Playing With Change
“Courage is the power to let go of the familiar.” ~ Raymond Lindquist. “But this is the way we have always done it!” Sound familiar? It is a common belief I hear in my playshops that keeps us entrenched in the past, close to what’s comfortable and familiar, and unavailable to the new. We like familiarity and certainty. It makes us feel safe and we don’t have to be creative. But our world is changing. Play is training for the unconventional. It teaches us to be present, open and flexible, holding our ourselves and our perspectives lightly. To thrive in today’s rapidly changing and uncertain world it helps to suspend belief and stay curious. We cannot hold on as tightly as we used to. We […]
Three Stages of Transformation & Transition
When the heart awakens there is an immediate calling for change in your life. The seed of awareness and possibility has awoken within you, stirring a deep desire to search for a renewed sense of Self and life, and to follow a path of purposeful and authentic living. The awakened heart sparks change in three general stages that reflect the inner transformation and outer transition necessary to awaken the butterfly within. Much like a flower’s incremental unfolding into the light, people move through these stages gradually. Notice how many times you have gone through them in your own life. 1. Answering the Call In answering the call you embark on a new phase of your journey. The essence of this stage is saying Yes to […]
Why Wait? Now’s the Time! ~ 7 Blocks & Tips to Ending Procrastination & Making Empowering Life Choices
“A year from now you may wish you had started today.” ~Karen Lamb It is natural to procrastinate even though we know in our heart that there is no reason to wait. We grant more power to our limiting stories than to the part of us that simply says It’s time. I am guessing every person reading this has a decision they have been hemming and hawing on. Perhaps it is leaving a job or relationship, expressing your feelings or concerns, starting a creative project, moving to a new location, or starting a new career path. The decision may be small or perhaps it is large. And maybe it is a small decision but it feels large. Small or large we face these decisions regularly, […]
Playing with Global Change
“Life commences not with birth, but with the awakening of awareness.” ~ Frank Yerby. The purpose of Remembering to Play is to show that play is not just something to do on the side, slotted amongst the many duties and obligations we have throughout the week. Rather, it is a way of being in the world grounded in wisdom, joy and creativity. And it is a way of living that can support the global change amongst us. As we can see from the news lately in Egypt and Libya, old regimes are crumbling, replaced by a new collective spirit. The old is finding it harder to stand on the foundations from which it was built. These foundations are based on belief systems and ideologies rooted […]
15 Ways to Play with Taxes ~ Bringing Play into the Mundane
A question I often get asked is, “How can I make something I do not enjoy playful, like doing my taxes?” While I agree there are many things we would rather not be doing, there are an infinite number of ways to make even the most mundane a playful experience. Let’s start by remembering that on a primary level play is who you are. It is a state of being ~ I am Playful. On a secondary level play is something that you do ~ I play tennis, build a sandcastle or go for a bike ride. On the secondary level, play is dependent on time, space and money. It requires getting somewhere and often at some financial expense. Play on a primary level, however, […]
Three Stages to Becoming a Spiritual Human
“We are not human beings having a spiritual experience. We are spiritual beings having a human experience.” ~ Pierre Teilhard de Chardin. As we enter 2010 I am seeing so many people beginning or deepening their connection to a deeper sense of Self. Thoughts, feelings, insights, and unexpected desires and shifts in priorities they would never have had before are suddenly bouncing in their consciousness. And uncharted paths are opening, often asking them to leave something familiar to step into a new adventure. Life is moving in new directions, and it can seem like life as I knew it is getting bigger than I even knew it to be. These increasingly common signs prevailing in our communities are pointing to a shift between what I […]
Time for a New Operating System
“Do not go where the path may lead, go instead where there is no path and leave a trail.” ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson. I was watching Larry King Live the other day. The topic of discussion was the “Health Care crisis” in the US, and on the panel were some esteemed guests including CNN’s Chief Medical Correspondent and the President of the American Medical Association. They were discussing the obvious problems and the not so obvious solutions to the dilemma. It was interesting to see that every time a potential solution was suggested, it was said with vagueness and shaky confidence. No one seemed to really be clear on what was needed. Half way through the show a new guest came on. Andrew Weil, M.D. is […]
Allow for a Day
What if for just one day you have complete faith in the unfolding of your life? What if for just one day you allow life to be as it is, and practice the Spirit of Yes And by accepting what is? Instead of questioning, judging or condemning why something is the way it is, you allow it to be as it is Instead of trying to change someone, you allow them to be as they are Instead of proving your point, you state the basic facts and allow the rest to be Instead of directing the flow of conversation, you allow the flow to present itself to you Instead of being angry and flustered when stuck in traffic, you trust the traffic is working for […]
From Work to Play
“As more humans awaken, the word work is going to disappear from our vocabulary, and perhaps a new word will be created to replace it.” ~ Eckhart Tolle, from The Power of Now When you identify yourself as a human doing, life becomes work. When you identify yourself as a human being, life becomes play. For us to feel truly fulfilled in our careers, and life as a whole, we need to express who we are at an authentic level into whatever it is we do. Society recognizes and rewards performance before well-being – ie, how well or how much one does versus how one feels in whatever it is they are doing. Performance appraisals and our school system are good examples of this. When […]
New World Leadership & Global Trends
In ancient Greek the word for butterfly is “Psyche”, which translated means “soul”. Our world is experiencing three global trends that reflect the metamorphosis of the caterpillar into the butterfly and invite the emergence of a new world leader rooted in soul. 1. Change and Uncertainty 2. Globalization 3. Personal and Social Consciousness Consider the caterpillar for a moment. It spends 90% of its time consuming, gorging itself, getting fatter and fatter and leaving a trail of destruction in its wake. It covers very little ground keeping its view quite myopic and self-interested (even though they are very cute!). Then one day it begins its metamorphosis by entering the Chrysalis stage. During this dark stage the structures of the caterpillar collapse in the same way […]