-> guest blogger/writer

Making Bold Leaps

by

Very rarely in life do we encounter clear decisions points – two roads diverge. The majority of our decisions are slow arcs following trajectories we have set for ourselves. How, when we have the opportunity to make a marked shift – a bold leap, do we muster the determination to do it?

Extreme leaps of Parkour

Extreme leaps of Parkour

From experience with others and myself, I offer you one possibility:

Be clear about the benefits and consequences of both or all choices. When the choice you want is clear, image the future that this choice brings – what do you imagine it smells and looks like to be in that future?

Place yourself into the future, taking in through your five senses, the experience of it. How does it feel in your body? Did you shoulders settle? Did you shift into a more desirable state? Higher energy? Less tension? Experience it. Then, imagine accepting the consequences as worth the opportunity. Does it still feel vivid and viable?

Look back at where you are now and see the path emerging from that time of decision to the time of experiencing the rewards of the decision. Know that it is possible. And that, if it matters to you, a path will form.

Come back to the present moment of decision. Feel the imagined future pulling you toward it. You stand on the precipice of your future. Fall into it. Get a running start with small steps, if that helps,…and then let the gravity of the future vision pull you towards it. leap into your new path. A leap is part jump and part fall. Once you jump, the falling it effortless.

How have you made bold leaps? What have you learned about yourself? What bold leap will you take next?

Experiencing as…

by

Last winter I started playing a little game. Call it “I am the universe experiencing itself as…___”

It began after having an awakening where I saw myself as one perspective that the universe has for seeing itself, and holding that as one among gazillions of others. Let us imagine the the universe, or god, or whatever greater consciousness may exist, is using everything created as a way to perceive everything else. Let us be in that perception from a state of non-judgment. No experience is more valuable than any other in this game with our imaginations.

photo credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/trodel/3598596315/

by http://www.flickr.com/photos/trodel/3598596315/

Imagine a rock. A common pebble you find in your walk. What does it experience? How was it formed? How did, over time, it transform into the current shape? What is the experience of time to the rock? A grain of sand. A drop of water? A tree? A piece of petrified forest? A star?

We begin. Number of players: 1 to ? Rules:

  • Begin each turn with “I am the universe experiencing itself as…_____”
  • Fill in the blank at the end.
  • When playing with others, try being radically different in scale or experience, place, or time. Alternately, try surprising your playmates with a completely different angle on the same body. Say, one person fills the blank with _body of a 5 year old boy in Africa_ then the next might say _the bacteria in the boys intestines_ or _his great-great grandmother_.
  • Be creative. You win when you are moved by it. To laughter, to tears, to ahas, or to sleep. 😉

Spots of interest. Note from the perspective of the universe that the experience of death is not a pain felt in the body as pain – it is an experience. There is a slight detachement to what that experience feels like because it is all taken in as information about the experience. Also, all experiences add to the knowledge of the universe, so the experience of being vomit is no less valuable than the experience of being the body of a superstar. This exercise can be (or has been for me) a great leveler. And yet, I don’t think of the world as all being equal. It is different. Apples to oranges. Usually when I describe this, I use the metaphor of my hands. Why would one hand be better than the other? They are different (one being right and one being left). Or the cells in my foot are no less valuable than the cells in my ear.

Try it. See what happens for you. And tell me how it goes for you.