Living and Loving Contrast

A concept I have come to embrace from Abraham-Hicks is the idea of contrast. Contrast is the stuff you don’t like, the negativity you feel when life isn’t going your way. Usually, if you sit with it for a little bit, you will soften and accept, grow and expand. Sometimes you just won’t!

I was walking on the beach and hit a sticky spot, sharp hard shells in every direction. I was trying to find the nice soft sand I had been enjoying but it was all behind me and would take me in the wrong direction. I braced myself, tip toed through the mean shells until I found relief in the welcoming soft sand. What relief!

Without the shells, would I have noticed how loving and comfy the loose, soft sand was? I doubt it. I expect I would have taken it for granted, as we do most things in our experience. So I appreciate my journey through the shells, they provided the contrast to know and appreciate a gentler path.

The Abundance Shell Game

Twice while walking the beach in recent weeks, I have found beautiful, sculptural conch shells. Each time I found one, it felt as if I had found a very precious gift, because there are very few to be found on a typical day.

For the past month, I have been a dedicated student of Abraham-Hicks, The Law of Attraction, and am enjoying the meditation recordings immensely. I recently downloaded the mobile app and use it during my walking meditations on the beach.

Today is a fabulous beach day, full sunshine, nice breeze, a little brisk so bundling is recommended. I decided to commit to a pier to pier walk/meditation. I am not sure on the mileage, but it is at least an hour walk at a good pace.

A few minutes into my walk, I found a small portion of a conch shell, just the inner spiral, but pretty, so I pocketed it. A few minutes later, still listening to my abundance meditations, I found a larger , more complete shell, marveling at my luck.

Enjoying the waves, the birds, the people and the exercise, I stumbled upon a third shell. This was unprecedented,and I laughed aloud, marveling at my shell abundance. And then a fourth shell gleamed in the surf, I thought oh, wow, now I am just getting greedy.

I was ready to walk past it and a thought popped in my head, perhaps this was a limiting belief? That I could only have so much, and then I needed to be done? So I picked the shell up, put it in my pocket with the rest of my haul and continued on my way.

Then I decided to play a game with myself, valuing each shell I found at $1million. And immediately felt an anxious pang in my gut, now that I had monetized the shells, I feared i wouldn’t find any more. So I went back to the thought of finding as many as possible to maximize my immediate shell abundance.

With two pockets overflowing with shells by the end of my walk, I was almost giddy with the embarrassment of my riches. I had actually left two less attractive shells on the beach, no more capacity to carry, and ok with leaving some treasures for others to find.

What I enjoyed most about this shell game of abundance that I played with myself is that I had no resistance to the shells themselves. I didn’t ‘t have a back story about how there aren’t enough shells for everyone, that I didn’t deserve any more shells, or that all the good shells are taken. I just felt new glee with each shell I discovered and thanked the universe for her eternal abundance.

Today I will view all aspects of abundance in my life with the same innocent glee as conch shells.

Center of Attention

I took a new turn on my walk this morning, and found myself on the end of a pier, overlooking the ocean.

It is a cool, windy day so immediately my attention latched onto the incoming waves. With complete focus, I watched each wave come in and go out, relaxing into the space of mindfulness and meditation.

It was about 10 minutes into this contemplation that my eyes drifted beyond to the widening, quieter waters that extended as far as the eye could see. The vast expanse was awe inspiring and brought a chill up my spine.

It was then that I realized how often I do that in my daily life, focus on the waves which are busy putting on the show and forgetting the peacefulness that is available just beyond, still within reach, perhaps not as flamboyant and exciting, but also deeper, more transforming and expansive.

Today I will reach beyond the waves to the vast expanse of possibility.

The permanence of the ocean

Walking on the beach this morning, it occurred to me, as transient and ever changing as the ocean is, it is also incredibly permanent. Living as I do in a constant state of flux, it provides a restorative underpinning to see that paradox is the essence of all things. The waves may flow in and slide out, but the fabric of the sea remains intact.

Just so, my life continues to ebb and flow in new patterns and combinations; but at my essence I am the newborn soul arriving 45 years ago to have this experience.

A 3 Part Business Model

Are you the kayak, the paddle or the paddler?

An image came to me while I was in yoga the other day of a kayak and it explained why some business models can get too complicated for small business owners.

Before I go any further, think for a minute… which would you prefer to be? The Kayak? The Paddle? The Paddler? Don’t think too hard on this, go with your gut.

Ok, here is why this is important.

The Kayak is your platform.  It is the vehicle that gets you moving.  In a business model, it is the services or products, whatever it is that delivers value and drives revenue.

The Paddle is your locomotion.  It is the propeller that drives you forward.  Or think of it as sales, marketing, networking, word of mouth, distribution….whatever the mechanisms are that get your kayak into market.

The Paddler is, of course, you.  It is the leadership, the decision maker, the strategist.

What happens for most small businesses is that they are trying to be all three all the time.

A nip on the lip

Otherwise described as “pay attention”.

Sometimes i can get so caught up in the busyiness of doing for the sake of doing, I forget how important the why is.

This week, it took a nip on the lip to recalibrate my doing into being.

Faced with probably the smallest of flesh wounds it would require to get my attention, I was forced to look within and decide how important my current project and efforts are to me and my future.

I had to make a decision that my face marred with a fat lip and stitches would not deter me from flying to Wisconsin and participating on a panel to speak on the value of mobile technology in fundraising. It could not prevent me from fulfilling a commitment to a wonderful client and new friend. And it would not stop the progress of the efforts my business partner is so diligently putting forth. I would not be deterred from making new connections even if i wasn’t at my prettiest or perhaps would not make my best first impressions ever.

My dog taking a small chunk out of my lip 12 hours before I needed to board a flight is not the ideal way to get a wake up call, but it was enough to remind me of what is important and why I need to have faith, hold the vision and the why as we strike out in this new adventure.

The Invention of Ideas

I have lots of ideas, all day long thoughts pop into my head, good ideas, bad ideas, ideas that are embarrassingly stupid, ideas that need to be left in the genie’s bottle and once in awhile, ideas that you know just need a little polish to become gems. The difference between all these ideas is that some are turned into action and others are left to float away into the ether.

The deciding factor? Filtering these ideas through my hard earned wisdom and the wisdom of my network. Exploring which of these multitudes of ideas will work and which will take me off target. Which ideas will take way too long to implement and which ones are Eureka! moments, gifts from the heavens? There are no guarantees, but self-trust, personal awareness and very candid friends go a long way in this filtering process.

I’ve been thinking alot about ideas and inventions because I just left a job where they are very concerned about the creation of ideas, claiming those ideas and protecting those ideas from others. The extreme opposite of open source or the very open principles of social media. In today’s world of Wiki and interconnectedness; pretty much a lost cause, but I digress.

When you work for someone else, in an ideal world, they have hired you for both your brilliant ideas and the accumulated wisdom to filter through those ideas. And for as long as that works well, you feel energized and excited to see your ideas come to fruition and deliver results. Clearly you are trading your ideas for resources that you do not have yourself, or you would do it yourself; maybe those resources are time, skills, money, energy or focus. You are trading your ideas for compensation instead.

The difficulty lies when your wisdom is no longer valued. While your ideas might still be harvested, your insight isn’t applied. You know that is the time to move on.

But ownership of those ideas? I would argue that once wisdom has left the building, ideas left behind have a very limited shelf-life. And as goes the wisdom, so goes the new ideas, which may look similar to those old gems, but are being created in the next moment, as with new experiences and insights come new inventions.

The Original Hell’s Kitchen

I had a recent work incident that reminded me of an episode that happened while I was in college, working during the summer at a seafood restaurant in Ocean City, MD. I was a waitress, working at Phillips Crabhouse with 200+ other college students. The restaurant we worked at was very popular, with a line around the building most weekends during the summer. I am the first to admit that I wasn’t a very good waitress, I was unfamiliar with the art of fine dining and didn’t always make sure that appetizers arrived before the main course was served. Sometimes I forgot the drinks and even the bill could take me a good amount of time to get to. But I was very much aware of the quality of food, be it that the steamed food was hot, the rolls soft or the drinks icy. So when I realized I had delivered a burnt fried chicken children’s meal to my table, I was very concerned and returned to the kitchen to order a fresh plate. Because they served the waitstaff fried chicken as lunch and dinner at the restaurant, I can’t say I held the value of chicken in huge regard and so I casually threw out the burnt chicken as I returned to the cook line to order a new plate.

As I picked up the new dish, the cook asked me to return the burnt chicken to him, I guess concerned that I might steal a plate of food. I told him I had already thrown it out. He (in not a very nice way) told me I needed to get the chicken back to him. Each time he saw me come through the kitchen, he’d tell me he wanted that chicken. Finally, fully exasperated by his nagging, I dug the chicken out of the trash can, now buried under lots of other table rubbish. Without thinking of the consquences, fully engrossed in my own rage, I threw the chicken at the cook, and included a very colorful explicative about him and the chicken.

The next time I walked through the kitchen, my next ticket was refused, and the cook pointed at the chalkboard, that included my waitress name “Marva” under the label “86″ which in the restaurant world means “out of” or “no longer available”. Hence, my ability to deliver food to my tables was no longer possible, unless I was willing to walk a city block to the next kitchen, where hopefully, they hadn’t gotten word of the insult. (In today’s world of smartphones and text, I would have been shut down, no doubt!).

I finished the evening as best I could and went home fuming. But everytime I tried to enlist the sympathies of my friends and co-workers, they would shake their heads knowingly, and say ” I can’t believe you threw chicken at Ronnie…”. Being the stubborn person I am, for three days I refused to apologize, believing strongly that I was the offended party in this kitchen soap opera, what could be considered the original Hell’s Kitchen episode.

But the long treks across the city block restaurant to a kitchen that would serve me proved too much for me and I finally approached Ronnie with a white flag. I apologized for throwing the chicken at him and explained that I was very sorry for being disrespectful with my language. He was kind enough about accepting my apology and erased “Marva” from the 86 Board that day. At the end of dinner service, as I was making “lemons” (a nightly ritual where you picked through old lemons and cut new ones, leaving your fingers pickled) Ronnie came over with a lump crab sautee and offered it to me. This was about the hugest luxury you could enjoy at the seafood restaurant, and I recognized it for what it was, a peace offering. From that night on, I had my access to pretty much anything on the menu for my own enjoyment, and I had a personal protector, someone who had my back no matter what. So from anger and chaos, we built friendship and trust.

Fast forward to earlier this week. Without meaning to, with only the best intentions of doing the best for my customer, I have completely alienated a co-worker, someone who “cooks the food” so to speak, inside of my organization. We are still at the stage where if we had an 86 board at the office, my name would be on it. And so that brings me to tomorrow-Monday and the realization that I will need to make peace and extend the olive branch to this person. I can only hope that things will turn out as well as they did 25 years ago in Hell’s Kitchen.

Easy Shifts from Seeing Red and Feeling Blue to Living the Rainbow of Possibility

Easy Shifts from Seeing Red and Feeling Blue to Living the Rainbow of Possibility

Click here to listen to the interview!
“Just calm down!” Do those three little words affect you in the same way as waving a red flag in front of a raging bull? Do you find it is virtually impossible to settle down after you have experienced rising emotions in the heat of the moment? Do you sometimes wake up on the wrong side of the bed and then find yourself in a funk that lasts a week and drags your loved ones down with you?

There is a perfectly good explanation for why women find it so difficult to shift gears and release our negative, harmful and escalating emotions. These perfectly normal and human responses are directly related to our physiology, hormones and emotional management skills. Read on to learn specific easy-to-use techniques to release negative emotions and move forward in a proactive and healthy manner.

Q: Tell me about the concept of Coherence and emotional management.

A: Coherence is the state of optimal synchronization between the heart, brain and nervous system. Coherence is a measurable physiological state that can be felt physically and emotionally. Over time, regular practice to sustain coherence enhances your ability to enter and perform to your peak capability on demand.

Q: If Coherence is a physiological state, what does that look like?

A: “Negative” emotions, such as frustration, cause chaotic heart rhythms – part of a physically harmful chain reaction leading to inhibition of the cortex. If you saw it on a graph, it would look like a jagged mountain range.

Positive emotion, such as appreciation, creates smooth coherent heart rhythms and a beneficial chain reaction resulting in cortical facilitation. A graph would look like an even sine wave, very organized and even above and below the line.

Q: How are the heart and brain involved in all this?

A: The incoherent pattern inhibits cortical function and promotes inefficient thinking, reactive, judgmental responses, while we are “under the influence” we are only able to repeat past behaviors as stored in the Amygdala (our reptile brain). Picture a pathway from the heart to the Amygdala to the Medulla, which regulates our Blood pressure and ANS, so if we are reliving a bad experience, those emotions are sent to the Medulla to tell the body how to respond. In contrast, a coherent pattern facilitates cortical function and motor skills which increases clarity of thought, innovative problem solving, and creativity. So the coherence pathway goes to the Medulla, which regulates our Blood pressure and ANS, then moves to Thalamus which synchronizes cortical activity and finally to the Cortex or the Thinking Brain. You can think of it as the Amygdala lives via hindsight (negative emotion) and the Cortex lends us foresight (positive emotion).

Q: Tell me more about our physiology and emotions.

A: Our ANS regulates our heart rate, blood pressure and overall physical state. When adrenaline is released into our system, we experience a heightened heart rate. It is when we layer emotion onto our physiology and then experience either anger, joy, depression or peace. If we experience a negative emotion, cortisol is released into our system. Cortisol is a hormone and has a half-life of 12 hours in our system, so once we “take our medicine” we feel it for an extended period of time. If we experience a positive emotion, DHEA is released into our system and we experience the DHEA high for approx. 12 hours.

For example, perhaps a spouse says something hurtful. First adrenaline is released, and we feel Anger building up. Then the hormone cortisol follows, placing us firmly in our heightened state of anger and “seeing red.” This is why when someone tells us to “calm down” we become even angrier. It is physiologically impossible to change our ANS at this point. We have to give the hormones a chance to actually leave our bodies. Our only hope is to find a way to “insert” DHEA into our system. DHEA is the anti-aging hormone, which acts as a brake to Cortisol’s gas pedal. It is how we can balance our emotions and stay more balanced.

Q: So how would we respond to the directive “just calm down”?

A: Recognizing that we can’t change our physiology and calm down in the blink of an eye, we need to look for another solution. This solution involves shifting our emotional state to release DHEA into our system. This means shifting from a negative to a positive emotion. So perhaps from anger, we can move to challenge, or opportunity. This has to be a purposeful choice.

Q: It sounds so easy to say, but how do you recommend someone make this shift?

A: So first, we need to find a way to create space in our response. If we can’t find a delay in our emotional response, we will never get off the incoherence rollercoaster and we will be stuck in the red and blue spectrum of emotions. The rainbow of emotions will never be available to us in a proactive way. In the case of “seeing red” we have to know that we are actually experiencing adrenaline and take time to breath. Literally breath. The longer, deeper breaths we take, the better. This might involve a very deep belly breath and a very long exhale. The next step is to actually put our hand on our heart. The heart is the brain to our physiology and by reconnecting with the heart, we reset our system. The final step is to find a moment of gratitude or appreciation. It can be about anything, I keep a picture of my dog on my iPhone to remind me to smile and feel love. But it might be your toddler, your husband, your favorite hideaway, a peak moment or even a sunset at the beach. Anything that will help you shift to a positive emotion.

Try to actually live in that emotion, while breathing and feeling connected to your heart. Try to stay here for a couple of minutes. You should start to feel better. If not, stay here longer.

Q: I usually go for a run or take a yoga class when I am not in a good mood, that seems to help. Can’t I just do that?

A: That is an awesome way to release stress and shift emotions. As a pilates and yoga teacher, I am very much a proponent of physical fitness and health. The problem is carving out the space and time to get a workout in. This technique is a little more available “in the moment” and is a tool that can be used anywhere, anytime.

Q: What benefits can I expect if I were to practice this technique?

A: Regular connection to heart, breath and emotion allows you to experienced heightened mental clarity, increased physical energy, focused concentration, a sense of inner control, enhanced optimism and more creativity.

Create a daily practice that works for you:

• Take deep breaths before responding to stressful news, important emails or phone calls.
• Smile & feel excited before starting a task or beginning a project.
• Appreciate and enjoy the experience of connecting with others.
• Visualize & articulate a successful result.
• Write a gratitude list each day.
• When faced with stress – breath, focus into heart, choose to shift to Positive Emotion.

To learn more, you can contact me at smaravetz@essentialpath.com

Starting 2009 with Intention instead of Resolutions

I have been looking forward to January 1, 2009 for several weeks now. I planned to use this open day as my reset day.  A free day for me to clean,  dig out my desk, sort out email, pay my bills and cook some dishes for the week.   Looking for some background noise to keep me company, I turned on the TV, to find that WUNC had a Dr. Wayne Dyer program “The Power of Intention”.  I’ve read his book before, but hearing him talk is always inspiring.

So in addition to resetting the household, I am using the day to reset my intentions for 2009.  For me, intention means what is behind what I do? What is the reason? Why would I take that action? 

My intentions for 2009 include working from the space of service, ensuring that my time is being well used to help others.  Secondly, I want to work from a place of experience and expertise. What am I good at? What do I know? How can I share this with others?  And finally I intend to work from a place of cooperation and collaboration. How can I be adding to, not subtracting from or diminishing the value of those things that I am involved in?

So instead of thinking about your New Year’s Resolutions, perhaps you can think about your New Year’s Intention.  What is your deepest Intention?  What is the driver that moves you forward into 2009?

Happy New Year! With Intent, Susan