a quest to have the adventure of a lifetime, and to leave the world around you changed.
As soon as I read that description, I applied to be a part of the project. I made it to the interviewing round and had an amazing conversation with Jonathan Fields about bringing Toning the OM™ to the next level. I shared how I wanted to create more triZENbe communities (Zen Tribes). My goal was to create meaningful connections through inspiring (meditation) videos and global heart-centered workshops and conversations. After my interview, I received an acceptance email from Jonathan to participate in an intense 10-month program. I was one of 100 people who were accepted into GLP, but due to the financial cost, I wasn’t able to join the project, and had to decline.
After I let go of my deep disappointment of not being able to afford enrolling in the project, I celebrated the fact that I was part of a very small group of people that was accepted. And for a year, I have followed the Good Life Project™.
Another aspect of GLP is a weekly web-show hosted by Jonathan with “acclaimed entrepreneurs, artists, authors and thought leaders.” At the end of each interview, Jonathan asks, “What do you think makes a good life?”
As I still ponder my answer about what makes a good life, what has emerged for me is: love, connection, and service.
For me, a good life is all about having heart centered connections rooted in love and service. My good life focus is about co-creating experiences to slow down, opening my heart, remembering my true self, and living from that space.
Connections, love, and service are my way of living aware, awake, and alive. That is my good life-long project.
How about you? What is your good life maifesto?
What is your good life manifesto?
The Wild Territory of the Heart
Thursday, September 13th, 2012
I have noticed how listening to my heart has yielded some changes. Rather than reacting, I am responding. I am no longer saying yes when I really want to say no. And I am opening to people and work that has meaning. It’s a path of uncertainty that I am opening to more and more. I feel like I am in the wild territory of my heart. I am an adventurer in my own life, digging deeper, exploring the unknown. The exploration of my wild heart has me curious, scared, vulnerable, humbled, hopeful, and grateful. It’s a journey of the heart and I wouldn’t have it any other way.
And you? What is the wild territory of your heart saying to you?
As Pema Chödrön said in her book, The Wisdom of No Escape, “Wholeheartedness is a precious gift, but no one can actually give it to you. You have to find the path that has heart and then walk it impeccably….It’s like someone laughing in your ear, challenging you to figure out what to do when you don’t know what to do. It humbles you. It opens your heart.”
Lessons Learned from Uncertainty
Thursday, May 17th, 2012
I have been listening to the message of uncertainty lately. There is some uncertainty about some of my projects ending and where to grow in the next phase of my business. I have noticed that when I am in my head, I want immediate answers. And when I am in my heart, I allow the universe to show me where to go next. Blazing the next trail requires me to align my head and heart in both the knowing and unknowing parts of life.
And as always happens when I am open and willing to listen (without solving), the universe provides more clarity and a message. This time it came through my friend’s, Joe Monkman, blog post. He wrote this week:
“Are you open to believing that the next step awaits? Are you open to knowing that the path you have chosen is absolutely in line with your highest good? Are you open to continuing to forge what may seem to you and others to be an unusual path?
The unusual is calling. The extraordinary is beckoning. The road less traveled awaits.”
Yes, the unusual is calling me. I am certain of my uncertainty and open to seeing the next step that awaits. The road of more joy, growing edges, and bliss awaits me – for that I am certain!
Mary Anne
Failure That Matters
Tuesday, March 6th, 2012
The author and entrepreneur Jonathan Fields recently posted a blog, Why Failure Must Be on the Table, which describes the experiences of failures as gateways to opportunities. He writes, “Entrepreneurship–or any process that seeks to evolve the status quo–requires you to regularly test commonly held limits and beliefs. The natural outcome of this is that sometimes you’re right, other times you’re wrong. Either way, you never know until you get out of your head and take action in the world.
The potential not just for failure, but failure that matters, failure you feel, must be on the table. If it’s not, then what you’re setting out to do is either so safe or so devoid of the potential for impact that success might allow you to check a box on a piece of paper, but beyond that, nobody’ll care. Including you.”
We must know that what we are embarking on has the capacity to fail and yet give us as entrepreneur’s incredible lessons to grow and stretch. It’s the learning process and taking the leap that distinguishes the success stories to the stories that never get told. At times, it may feel like ‘a leap of faith’ but it brings us closer to the edges of our dreams. We push ourselves and do it afraid, because not doing it is more painful – and we fail ourselves.
Fields adds in his blog, “So, yes, living, acting and deciding to move forward in the face of potential failure isn’t easy. Especially when it requires you to go all in. And especially later in your lifecycle when you’ve got more on the line. To risk success in art, in business, in love, in life is, indeed, a bit terrifying.
But really, what’s the alternative?”
What is the alternative? Take the risk – and be willing to leap into failure that matters.
Mary Anne