The Pulley and the Dirt of a Metaphor

Less than 48 hours ago, I wrote about the pulley in my ride-on tractor, lawn mower that ceased operation... no longer willing or able to do its job. My husband purchased a new pulley and re-installed it; it still refused to wake up and perform its function. My husband figured that he would be headed to town, tomorrow, to purchase more parts for the mower. I looked at him, today, and suggested: 'Just take another look at it; I think that it will be fine'. As I lay down for a short nap, I smiled to myself as I heard the lawn mower start up and roar on. My husband still does not know what happened! I do. 

The pulley, for me, was a metaphor to stop running, mindlessly, the old unconscious patterns, now made conscious, in my life, based in a belief system that was never true. Once I wrote and groked the metaphor, I made the choice to remember that I am no longer the person that was unconscious to and driven by what was only an opinion... and a fermented one (like old, long grass that hides the truth of the dirt from which it originally sprang) at that.

Low and behold, that new and fully operational pulley is actually driving the blade faster, now, than it has ever been known to do! It, now, really 'gets the dirt'/the truth on a great cut.

All I can say, is that my metaphor is my truth! Who cares what others might think? I am my own magician...I wake up to and own the metaphor (the truth of my experience)... and my pulley comes alive! Hah!

My life is funny! And it is all a metaphor!

Aloha,

Sheila.

Dirt and the Real Truth about Cut Grass

I have been experiencing prodigious movement this summer... I have been riding the lawn mower of my own authenticity respective to the yield of my own personal evolution. 

I started the process of telling myself the truth of my own experience more than one year ago, as I rode my tractor through the field of the WEL-Systems™ paradigm; yet, as this summer has moved from June, when I last wrote in this blog, until now (Labour Day weekend), my penchant for getting honest with myself and with others has accelerated hugely; in fact, it has become a power with orders of magnitude. I have changed gears and loosened my brakes. My tractor is in 'rev' mode. It's about time!

I am realizing just how much of the seed volume of my own life force that I have reduced and/or washed away by denying those, whom I cherish in my life, the truth of whom I am - perceived weeds and all. When I deny myself the expression of whom I am in the world, it is tantamount to hiding myself under a rock; that very seclusion means that others cannot even hope to insert themselves into any one of the many corners of my garden, so that I absolutely know that I am not alone.

So much of my denial of the expression of whom I have been has been fertilized within and driven by the piston of 'I screwed up, again'. I have no interest in its content, but the very vibration of this unconscious belief, now made conscious, as a driver, has been akin to the energetic quality created in the distortion of a used and broken pulley that can no longer drive the belt that runs the blade of my lawn mower - essential to cutting grass, baring my truth. Indeed, the pulley broke itself this past week; it was no longer willing to propel the denial, the avoidance, the games, the 'make it nice and everything will be OK'. It just stopped... after loosening and rattling itself for sometime, in a bid to make clear its need to cease operation. Was I listening?

What happens when a new pulley is purchased, the machine repaired, and, yet, the blade still refuses to cut? Do I flip my mowing machine over? Do I take it apart and start over again? Do I open the book of words, the direction manual, and study the fact sheet? Do I discard the entire machine and purchase a new one? Do I take out the push mower - the one, which, in its simplicity, easily cuts to the truth with no more energy than my own physical movement forward? Do I reach for the scythe, reminiscent of the ancient idiom that my word is law in my universe, that guarantees that my harvest of the fruit of my experience, sun-kissed by the so(u)l of that sacred law, abounds  from telling my truth? This veracity is not truth as an absolute; it is an opinion at best. However, it is my truth of my own experience - including all of my unwanted and uncultivated plantings.

Have you noticed, that when grass gets length to it, you can't see the dirt from which it springs? Long grasses can most certainly be gorgeous to view; at the same time, they serve as cover for all those things that we would rather not look at ... much less step into... if you get my drift... and they are many. In my undeniable awareness of this, I have chosen to become my own blade; I choose to cut my own grass so that I can touch the earth of my own truth, smell it's pungency, hear it underfoot, and see its true colours. My blade is driven by the divine, my Signal from Self. As my pulley, it's fail safe... nothing broken, nothing to fix. It is who I am and It is the only thing that I need. It is my truth.

To the women in my life... you know who you are... who are choosing to stand tall on your own mowed lawns, to move into the many corners of your own gardens and to step up onto the rocks of your lives toward your own salvation - the expression of your unique truths - I extend my deepest gratitude. It is your willingness to turn on your blades in support of my cut that both invites and allows me to reveal the truth of whom I am in my world. I am simply unshakeable in that truth as my earthly platform from which to launch myself into my emerging future.

T'aint nothin' wrong with my dirt! I love the feel of it under my feet and in my hands; I love its aroma.

And... I love cut grass! And... most of all... I love the fresh smell of its integrity, its authenticity. 

Mahalo. 

Sheila

 

I AM Right. Period.

I recently spent nine days in Montana, the state of the big skies, learning more about the body's electrical (energy) system and how the interface of frequencies balance and counterbalance physical, emotional and mental states relative to our connection to ourselves and to the field of all that is...

My abiding interest in the human condition has been, for sometime now, in vibration and the impact of personal frequency (information) in and on ourselves, on others and on the world in which we live. I know that simply changing my mind can open new vistas (sorry, Microsoft; I find Mac far more intelligent in its intuitiveness!) to my own potential. When I change my mind, I change the very frequency of who I AM and of all that which I have designed to hold what I know in place... and I can no longer be as I was; nor can the things that I designed to support me, either consciouly or unconsciously, remain the same. In the end, it all gets down to my intention to become even more open, honest, clear and direct in my life experience.

Still it is amazing to me, that our internal programming to what was, is so entrenched in the culture that we continue to believe that it is still viable, now, as a force to move us forward into the future. We have been told, since the beginning of time, that history teaches us well. I believe otherwise. If it has taught us so well, then why do we continue to perpetrate the metaphor of 'allergen' in a bid to fully support life and living, when history (our habits, beliefs, values, attitudes, programming) has clearly demonstrated the reverse. I am not talking about medicine, pharmacy, et al, here. What I am talking about is much bigger. What I am talking about, as an allergic force, is our own unwillingness to not look inside ourselves for our own answers and to not stop looking outside of ourselves for what is not there and never has been. I get that, to the degree that I focus on 'not that', I'll create it, right as rain, in my reality. Rain is one thing, but a tornado is quite another.

Rain or tornado? Which one would you prefer? We know about 19 tornados that funneled over two United States in the mid-west 14 days ago. I know. I was flying through the resulting turbulence of the first one, just north of Denver, Colorado. While I stayed with my own discomfort, I was, at the same time, finding myself gaining more and more strength in my capacity to stay present to my own experience of chaos. It was a great metaphor for me of just how far I have moved in the last year and how well I have stayed present to my own turbulence. Riding in the tail of that 747 was no exception. I was glad that a woman was piloting the jet. I am a woman piloting my own.

How many tornados have been clearly recognizable on our radar screens over the course of our lives? How many of us look and say, 'Tut, tut, isn't it awful; what is the world coming to?' and, then, we turn away and get on with the same 65,000 thoughts that we think daily, relegating said tornado to 'not us'? I get that it is an awakening. I also get that, as long as I refuse to stand in the frequency of who I AM right now (and, right now, it may feel chaotic), I'll continue to be an allergen to myself, and , as such, anathema to myself and to others. Just that statement, alone, presupposes that I could place myself outside of myself. The paradox, here, is that placing myself outside of myself might work, if I were to externally consult myself in my own best interests; however, when would I have ever consulted myself for me? So, that cup holds no water at all... and, if it did, it would only irrigate the impermeable membrane of the commonly held view that I cannot act for me, by me, in me, instead of actually hydrating, for permeability, that which is inherently meaningful to me, because it is my birth right and internal to me.

The only way that I can change the frequency of whom I know myself to be, is to look at myself straight in my eyes and to tell myself the truth of my own experience - that means my experience of the tornado and my experience of myself in the presence of the tornado (even if I am not present to it in the flesh). As I change my own frequency, then that allergen now becomes a virus for good. It is contagious. As I change my frequency, I no longer confuse hydration with irrigation, and, so I require much less intake, even while the membrane of the cell that is me willingly accepts the abundance that is its due. My frequency rate rises because I experience less resistance... and, so it goes. Life, for me, is becoming more of simple aloha, here and now.

To that end, I am up for learning more about myself, engaging myself more and assisting others to stop the over-irrigation of their unique lives as 'run-off' into others, whereby, like cells whose membranes have started to break down so that they become indistinguishable, one from the other, merge and become not only invisible to the others but to themselves, too. My intention, instead, is to remind others that they can hydrate their lives in such a way that each, carries, within it, the potential to continuously bloom. Each life, like each cell, carries its own frequency and is specific to itself. In healthy physiology, each cell is identifiable by the vigor and permeability of its membrane. People are no different. Yet, how many of us are even aware of whom and what we really are, not whom and what we have been told to believe we are. I reiterate again: history is irrelevant to fulfilling our potential. We become so much more, in an instant, when we remember that we are not our bodies... we are infinitely more than that. We become so much more, when we remember that our bodies are massive bio computers that, in their inherent genius, allow for undeniable and infinite human expression of the unique frequency that each one of us is. Does it get any better than this?!

After a lifetime of external referencing, I am complete with apprenticeship; I have learned my lessons well. While I am a forceful learner, I am also a powerful educator. I shall keep on learning about myself in my world, so that I can continue to transform my experience of life and share that education along the way. My choice to stay in the tougher conversations with me, first, means that the cell that I am is truly unique, healthy, holistic and distinct.

My intention in sharing with others is always to significantly charge my own evolution by challenging traditional notions of leadership, entrepreneurship,  relationship - any and all of those 'ism's' and 'ship's' - those nominalizations (processes that we have turned into nouns and which hold different meanings according to individual beliefs, values and attitudes), and which are intangible; in other words, we cannot pick them up and put them into the trunk of a car. Conforming views count all of these 'ism's' and 'ship's' as something that we must do - and do well. What if they are quite simply the result of how we show up - the by-product of our own engagement and authenticity? What if each is the resulting bloom that comes from hydrating the truth of our own experience and respecting the permeability of that truth to ourselves, even if to no one else?

Because I am into testing the waters of my own desire, I really am into spring-boarding into the depths of a much deeper conversation about the truth of my own experience - with me, first - and with others - as they so choose. 

I have found and continue to discover that looking for someone else to supply me with the answer I think I need, yet tell myself I want, is like applying a respirator to breathe for me. At some point, I'll have to breathe on my own if I am ever going to do more than just stay alive. This is not about refusing assistance, right time, right place; this is about me clearly identifying my own choice to live beyond just staying alive so that I KNOW that I can breathe on my own, so that I remember that I AM designed for that! 

To my mind, that is what all of the 'ism's' and 'ships' are really about. When I AM 'right' with myself, I AM 'right'. Period. 

Getting Off The Train

I have returned to Canada from the Big Island of Hawaii, both of which I choose to call home.

It felt wonderful to leave the snow a couple of weeks ago and it feels great to have returned to green fields, sun and warm air. I can still wear my sandals outside. My husband states that he is amazed at the physical change in our outside environment. I, on the other hand, am not. I know that change happens in a breath and that it takes only a bit of sun (fire) to cause a meltdown (water) and a bit of wind (air) to dry things up, so that we can open the earth and plant new seeds; so that we can expand known and unknown territories, create new maps and lay down new tracks.

Near the completion of a conversation in Hawaii, centered around Huna and our connections to self, to each other and to the elements, I stated that I knew that some of my connections would change, that some would cease being as they are now AND that I did not know which connections would be impacted or just how these connections would change. I just knew. And I still know. It cannot be otherwise, given the changes that I have experienced, internally, over the last year. In fact, I know and can see that all of my external connections are transforming, from the most minimal, almost unobservable and incremental change to the most significantly defined transformation synonymic to death... and I have feelings about that. I am not always feeling comfortable about the change AND I know that it is right for me.

There is an old saying that 'the proof is in the pudding'. I learned, today, of the death of a good friend of 37 years. We worked together as nurses and our relationship continued long after I embarked upon other careers. Marilyn saw me through the birth of my 2 adult children and supported me through the progress of my various business endeavours. She chose my husband, the car buff,  as her expert counsel whenever she chose to purchase a new vehicle. I do not know that she really ever totally understood my thinking on certain subjects - there was the slogan that our mutual friend and hair stylist created about me - that I was involved in 'voodoo, who do and you do' that has laughingly continued to this day - and she fully supported me, anyway. Her death was a surprise to me; we had not connected in a few months and my husband had last seen her in the fall as they changed seats at the hair stylist's; one was leaving the seat and one was entering the seat. Ohana - family of choice - at its best. So, her death is proof that what I knew in Hawaii and that what I know now is true: my relationships are changing. While I may feel saddened and while I may find the process uncomfortable, I 'get' that these changes are inevitable, not only for my own growth and evolution, but for those of my connections as well.

As a nurse, I supported the process of dying with innumerable patients. I remember them, because, in their pain and in their misgivings and in their courage, they taught me much about myself... and, yet I was unable to recognize or to claim, at that time, their gifts to me for myself. I did not recognize the value that they experienced of me in the same way that I saw value in and experienced value of them. That inability and unwillingness to recognize myself as valuable reinforced the mindless continuation of service that was never enough and that left a trail of indebtedness that worked both ways. My reference to external conditions was huge; I had to look outside of me in order to serve even more. 

There is a current belief that one cannot give what one does not have. I would define this even further... one cannot give what one does not believe/know that one has. That was the platform from which I served, as a nurse, as a daughter, as a sister, as a wife, as a parent, as a friend, as a business owner. As such, I have created a huge amount of indebtedness in my life - much like a train, traveling at full speed down a mountain, unable to brake and desperate not to derail. It is tantamount to struggling to keep the wheels on the rails, so that the riders on board can reach an expected destination - the same one that they have always expected, because that was what I promised when I unconsciously wrote the itinerary for the trip. 

Paradoxically, the trip up the mountain was tough, hard work, difficult and slow going. At the very apex of the mountain, the context for the trip might have shed even more light in its potential for a greater view of what was potently possible, if only I had chosen to stop and take a look; however, I was so busy dealing with the details of the struggle up, even when I was on the trip down, that I lost sight of the number of options that were available to me to get down the mountain  in a way that would have created opportunity, joy and space for me.

I have chosen to terminate that trip. I just cannot do it anymore. It means that I stop the indebtedness here and now. It means that I am re-writing my itinerary. It means that I am changing the train that I conduct, the tracks that I travel, the directions in which I choose to conduct my train, and who I am going to invite on my ride. Leaving the known track is now one of several options, where it never has been before; and, while it may feel like a derailing for a time, I know my truth to be otherwise. I find the feelings involved quite uncomfortable AND, this time, I am choosing to not bury them (please see my blog entitled, 'Breathing Space'); I am choosing to just be with them, to breathe into them, to digest them and to metabolize them. Only then, will I have created space for new and unknown cargo and connections to present as I conduct my new train, on new tracks, in new directions to places both known and unknown. It is the only sure route, and it is one that I do not yet know, to my own evolution. 

Both physically and emotionally, I am feeling quite uncomfortable right now. What helps me greatly is to remember the assumption from 'Evolution By Intention' created my Louise LeBrun of the WEL-Systems® Institute: Whatever you think of me is none of my business.

Stopping what feels in my body as a potential train wreck, in and of itself, does demand a change in my relationships. The paradox to this is that the change, itself, feels like a wreck of sorts. And I know that some will not appreciate the change that I am making for me. For them, it may become about what I am doing and not about the greater context of me authentically showing up as myself, for me, transparent, in MY train, so that they can show up that way in theirs, too - if they so choose - even if our trains are never, again, to pass each other. My authenticity and my transparency - what I see is what I get - demands that I stop the ticketing to indebtedness, right here and right now.

There are other things happening in my life right now - some comfortable and some greatly uncomfortable. Sometimes, I find it down right scary, given what I have been conditioned to believe is right and appropriate. However, I KNOW, that for me to continue on the same rails in the same train, in the same direction, with the same indebted relationships and the same tired cargo, will mean certain and onerous death for me. I have gleaned enough through my own experience of patients moving through that process that death was never meant to be arduous or punishing - and, yet, we make it so because we have been taught otherwise. 

St. Paul said, 'I die daily'; a good thing I think. If death is equal to transformation and evolution, then I certainly am, now, awake enough to choose differently. Then, maybe, I can give homage to my own death in each day as the transformation that I have held  so in reverence for others as they culminated their time in this incarnation. 

What I am curious about is this: how many of those patients that I nursed actually changed trains, tracks, directions, territories, maps, cargo and passengers? How many of them even knew that they could? How many of them were terrified of the unknown (where I am standing right now)? How many of them made changes, anyway, with any number of computations available to them... same track, different train; different track, same train; and so on? How many of them changed all of it? Who actually took  time to notice the qualities of their journeys and the results of their choices? How would their lives and their deaths have been different?

Yes, I am scared. Thank God, it means that I AM alive and that I am moving. New train, new tracks, new directions, new territories, new maps, new cargo and new connections - ones that sustain my reference to myself first so that I truly help others by stopping my own indebtedness and my 'need' for it. My 'need' to create that in myself has undeniably created a vacuum in my relationships with others who also 'needed' to fill that 'need' in order to satisfy the vacuum. There is genius in physics; nature does abhor a vacuum... and so the perpetuation of external referencing is created. As Louise has said so eloquently, what we create is history, habit and habituation. And so it goes.

Now I stop it... for me. Mahalo, Marilyn, for showing me, in your transition from this incarnation to another, that I know what I know. My relationship to self, to others, and to the elements IS transformative. It is OK for me to feel... scared; there is sheer genius in that. All is good and all is as it should be. I surrender.

Aloha,

Sheila.

Breathing Space

I am in Hawaii, right now, partly for vacation, partly for a Huna program, and wholly, for transformation; that is what the big island of Hawaii is all about, given that lava rides on the element of fire. 

Hawaii is known as paradise and it IS. A visit to the these islands in the middle of the Pacific Ocean can change lives, yet, for so many people, the thought of a trip to these islands is a distant dream, so out of reach to potential, that they cannot fathom getting here.

Hawaii has always given me breathing space. The essence of who I am in my world is 'simple aloha here and now'. 'Alo' means space or place, while 'ha' means breath. My interpretation of 'Aloha' has always been 'my breath goes with you'. Yesterday, on a cultural trip, I learned about the space for breath...or, as I have simply embraced it... 'breathing space'.

Fire requires air to live. That means that, in order, to fuel my life and my expression of my life through my body, I DO require air. Fire does require air for combustion. That is a known fact. Interestingly enough, I have also become aware of just how often I have held my own breath, especially (for me) on the out breath, so that it has served to ground or bury my fire. It is also, interesting to me that the exhalation is what triggers the next inhalation; no doubt about it, the build up of CO2 in the human body, as the circulatory system acts as the conduit for blood to oxygenate the body and pick up carbon dioxide as its waste product, is what causes the creation of the next breath. I just never made the connection. So, I am wondering, where have I been in all of this that I could inhale and exhale, yet stop the next subsequent inhalation, without my own consciousness kicking in? I would resume that breath, I guess, when my body knew that it was required to function. Yet, I remained unconscious to the entire breathing mechanism, as a pump, in myself. To what degree is this a metaphor for what I have ignored so that it has become autonomic (just like my nervous system) in my life?

Breathing space. Space for breath. Space to breath. Breath does require space. Just how mindless have I become about that? No air, no fire, no life force. Mindless, automatic... and, unless I wake up, autonomic. 

Fire means that I must be willing to be seen... to make significant smoke signals. So far, I have allowed very limited fanning of my own flames to signal the world that I am, indeed, here and now. The smoke signals may have been lost to whatever clouds have floated by overhead, yet, more likely to the ground below the flames... much easier to hide them there. So far, I have hidden my fire; I have defied my own inhalation. What I have engaged as automatic, has, in essence, become autonomic.

I AM waking up. I have made my choice to breathe into my eternal and internal flame. I am consciously paying attention, now, to my inhalation and exhalation, to its cycles and rhythms, to its openings and closings and openings again. A conscious rewiring of a new autonomic.

Simple Breathing Space, right here, right now.

Breathing Space.

Think about it.

Aloha,

Sheila.

Business, Plans, Markets & Marketing - Get a Life!

I have recently reconnected with a person out of my past. She is the process of completing programs in advance of preparing a business plan. Her primary interest is in how I am marketing my practice. When I responded that word of mouth and referral were the most important methods of promotion for me, she replied (all of this by email) that, since she was not yet established in her holistic practice, referral would not yet work. Her response got me thinking. Before everything else we, as a culture, now have available to us, by which to attract business to ourselves, we had word of mouth and referral; not much else.  And it worked. 

I do not have any memory of my father advertising his machinery-moving business in Toronto in the Toronto Star or the Globe And Mail, when I was growing up in the 1950's and the 1960's. He walked King Street, when he started out, door to door to let the lathe dealers, and the safe and vault door dealers and downtown publishers know what he could offer. It just got down to his willingness to engage his presence and to speak his truth. His vibration was what created the attraction. That was how he built his business. Word of mouth and referral.

As I plunked down on the keys of my computer to draft my response to my contact, I knew that what I would write would become the blog that I had planned to write today. What follows in my blog is, in part, my response to her queries.

'Referral to me is the most pivotal approach to reaching people, second to putting myself 'out there', in terms of checking out already established networks, where I can insert myself to invite and to allow myself to be seen and to be heard in person, on my web-site, by my emailed newsletters, and through my blog. The metaphor of my retail experience over 22 years in 2 countries is that I created a welcoming presence through the conduit of whom I believed myself to be, with a meaningful and fun experience being its result, so that the referrals just came. I started from day one with the idea of referral, so I disagree with the notion that one has to be already established, before referrals can happen. However, we can put ourselves 'out there' - or not- in even the most innocuously considered (to us, anyway) ways. For example, I have an acquaintance in Arizona who gave a business card as a contact mechanism to a neighbour several years ago; while she has not seen this neighbour in 'forever', she recently landed a significant contract because of that one interface with the neighbour so many years ago. It was tantamount to a gift being delivered through the back door (we expect UPS to come to the front door, don't we, unless we have specified otherwise?). That is what referrals do. They carry so much potential (every door available, even the ones that we don't know about) and their only cost to us is that we, authentically, put ourselves 'out there'.

There are lots of ways to 'risk' exposure and there are lots of ways to hide. I know, because, in the past, I have mastered the paradox of external reference as a means of identifying what was important to me, alone, yet never quite getting to that place of importance 'inside' me. I pay for my referrals by being authentic to myself, first.

As Louise LeBrun (http://www.WEL-Systems.com) would say, 'Whatever you think of me is none of my business.' Perhaps, it is my age (62); perhaps, it's the 'stuff' that I have been through... whatever it is, I am putting myself 'out there' as I remain true to myself ' in here.' Traditional business plans do not, generally, allow for that, in my experience; they demand proof of performance. What this tells me is that I have to demonstrate that I can make it before I even get started, based on what has been decided as the cultural average. This is undeniably a default to the past. Banks and experts will only 'risk' on what is known - rarely on what is unknown (what is already present in the future that we have yet to experience and that still holds some infinite quality to it until it becomes finite at the very point that the outcome is achieved - and, often, it's an objective that has demanded sabotage of the original dream in order to ensure the security of an externally planned risk). We have come to believe that the motto/demand is: 'Do what we expect and we'll help you.' Well, what if I want to proceed according to what I know actually does work for me or potentially could work for me? Does that mean that I cannot help myself? Referrals are about helping myself. And... the cost of 'risk' is showing up, authentically.

I have never established a business for less than $100,000.00 start-up cost. I created the space, did the tenant build-outs, purchased the inventory, paid the rents, hired and trained my staff. When I started, I had my integrity, my genuine concern to help others and my motivation. I also had great fear... fear of the feelings that lay behind what I thought was expected of me by others; I actually made what I thought that others expected of me BE the thing that I expected of myself. What I now know, for certain, is that working to an externally referenced agenda that I adopt as my own so that I can 'get' the help that I have been told the I 'need' DOES NOT WORK... ever. That is the mechanism for self-sabotage. It closes the doors to potential. What ever happened to what I expected as possible for myself? I will, now, always refer myself (even in the face of the culture that could fault this as vanity), so that others are invited to refer me, too. It is my invitation to others to do the same for themselves. 

I have done some local newspaper advertising where I live. this has not been cost effective in terms of clients; however, my name is 'out there.' So, one has to decide what the purpose of print media is. Is it to identify you and your proffered customer benefits AND to attract clients OR is it one or the other? In every business that I have built, it was my physical presence and expression that created the referral. With referral, if I wait until I believe that I am 'established', then I will miss opportunities. Is anyone ever ready for the actual moment of the delivery of a child? I doubt it. It is established, though, that one is pregnant and that the child is coming. My business is 'established' in the moment that I conceive it as my dream.

Context is more important than content. I am the context; what I 'do' is the content. What I found in my retail business was this: once my client had found the content (product/service), they continued with the best context in their experience. That is why 80% of clients continue to engage the context (sales person/practitioner) and not, paradoxically, the content (product), which was the original impetus for initiating the engagement. If they have a choice of whom to engage for the 'what' that they want, as they do in a franchise situation (I have personal experience of this) - or not - clients will always go for the agent first and the product/service second. We are the messenger that the message at one and the same time.

So, the following is how I have chosen to 'market' my business/practice as the beneficial result to my clients of me 'being' authentically me:

I am simple aloha here and now. I help you to pay forward  your relationship to yourself, so that others can too. 

I set up my business as the extension of who I want to become, so that it lights me up. As such, I AM the greater context in which the business, as process, unfolds. What the business 'sells' is only strategic to the initial process of engagement, and as such, is irrelevant.

Less is more. Simplicity works always, in all ways. Complexity lies not in the number of skill sets available but in the inability to position these skills, SIMPLY, as strategic to the greater context of the individual as a Quantum Biological Human, sacred and brilliant.

Location is everything. As a metaphor, however, location means so much more. Being well located presupposes clarity in and to myself. Being home to myself presupposes being lit up in and to myself. My 'business plan' is the extension of the depth of my own clarity, nothing else, nothing more.

The greater my clarity, the simpler (and, for me, the richer) my experience of living. 

I am already enough; therefore, I am already established. My own best referral is me in my own clarity. I refer others toward me, practically, by paying forward my own clarity in myself, so that others can pay forward, theirs.

I market my business/practice by me 'showing up' - at least, to myself, if to no-one else. My own clarity demands that I lay bare all the times that I hide to myself, so that I digest and metabolize that information in a breath, further deepening and enlivening that clarity.

In practical terms, there are many ways that I can choose to show up and engage: tactile, auditory and visual approaches/media; networks. As allegories for the nervous system as infinite, who can I become and to whom can I connect as I choose to surrender to my own unique vibration (my inherent potential that is always present - including what I do not yet know about myself)? My surrender to the potential of my unique vibration, is what calls TOWARD me, is what attracts. It IS my business card. It IS my media. The only thing that I require IS that I show up to myself, for myself. That MEANS inviting others to play with me, so that I can further my evolution, while they accelerate theirs. I am paid to 'show up' authentically.

Finally, I remember a significant day, in 1999, in London, England, when I was participating in a program for profitability consulting. The awareness right now, as I remember that time, is that, as usual, then, I had chosen to sit to the rear of the room so that I could engage a global perspective. While this was true to a degree, that choice had always offered me the chance to remain 'invisible'. It made it easy to hide and to 'quit' the potential for engagement. The paradox is that I was searching for the keys to profitability, yet I denied visibility even to myself, if to no-one else. How is that profitable?

From the rear of the room, I was looking at a slide of a financial statement on the stage at the front of the room. The epiphany that occurred to me in a breath, at that time, was that my own financial statement was a reflection of who I believed myself to be, my cultural conditioning. Now, I really 'grok' that a P & L statement is a reflection of my willingness to show up for me. I profit when I 'risk' showing up as me, for me, to become even more, while the culture would epitomize 'performance' as 'right' instead. I lose when I default to patterns that are ascribed as 'right' and 'correct' by the culture, yet not 'right' for me. Therein lies the paradox of being present IN my business, being present TO my business, yet being NOT OF my business. While the culture demands that all is 'real', when is it not all an illusion? 

Traditional business approaches would declare my thinking unorthodox and confused. It is, however, so CLEAR to me. ALL THAT I HAVE TO DO, FOR ME, IS TO CHOOSE TO SHOW UP, TO ME, SO THAT YOU CAN CHOOSE, FOR YOU, TO SHOW UP, TO YOU, TOO. I call it paying forward my vibration with intention, by allowing myself to NOT know how what I want will manifest; I just know that it will. That demands that I state clearly what I want. It also demands my surrender to its chosen process to manifest itself. The paradox is that giving it up completely and without question is the best 'control' there is. It opens the doors to what we do not yet know; that is where the potential for magic and miracles resides.

So the best 'business plan' for me is not less than and not greater than showing up to me and for myself, so that I invite and allow the strength of my unique vibration to become even more.

I have four questions that I like to ask myself to gauge where I am, what I am doing, how am I doing, why am I doing what I am doing, what IS the choice in the moment that I can make to move forward, who can I become and to whom can I connect. Here is what I ask, myself:

How's it going? Am I defaulting to what I know or am I moving into the unknown of an emerging future - to the more that I can become?

What is my biggest concern right now, in this moment? Which will I choose? What I already know, or what I do not yet know?

What is the one thing that, if it magically, started working, would transform my business as the by-product of me 'being' me? What if I simply de-cloak, while staying present to myself, in my full expression of me, so that I invite others to do the same?  That is the best referral of all.

What is that worth to me? When I tell myself my truth, then everything that I choose to 'do' is my own result. Nothing to keep track of. Simply de-cloak and show up. Just 'BE'. The resulting economy relative to material, financial, physical, emotional, mental and spiritual abundance is potentially much greater than our present realization. Think about it!'

Aloha,

Sheila.

Because I Say So

Well, it has been easily two months since I last entered my thoughts into this blog. Much has happened and continues to happen. It is like so many of the things that I told myself so many years ago are now manifesting in their own time and space. It is amazing to me that some of these things that started out as thoughts of 'What if... ?' years ago are now showing up while others are occurring in the moment and almost as fast as I think them for the very first time. And... it is not that I am orchestrating the process; I am not. I just declare what I want and acknowledge my own truth (or, even what  I would like my truth to be, for that matter) and it starts and continues the process of showing up in my life. All of it is fully dependent on me BEING... willing to engage and to stay in the place of not knowing how it will all unfold, while fully trusting that it will, then does... because I say so.

At the beginning of January, I sent out an email invitation to close to 90 women to engage in a powerful conversation about what it means to be authentically who I am as a quantum biological human with everything that I do - leading, managing, owning and operating business, employing others and being employed by others, creating, educating and risking - being a result of my showing up as me - for me and by me - with no mask and no performance. I had space for 20 women to engage and, like any airline these days, I overbooked. 25 said yes and 23 showed up. Some drove as much as 8 hours for the 3 hour conversation. As Louise LeBrun said to me, later in an email, 'women are hungry - no, not strong enough - starved' for the opportunity to express themselves. The feedback that followed that morning conversation was profound. One woman spoke publicly and 'off the cuff' for the first time in her life. Another woman' s life changed in the blink of an eye as she willingly chose the sponge of her own silence to soak up what touched her deeply in the expressions of the women who spoke with such passion. I am about to send out another invitation for February and, already, I have received commitments to attend. No agenda, no rules, no policies, no best practices, no 'games'. Just the truth as it is for each of us in our experience of entrepreneurship as the result of showing up as who we really are. I named the conversation last fall to start in the new year and I set the first date in January for January and the rest fell into place. The space was filled within 48 hours of the emailed invitation. It just happened... because I said so.

I have been raising Rottweilers for 21 years and rescuing them for the last 10 years. One of my greatest pleasures in life is to make a great home for a great dog  - and I always attract great dogs! Every time that I am called to attract another Rottie, I just put the word out and trust that the 'right' one for me will show up. It has been 3 months since Fyrna, my most senior Rottie, died; as she passed, my last request of her was that she send me my next Rottie... a girl... the 'right' one for Leroy (my younger Rottie), my husband and myself. Gracie is now on my wave length and soon to arrive... and all because I declared what I wanted. Did I have any idea of how she would show up or what her name would be or who I would meet along the way to connecting with her? Not a whit! However, I knew that she would show up; that's all. I knew that she would... because I said so.

The paradox of intention is that there is really nothing for me to 'do' in manifesting what I say that I want. When I remember who I am and engage the nothing, then the something always presents itself (the result of nothing... other than my expressed intention)... simply, because I say so.

My word is law in my universe; your word is law in your's, too. That premise has always held true, regardless of which 'school' of consciousness one chooses to or not to engage (for me, that 'school' has always been Huna with it's more recent positioning for me, through Louise LeBrun, as the invitation to an emerging future, which ignites, in the flicker of its flames, another invitation, yet again... and, so it goes). It is full engagement, all the same, when I remember who I am and allow that invitation to shape my world as I want it to become. It all comes to life... because I say so. When I remember who I am, then there really is nothing for me to do... except to show up. When I show up, then 'it' always shows up, too. Because I say so.

Aloha.