The Mechanics and the Mystery: A Best Year Yet

A year ago…

No. It doesn’t begin there.

When you sit and process your own existence can you actually point to a clear beginning to anything that is meaningful? Or does most everything feel as if it’s a continuation of something?

I joined a program called Best Year Yet on March 29, 2015. March 29, 2015 is the date of when my plan started according to the tracking system it is connected to.

I met the now CEO of Best Year Yet a year ago in September.

Several years prior to that I chose to ‘leave’ the concept of a traditional role of a mental health provider in schools.

I suppose the point I am offering is that our lives are not linear. Our lives are interconnected and there is a synchronicity to all existence and occurrences.

I recall a moment of significance where my own linear, finite mind began to see this deeper truth. I was taking a course at the Denver Family Institute. I assume the course was related somehow to Clinical Theory. The instructor drew a line that represented a person’s life. He drew a dot early on the line to represent a major life event. He said there are two different mindsets in treatment. One mindset is that this event that occurred is basically bad, and because it happened it unfortunately is going to negatively influence the rest of the person’s life. The second mindset was that the event was a circumstance in the person’s experience of life. One of many circumstances that are all interrelated. In other words, our experience of life is not about having a list of the good and the bad. Our life experience is integrating all of it, the good and the bad.

Perspective.

Needless to say, there have been an interwoven series of circumstances that led me to meet Laurie Oswald, which led me to create my own BYY plan, and allowed me to be coached by Cathey Stamps.

I am now an individual coach for the program and just completed training in group facilitation.

It is an interesting mix to utilize a particular (external) guidance system for personal growth (ie. Best Year Yet) that proves to be as organic, interwoven, and subject to change as this universe we live in; and then concurrently facilitate the process, which is relatively concrete, as a guide for others.

The integration of a systematic process with an undefinable, limitless outcome is not unlike our fundamental experience of life. The weaving together of masculine and feminine energies, or the integration of the right and left sides of the brain.

Most of us live closely connected and loyal to one or the other - we are unapologetically organized and expectant of particular outcomes, or we are unapologetically doing our best to not follow order and a particular sequence of how things are supposed to be.

What if the grand lesson of this life experience is really to integrate all of it, to genuinely recognize the beauty of order and supremely organized systems that govern our existence with or without our awareness, along with the unknown - the magic, the mystery, the possibilities.

At the training this week, Laurie Oswald read a quote in regard to the blending of spirit and technology.

A blending.

Integrated.

Whole.

Can Best Year Yet actually allow us to create meaningful guidelines for our lives based on lessons that are derived from personal experience? Can Best Year Yet actually offer a process to recognize and intentionally shift deeply embedded beliefs that are inefficiently guiding us toward limiting outcomes, and create new paradigms that shift our subconscious programming and align us with possibility, inspiration, and creativity? Can Best Year Yet effectively draw out our truth, what we value most, and then embed these true convictions and desires with our various roles, to create authentic and aligned outcomes (goals) that reconnect us to passion, intuition, and a relationship with our own internal guidance system?

Can Best Year Yet do this with a simple one page plan?

Seriously, what if we all created and pursued our authentic desire of a BEST year YET?

And had a system for monthly goal setting and tracking to hold us accountable?

It would be AWESOME.

And it is possible.

Best Year Yet

Consciously Healthy

Oh Gawd....here we go again. Another post prompted by suicide. I just read an article in Colorado magazine 5280: How can we lower Colorado's high suicide rate? A courageous article to write. As I attempted to sit in my morning meditation AFTER reading the article (fyi: it's best to sit in stillness first), I couldn't stop ideas, memories, and thoughts in reflection to the information presented in the article.

Two ideas were prominent.

1. I recall a Jerry McGuire moment that I had after a suicide completion at the school I was working at at the time. "We have to sell life!" - was my message. I know I was at the precipice of leaving the school as I was so drawn to teaching skills rather than doing, what felt like, multifarious (thesaurus...sounded better than multiple) suicide and risk assessments.

It seemed so dark and empty. It is dark and empty. However, that feeling needs to be validated. When a person is considering suicide, they really do want to get out. They want to escape the pain. It's a feeling that should be validated rather than overlooked.

For myself, a person who is predisposed to depression, I get ambushed by the other's sadness when I sit with them. Over the long haul it proved to be detrimental to my own well-being. What enhanced my well-being was teaching skills to children, the teachable skills of Kindness, Compassion, and Belonging; and using Mindfulness to tap into the inherent felt source of inspiration, creativity, and possibility that lives inside of them.

2. I am reminded of a saying that goes something like this: "To be well-adjusted to a sick society is not a sign of health." This is not to say that all of us should present with behavior that is considered to be maladjusted. It is to say that we can benefit our health as a society if we step back and look at it from time to time.

I haven't had a TV for over three years and when I come across the news in various settings (ie. oil lube waiting areas) it literally causes stomach upset and a desperate need to tune it out and leave the area if possible.

Another more recent moment of mind boggling awareness was at a staff meeting at a school. An hour meeting on school safety where the majority was spent on lock downs in the event of a dangerous person in the school that wants to do harm to CHILDREN!!!!!!!!! When you sit at these meetings and take yourself out of your role and look at the reality of what you are part of, it is sickening that this is what is 'normal'.

It's not that we shouldn't be concerned about safety precautions. What is concerning is the fucked up ways of being that have been integrated into our way of existing, subconsciously (would we really allow this consciously?) normalized and accepted; as opposed to thoughtfully examining these 'ways of being' and intentionally choosing to stand in opposition to accepting with a shrug of the shoulders saying 'it's just the way it is'. I choose to believe that we can return to a society that does not have live shooter drills in schools. I have to believe in this for my own sanity.

Let's read the saying one more time: "To be well-adjusted to a sick society is not a sign of health."

Watch this. It's Jim Carrey. It's short. It's inspiring.

Living in the Flow

I feel as if I had a cool epiphany this morning and I desire to share it in the most simplistic way. I copied three statements from my previous blog, Best. Year. Yet., and I'll offer simple ideas to build on them in a personal way. I suppose 'simple' is a relative term. Take your time...deep breath...here we go:

"Effective programs in personal development all seem to be based on the natural laws of the universe. Brilliant. These laws are in effect whether or not we choose to have awareness of them or not."

So for this blog post and for simplicity sake, let's refer to what is often named 'God' as the energy of pure potentiality that is pervasive throughout all life. That idea seems to be most inclusive for all existence. Let's assume that that energy is one of unconditional 'love' (another word used to define something we feel and experience within, rather than find or touch or speak - a feeling of expansion, light, and flow). So let's say that the energy of pure potentiality is a mystery and is as empty as it is full. Now let's examine existence as we may think we know it. To exist, 'life' is governed by principles or laws that are always at work. Period. So...maybe an example would be that water turns into ice at a certain temperature, whether or not it becomes a potentially dangerous iceberg or an icecube to refresh a glass of water. The point is that these laws are indendent of our concepts of good and bad. So knowing these laws and becoming aligned with these laws can align us all with 'peace' (assuming that is our collective desire) or flow within that will then reflect or be projected externally.

Since I am no scientist, let's just use one simple law that we all know: cause and effect. Imagine drawing a circle and insert the word cause on one side and the word effect on the other side, adding arrows that demonstrate that cause leads to effect and effect leads to cause, showing a continuous cycle. I'm no graphic artist either otherwise I would show you what I am envisioning! 

So this makes sense as far as stimulus and response like Pavlov's dog. In that example, we can see how habitual patterns get programmed into our subconscious. Stimulus can be anything, yet to my mind we react to our sensory perception of 'said' stimulus. For example, we can assume that a stimulus is a person maybe, yet the person is causing a sensory experience or felt sense that our cells or nervous system is reacting to (our internal physiology does not know the person anymore than the message the nervous system is receiving from the sensory experience of that person). 

When we talk about mindfulness or meditation, the practice helps us slow down and align mind, body, and spirit so that we can recognize the patterns that have been created, and undo false belief systems, paradigms/mindsets that are contributing to limited thinking patterns keeping us from our fullest expression of who we are here to be. If you think of yourself (originally) as a seed you could consider the conditions of the mind that are either helping or limiting growth and full expression. 

You may have heard a saying like,"change your thoughts, change your life". So that would be getting aligned with this law and changing thoughts as stimulus to change the effect. 

Okay...this was my aha moment this morning: create the effect, or the desired feeling, which in turn would change the 'cause' or the external experience or stimulus. Does that make sense? This is a real typical skill in personal development, visualization. Effective visualization is really centering oneself and creating the feeling, the sounds, the images, of the desired effect. So this is not a new concept, I just never saw the deeper connection to the law of cause and effect. Personally, I focused on noticing the 'cause' and allowing for a space, and then changing the cause (a limited belief perhaps) to 'feel' better. In this example, my awareness or my focus is not fully on the effect...even though that's what my desire is: to feel open and free, to live authentically. This brings us to intention...

"Another word you hear a lot in personal development is (the) setting (of) an ‘intention’. When we intentionally align with these laws we align with the energy flow that is always available, yet often and unknowingly, we are living in resistance to it."

Are you getting it? When we intentionally bring our awareness or focus onto the 'effect' we desire: ex.what does feeling good look like? (create the image in your mind)...what does feeling good feel like? (create the feeling or sensation - get it? our nervous system responds to sensory input)...what does it sound like? (create or notice sounds that feel good - or feel open, free, expansive, light - which is why music can be such a healing and joyful experience as it is a felt experience and our nervous system responds accordingly). Again, when we intentionally bring our awareness or focus onto the 'effect' we desire, we co create the 'cause' or what is happening. The key here is to not be attached to the outcome. Have you heard the saying, "you come up with the 'what' and allow the universe to come up with the 'how' "? Or in this example, come up with the desired outcome which in all cases can be broken down into a felt experience: desire a new car? what felt experience are you anticipating with that new car? focus on that. Want to win? what felt experience does winning give you? focus on that. Desire to fall in love? Rather than attaching to a specific person or type of person, focus on the feeling you desire and create the 'effect' and be open to the 'cause'. This concept is based on trust, not doubt.

"One of the lessons BYY teaches is the principled teaching of action and attitude. When our behavior matches our truest desire we align with the natural flow of life."

Would this concept of action and attitude be a 'principled teaching' because it is exactly aligned with the law of cause and effect? And when we intentionally align with the law, then we are living in the flow of the energy of pure potentiality and therefore are the co creators of our inner experience, which dictates external experience - or the experience of external experience. External experience will always include the range or spectrum of the human experience. Things happen. Our experience of the 'things' that happen is different when we are the observer of the human condition and can live in a reflective space as opposed to assuming one is the external experience and feeling as if 'things' are happening to us, having no control of our own. Living in the external experience creates fear, whereas living from the internal experience is (true) love or flow.


Lastly, action is movement. Flow is movement. To create anything evokes action or movement. I'm going to risk contradicting myself, yet one can desire an outcome without being attached to it. Right? Do you know what you are moving toward?

bestyearyet.com

Best. Year. Yet.

Three years ago I am fairly certain I was having an existential crisis. It wasn't so much that I was unhappy as I was so unsettled internally. The 'voice in my head' was incessant. I felt as though I was doing the things I was supposed to do to some extent; oddly, I would get up early to run, and in the peace and quiet of dawn, the voice was the loudest. In hindsight, I can see how that time was the turning point to living a life that I was being pulled toward rather than being pushed by. Three years and many creative efforts later I have been lead to Best Year Yet. BYY could be considered old school, but that would be like saying Yoga is old school. Is a centuries old practice that is relevant and life changing considered old school? Effective programs in personal development all seem to be based on the natural laws of the universe. Brilliant. These laws are in effect whether or not we choose to have awareness of them or not. Stephen Covey and Deepak Chopra continually reference these laws. Another word you hear a lot in personal development is setting an ‘intention’. When we use 'intention' to align with these laws we align with the energy flow that is always available, yet often and unknowingly, we are living in resistance to it. I was so skeptical of a simple goal setting program to be of value. Although, being ‘pulled’ I met Laurie Oswald on a walk and was introduced to the program. That introduction lead to being coached through the program by Cathey Stamps. The magic of a time-tested, principled-based program was unmistakeable. All of the creativity and desire that I prided myself on was suddenly channeled into a one page plan. It was as if my ideas all of a sudden had a simple step by step recipe. One of the lessons BYY teaches is the principled teaching of action and attitude. When our behavior matches our truest desire we align with the natural flow of life. BYY founder, Jinny Ditzler, refers to this as living a 'results driven' life. Like Google, we can 'Search Inside Our Self'....then what?

bestyearyet.com

Peace: Inside - Out

Wow.

I just listened to an 8 minute video by Seane Corn. I registered for an online conference called 'Yoga is...' and this was a promotional video on the topic, 'How to deal with limiting beliefs and the tools you can use to release them.'

Here are some 'peaces' of her talk (ha):

If I want peace to be made manifest on a national or global level, then I have to recognize the ways in which I am not actually engaging peacefully in my own life.

The activist's role or quest is to take accountability to recognize the ways in which we are complicit in perpetuating separation...and healing those perspectives in ourselves so that when we look at the world, we are able to engage in a way that is more spiritually literate, and actually make a difference...not by telling our leaders how they need to change, but actually stepping into roles of leadership ourselves and from the inside-out helping to develop policy that puts humanity first.

We have to recognize the ways that we participate in creating continued separation and have the hard conversations around race, class, sex, gender, ageism, ableism...all of that.

If we're not looking at that within ourselves, (asking): 'What have (I) learned? What do (I) believe? How was that indoctrinated within (my) body-mind? How did I pick up information based on my culture, my education, my religion, my ancestry... the system that influences the way I see the 'other' as different?

When I can take accountability and sit with it in my own body... (and) choose to learn about some of these perceptions that are oppressive, and choose not to enact that oppression onto an 'other'..., then maybe peace wouldn't just be possible, but perhaps it would be inevitable. 

The individual influences the collective, the collective is what makes up the systems, the 'systems' is what needs to be changed, because very often our systems are what are creating these continued levels of oppression that create such a huge divide amongst human beings based on things like color, like religion, like gender, like sexuality.

And so the true spiritual activist doesn't just point that finger outward, but looks at the other three fingers pointing inward at themselves and says 'let me do my work' and simultaneously look at the world around us and say 'how do I make a change' by the ways in which I engage from a place of love, compassion, empathy,...and be willing to use my voice as a way that empowers not just me and my own limited experience, but all beings. 

Um...
that's all I wanted to share (emoticon).

Desire. A Weekend Rant.

‘Whatever else we are, no matter how much of a mess we may have made of our lives, it is always possible to tap into the part of the soul that is universal, the infinite field of pure potential, and change the course of our destiny.’

I stumbled upon the book, 'The Spontaneous Fulfillment of Desire' (for obvious reasons) as I was loitering in one of the used book sections at Tattered Cover on Colfax. It was no coincidence that I was having a spontaneous moment of desire when I found it - ha.

Anyway, the book is 'connecting dots' in many ways for me - but when I read this above quote I ripped the bottom corner of the page to be certain I wouldn't forget where I read it.

I work with kids and I want to know this statement is true because it makes sense as to why I would even show up to do this 'job' I have. What's more - I want it for myself. For a person to think that their job with children is to teach them what's true and right because you have it mastered, is a set up for perpetual failure and reinforcement of all things that are so grossly incongruent with what we know as truth when we allow ourselves to be okay with a deeper space of unknowing (which oddly - or not oddly at all - seems to be the space where we know).

That was a mouthful. I think it might have something to do with being open to the humility of true humanity - when we surrender to not knowing...we somehow know.

In almost any moment it seems we have this incredible opportunity to explore our inner world. To do this we would have to access a certain stillness. If up to 95% of our conditioned patterns of behavior are housed in the subconscious, and the subconscious is housed in the body (ie. not the brain/mind), it seems very unlikely that we could shift our external perceptions and create meaningful change without first allowing to intimately know ourselves from a deeper space within.

The more we look for external ways to access this inner relationship, the more disappointing it can become. Developing a trust in our own wisdom and intuition related to this inner experience will undoubtedly lead to the knowledge and understandings that truly resonate with our own uniqueness - and then somehow the expression of that uniqueness mysteriously contributes to this interconnected web of all meaning and truth.

Who am I to say such things? 
Hm. Not sure.
The motivation to say such things is to stop the non-sensical repetition of a life script where we are largely pitted against one another, and most sadly, against our 'self'.
If you ask anyone what they truly desire my guess is the answer would be a variation of the word 'happy.'
What is our greatest resource?
Human potential.
Where is it located?
Most likely not outside of the 'self.'

The Space Between Cause and Effect

For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction.
And then for that reaction there is an action.
And it goes on and on.

So it seems that if we could intentionally shift our thoughts, feelings, and behavior to reflect what is 'good' we could conceivably create a different, or 'good' experience.

Sounds great.
Until we begin to learn how deeply embedded these 'actions' are in the subconscious.
Some scientists say up to 95% of our 'actions' (habits, patterns of behavior) are rooted in the subconscious.

And then scientists start talking about this thing called Epigenetics, which seems to be demonstrating that these subconscious beliefs that drive our habitual responses can be linked back to our ancestry up to seven generations.

So is the question we need to ask: How do we access and undo our subconscious patterning?

A suggestion may be to start by noticing the space between cause and effect.

With students or others that I have talked to about this, I seem to begin by putting my hands together in front of my face. I say something like, 'This is you and your anger." They are enmeshed, no space between the two. In this example the person's identity is linked to anger. Cause and effect are one. Healing, or undoing, is only available in the present moment. Bringing focus to the breath can have this magical quality of present moment experience - linking mind and body.

To simplify a method to create this 'space' between cause and effect, it seems that it would have to begin with belief. A belief in 'something more', a belief that there is a way out. As with my own experience of depression, I remember a moment that I believe to be pivotal in finding the way to freedom. I recall sitting with 'it' and coming to a conclusion that this was my reality and I had to find a way to live with it. Had I not been sitting in the depression in the midst of graduate school, I most likely would have assumed that the clinical explanations in books was the only answer (often a combination of medication and talk therapy - and this is trite because there were other methods available, but in my experience and limited mind capacity at the time I was only drawn to what seemed to make sense according to what I knew).

The experience of depression allowed (forced) me to connect eventually to an inner experience of what was going on. At that moment of (almost) submission, was when I chose to feel good. I knew that I had these amazing, clear moments where I felt that anything was possible and I could do anything - and I knew those brief, inspiring moments were genuine and authentic, not a response to a particular event or activity. I chose (and this was completely on my own, I wasn't reading and understanding all these amazing ideas and insights that I have access to today) to believe that if I had that clarity and peace in the brief and fleeting spaces, then I could invert my experience: I could live from the space of clarity and peace, and perhaps now and then enter the sadness as a fleeting experience.

What begins with belief that 'it' can happen, then needs to become desire - creating an enthusiasm about finding the answers. What motivated my desire to 'feel good' was that if I could figure it out, then I could help others (particularly the teenagers that I had worked with and were so close to my heart).

Depression has a way of stripping you bare of all the external, tangible resources you think are certain to help - or the 'if only' external circumstances that would 'change everything'. Depression pushes you to the edge of a cliff and forces you to scream out and grasp onto the only thing available - faith...a knowing that not knowing is okay. Faith is not found outside of you. Faith can only be attained from within, and then its limitlessness expands beyond you.

Belief attached to desire and enthusiasm, entered into stillness (the present moment), can create that tiniest space between cause and effect. In my experience, I began to notice and observe the sadness as opposed to 'being' the sadness. Going back to my initial example of my hands clasped together, now they separate just the slightest bit. A space is created by expansion. Light enters. Now there is room to flow.

Love = expansion, light, harmony. Now truth has been uncovered. 'Now' is when one's inner journey can begin.

I choose to believe that we don't have to uncover every subconscious part of us. Through belief, desire and enthusiasm, and intentional stillness we can undo the limiting patterns and begin to live in a way that is linked to our 'highest and best'. When we connect to this feeling of expansion, light, and harmony we radiate what is 'good' from the core of our being. Old patterns disintegrate and new patterns emerge that 'feel good'.

We're strange allies
With warring hearts
What wild-eyed beast you be
The Space Between
The wicked lies we tell
And hope to keep safe from the pain
- Dave Matthews 'The Space Between'

I took this next quote from Brian Johnson, creator of EnTheos - promoting Optimal Living. I deleted the post...but you could check out his 'Big Ideas' here: http://www.entheos.com/

“All of this is already in you. The great use it. The non-great do not, so they remain the non-great. Decide upon some thing, situation, or condition that you want right now in your present life. Be definite in this decision. Do not limit your decision by investigating the probable reasons why it will never happen. That is the detour to nothing. All false speculations of defeat have to be ruled out of your consciousness. If they enter into the decision for even a fleeting moment, the decision is robbed of authority and the subconscious mind cannot act upon it. You do not need to know how the final result will come to pass. That is the function of the subconscious. It has ways and means that, if they were known, would stagger the intellect.” ~ Raymond Charles Barker from The Power of Decision