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My parent’s and brother’s home burned down in March – here’s a photograph of their new home. They lost much, but much was salvaged. My dad mailed me a thick envelope of papers of mine he’d saved – a Christmas story I’d written at age 6; a history paper from junior high (with a picture of Snoopy on it!), report cards, and letters I’d written from camp (thinly disguised cries for rescue!). I did not know he’d kept those – it was touching that he’d filed those for 50 years. So that is one blessing that came out of the ashes. Other blessings – their new home has things they want like a screened porch and a front door like my mom had in her childhood home. They’ll be moving in soon, hopefully before Christmas. It’s been a long journey of red tape and decsions! Their good health and help from their children and church has been a blessing.

I’m celebrating 10 years as a coach for the rest of this year. See below how you can celebrate with me.

Peace, Joy,

Now, What Am I Going to Do?

This is what a relative said as she was going through a divorce, had no job, few possessions, and the bad economy to make it just a little more precarious. How many of you are asking that question about finances, your home, real estate, savings, job, relationship? I am. How do we all get out of the mess?

Together. We work together. I was telling you about my parent’s and brother’s home – they sure didn’t build it themselves – it was a team. So how do we get out of our silos and help each other? Here are some ideas.

* I sent out a call for help to colleagues and friends to hang in there with me to increase business this quarter and help me keep up my energy and spirits-yes, the one who writes so optimistically every month. Nice to have a team!
* On Facebook and Twitter I promote people I know, and they promote me.
* I’ve traded, which is great, but it doesn’t pay the bills.
* I heard of a neighborhood that got together and pooled their money to buy and share the equipment they all needed to maintain their woodsy yards – mower, clipper, chipper, trimmer, etc.
* People are giving away a LOT of valuable information on the internet. I am listening to one of dozens on growing my business.
* Find a need that matches your passion and fill it. There is so much opportunity in this market – keep open. Partner with your customers.

What ideas do you have for Now, What Are We Going to Do? Please add a comment.

I’ve been reading and loving a book called “Peace Pilgrim”.  It’s
about a remarkable woman who chose to act on her compelling mission
- to walk and spread the message of peace in America.  “I shall
remain a wanderer until mankind has learned the ways of peace…”
She counted the miles until she reached 25,000, but kept walking
for nearly three decades. Her message: “This is the way of peace -
Overcome evil with good, and falsehood with truth, and hatred with
love”.

I am developing my own story of peace that integrates all I know of
coaching, love, spirituality, relationships, and living.  I have
been reluctant to write about it thinking, “What do I know of
peace?  I’ve been angry, depressed, helpless, lost…”  Then I
changed it around.  “What do I know of peace?  I’ve been angry,
depressed, helpless, lost.”  So, in the same spirit as Emerging
Brilliance has always been, I am using an inquiry around the four
cornerstones of  peace – love, purpose, presence and choice- to
inspire, challenge, and center my readers who long for a meaningful
life and to make meaningful contributions that the world craves.

Love - Purpose - Presence - Choice

Inner Peace En-Lightens the World

As each of you finds your own inner peace in this world of
transition and change, you lighten and enlighten yourself and the
world with your presence and actions.  The deeper your connection
with inner peace, the greater is the light you bring to those
around you.  Inner peace has four cornerstones- purpose, presence,
love and choice.

Peace Pilgrim says  “It is because most people have not found their
purpose and function that they experience painful disharmony
within, and thus the body of humanity is headed for chaos”  Without
knowing your purpose (what you are designed to best be and do) and
choosing if and to what degree you’ll follow it, inner peace is
elusive.  Your mind and soul are in a tug of war for your attention
and energy.

Presence is being here now.  It is being aware of your breath and
body and what’s around you now.  It is being fully absorbed in
whatever it is you’re doing – a project, writing an article,
walking, washing.  Peace is not in the past or future.  It is
experienced in the present moment.

Love is a very large topic and includes love of self, others, and
if it’s in your belief system, love of God (or your name for God).
I have found with me and many clients, deepening love of self is a
core place to start.   Most of us are filled with judgments,
regrets, and fears, leaving no room for self love, which leaves no
room for peace.

Choice is what takes inner peace on the road and expresses it in
reality.  Choice sets us into action, impact and results. You can
choose your thoughts, responses, feelings and actions.  As you
choose consistent with your inner peace, your life becomes
fulfilling and you experience more synchronicity, ease and flow.
And as you step onto the path of action, your results and impact
teach you about your state of inner peace.  Choices are not wrong
or right.  They just work better or not.

With the cornerstone of choice you are bringing your light to the
world.  I’ve wanted to perfect inner peace before I began coaching
it and communicating about it, but I finally see that each choice
takes me into the world, produces an impact and result, and allows
me to deepen my inner peace.  And so around it goes – and that is
perfect.

“When you have found inner peace you have no more feeling of need
to become – you are content to be, which includes following your
divine guidance.  However, you keep on growing, but harmoniously.”
Peace Pilgrim

Action

Look at your world with both eyes open and find peace.  Look for
and find what inspires peace in you.  Look for peace in others’
actions, faces, art, and work.  Look for peace under the ashes of a
fire or the actions of terror – see what you find or don’t find.
Look for peace in what feels uncomfortable.  Just be curious about
peace in and around you. You can journal, write poetry, photograph.

What peace do you find out there?  Please leave me a comment – Thank you!

Peace,

Brilliant Gorgeous Talented Fabulous

Marianne Williamson spoke here in the San Francisco bay area this week.  She talked about asking the big questions in politics.  What are the radical questions, the ones a child might ask. Like why do 16,000 children die of hunger every day?  She got me looking at where I play small, hide my brilliance, and avoid the big questions.  What beliefs do I hold that allow me to  tolerate that death rate?  (someone else can take care of it; I’m too small). What is really hurting in my clients? (fear, despair, anger, doubt; needing to re-invent themselves as their “employer” rather than the corporation) Will I go there and address that pain for as long as it takes to heal and give its gifts? (I have done so.  I need to be vulnerable and strong, just like my clients). What’s small about my business and how I play the game? (When I’m one-one with clients I am willing to stand on the brink with them as they step into their unknown.  I don’t yet hold raw and vulnerable conversations with my audiences.  Now’s the time to step out and do that.) I choose out of this conversation to hold bigger conversations.  I will ask bigger questions of myself and my work and my clients and audiences, and stand for bigger answers and responses.  If not me, then who?  If not you, in your area of purpose and passion, then who?

Action
As I ask you these questions, I ask them of me as well.  What’s the next bigger arena that will call forth your greatness and use your purpose?  What’s your payoff for avoiding it?  What’s the price you and the world pay?  What story stops you? What is the first step for {!firstname}?  Take it this week.  If that step has you freeze, find a way to unfreeze.  Break it down into smaller steps, find colleagues, get a coach.

Thank you for your courage, purpose, passion, and your fears, concerns.  It’s all good.

“Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate, our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure.  It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us.  We ask ourselves, ‘Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, and fabulous?’  Actually, who are you not to be?

You are a child of God.  Your playing small does not serve the world.  There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won’t feel insecure around you.  We were born to manifest the glory that is within us.  And as we let our light shine we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same.  As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.” —Marianne Williamson

I’m not saying anything earthshaking when I write that happiness is a choice and it doesn’t come from outside as much as the advertisers and transformation gurus want us to believe that it does. “Buy this sexy car; great hair color; get your lashes thick, long, with no clumps and then you will be happy. Get the relationship, the promotion, the wealth, the fit body, then you will be happy.” Our culture and language habits make happiness appear to be achieved by accomplishment or product. This is like people believing the sun revolves around the earth because that’s the evidence. Happiness doesn’t revolve around things or accomplishment. Things and accomplishment revolve around happiness and joy. Watch babies learn to walk. They don’t deprive themselves of happiness until walking is achieved. In fact, they’d take a lot longer to learn if they weren’t happy. I was doing sit up/ crunches yesterday and I didn’t feel all that happy so I didn’t feel like doing them. Then I decided just to laugh as I counted out my allotment of crunches, and it was easy to laugh! It was contagious and kept itself going and lifted my mood for the rest of the day! Hah! I didn’t have to buy a new car, get my hair colored with the latest and greatest, lose that extra weight, or solve global warming. In the moment, in the present, in the now, we can choose.

According to my friend and Law of Attraction Coach, Noelle Sharp, ” …You ALWAYS get back what you put out; NO EXCEPTIONS!” So put out joy, fun, whimsy, glee, laughter, chuckles, jubilance, happiness, smiles, giggles, jokes, cheer, ecstasy, playfulness. Noelle is the happiest person I know – she watches her thoughts and nearly always allows the thoughts that feel good, and discards the thoughts that don’t. She does this in the midst of challenges that would put many of us on a downward spiral of despair because we forget we can choose.

What on earth good does it do to dumb down our joy because the world is in a pickle, a spouse is mad or we haven’t succeeded in that goal yet???!!! Eric Butterworth writes, “At the very time when we need more light, we reduce the flame of jubilance, and walk in darkness.” How that applies to today’s time – let’s turn up the flame of jubilance, my dear friends! That will turn YOUR economy around!

To turn up the flame find one small thing to be grateful for – and then another. Also, we can recall and talk of successes and what works. Simply smiling or laughing changes your energy.

“One of the great discoveries of human unfoldment is that happiness and joy are not effects, but causes…The happy person is forever encountering things…to vindicate his happy spirit.” Eric Butterworth

“Many persons have a wrong idea of what constitutes true happiness. It is not attained through self-gratification but through fidelity to a worthy purpose.”
Helen Keller (1880 – 1968)

“Remember that happiness is a way of travel – not a destination.”
Roy M. Goodman

“When you relinquish the desire to control your future, you can have more happiness.”
Nicole Kidman, in The Scotsman

“There is no way to happiness, happiness is the way.”
Eykis

Action
OK, go ahead and laugh. Make up a belly laugh. I was struggling with writing this article – so I just started laughing. Much easier to have ideas flow in a joyful mood. I also invite you to see if you can make others happy. Notice if it’s their choice or you can force it on them. Just “don’t worry, be happy” this week.  And tell me what you discovered, OK?
Peace,
Nancy

“When you are present in this moment, you break the continuity of your story, of past and future.
Then true intelligence arises, and also love.
The only way love can come into your life is not through form, but through that inner spaciousness that is Presence.
Love has no form.”

- Excerpt from Eckhart Tolle’s “Stillness Amidst the World”  Eric Fromm

Take a breath and collect yourself from the past.  There is no peace if the past is reaching into the present with negative energy and stirring you up.  Breath is a wonderful tool to bring you present.  For this moment, breathe and let the past disappear.  Breathe and set down the resentment, regret, anger.  You can pick them up again later, if you wish. And most likely you will.  Perhaps we remember these hurts in order to protect ourselves from a similar experience.  See if you can take the learning and leave the heavy energy.  Breathe and feel your feet on the ground, your legs and hips in the chair, your breath in your nose, throat, chest and belly.

Take a breath and collect yourself from the future.  There is no peace if the future is reaching into the present with negative energy and stirring you up.  Again, breath is one tool.  For this moment, breathe and let the future stay put in the future.  Breathe and set down the worry, anxiety, and fear.   You can pick them up again later, if you wish. And most likely you will.  Perhaps we decide to worry and be fear-filled in order to prompt us to take actions we believe will protect ourselves from repeating the past.  See if you can let go of what you cannot control.  Worry is like trying to steer a car right now for next week.  Oh, do I know worry!

Now you are here.  Now you are now.  Now your awareness is centered in your body, your present thoughts related to the present.  Now you are with your breath.  Now you are you.  Notice, notice.  You know what it’s like to be completely absorbed in a task – your mind can only do one thing and so it has no room for regret or worry.  We all find activities like that fulfilling.

Action
Practice presence.  Even for a breath.  Here is where we find our intelligence.  Our intuition.  Our creativity.  Our spiritual awareness.  Practice at least once a day, and more often.  And notice what you see, hear, feel, taste, think, or don’t think, smell, want….See what you discover about love here.    Leave me a comment what this was like for you.

Peace,

Nancy

“If it is a virtue to love my neighbor as a human being, it must be a virtue – and not a vice – to love myself, since I am a human being, too.“  Eric Fromm

You–Past–Future–Others–God–Feelings–Culture–Beliefs–Ego–Talents-Challenges
–Love–Groups–Fat–Cancer–Illness– Institutions–Countries–Others’ Beliefs / Actions –Spiders–Snakes–Kittens….  These are a few example components with which we humans have a relationship.

Any one of these components actively exiled from the whole disturbs our inner peace.  Suppose we resist an event from our past.  That resistance disturbs. It’s like a magnet from the past reaching forward and drawing to it energy and attention.  It takes up resources that could be used to create, plan, laugh, have sex, etc.  It often generates unconscioius beliefs.   Resisting any one component gives it undue emphasis. We think we gain peace by ignoring or excluding or judging parts that disturb us.  The opposite appears to be true.  For years I couldn’t sleep, so for years I’ve fiercely and fearfully guarded my sleep time – afraid to fall into a pattern of exhaustion.  Now, I just sleep.  I put way less energy on the process.

Love includes aspects of allowing, accepting, generosity, and forgiveness.  This kind of love is the glue that unites all the parts into a whole.  Love is a cornerstone of peace.  Without this love there is still turmoil.

Action
Using the list above as a start, take an inventory of the parts of your world that are exiled.  These are judged, deemed wrong, and unforgiven. Make a list in the left hand column on a sheet of paper with 3 vertical columns.  “I dislike the opposite political party, I dislike the extra fat on my body, I am jealous of the people who seem to have easy success in business.”

Now, in the middle column write what you believe you gain by excluding these parts.  “I get to be right, I’ll feel guilty so it’ll make up for how bad I am, I get to be irresponsible”.  Finally in the right hand column, write what you lose by excluding these parts. “I lose calm, presence.  I lose a relationship with my body.  I lose learning from the people who are successful in business.”  Just notice – there is no right or wrong.  If it makes sense to you, notice if you are willing to love (include, accept, allow) any or all of these components as they are, no conditions, no matter how much you disagree with them. Check those off.   Good.  If you are willing, then move from resisting to allowing and loving.  Being willing is a very good start.  Then it becomes your process.  Make, reveal, express love.  Experiment.  Thank you! Let me know what happens!

Peace,

Nancy

Purpose is why you are here. The short version that some Law of Attraction folks use, and other New Age thinkers say, is that your purpose is to experince joy, and / or to learn. Yet each person has their own path of joy. This is a good thing! That way everything gets done!

Here’s an example from nature. An eagle is built to hunt small, live animals. It has a very keen eye, sharp talons, a beak with leverage to tear and pull. It would be ridiculous to insist that an eagle become a vegetarian and eat leaves or seeds. Not going to happen. An eagle is always congruent with its nature. It lives on purpose without questioning. It would starve trying to eat seeds. However, a finch is designed to eat seeds would starve if it tried to hunt small animals. Both are relevant in the systems of nature.

Each individual has a Life Purpose - whether it comes from soul, genetics, or environment, or all three. This is something that you do and be better than anything else, like the eagle is better at hunting than any other way of getting food. You are uniquely designed to be a certain essence (perhaps love, peace, beauty, the sword of truth, joy). You are uniquely designed to do a certain thing in the world (like the eagle to hunt animals). You might put things together, help people find their path, see and communicate the next step, nurture new beginnings or bring harmony to relationships. This is your gift you give to the world.

Knowing your purpose  is a cornerstone of your inner peace. Knowing your purpose allows you to ground and center yourself around your true nature. You are not fighting your strengths – trying to eat seeds with an eagle beak. When you know and align with purpose, you are in harmony and at peace with your nature, rather than resisting it.

Stay tuned for the other cornerstones of peace.
Please leave a comment about this article…

Action for Dessert!

Notice what you do naturally well and you are happy doing it. Now notice what else. Notice whether you are at peace at those times.  Ask five people who know you what your 2-3 strengths are.  What are those strengths  that they would call on you to do or be because you are a natural at them?  Leave a comment what you think.

Peace,
Nancy

Emerging brilliance…