Change

Do you see the elephant?

The Universe is going to act upon what you do no matter what it is. Gregge Tiffen (The Language of a Mystic – May, 2009)

I chuckled as I wrote the title of this post when I realized that only four letters are different from last week’s title (Choice).  Sometimes I notice little details like that and they bring me a smile. Simply fun, no meaning attached.  I’m aware this represents a change from my former ‘serious’ self.

Yesterday I received an email ‘request for proposal’ from someone searching an online database for a coach. The individual shared that she wanted “more great clients, more newsletter subscribers, and to lose 15 pounds.” It reminded me of another aspect of my former self and of coaching clients over the years: we want our circumstances to be different, but we don’t want to change.

You’ve likely had some experience in this. At one point in my life I continually said that I wanted to quit smoking. In reality, I wanted to want to. Only when I became clear that my health was more important than the habit did I truly want to quit. And, I did.

In this 5th month of the year, change is in the air and with that change I’m aware of the Universe responding, not necessarily in ways I expect or even that I fully understand.

Some of that awareness is external manifestation. In terms of my most recent business (ad)venture, the Dragonfly House B&B, I expected that my attention to creating inviting, comfy spaces in my home, along with an awesome logo and new business cards would generate business. It has!  I enjoy sharing my home and I tap into that joy as I take on the mundane tasks required for each visitor’s comfort.  I expect the Universe to respond to both my actions and my attitude.

Recent guests prepare for departure.

In my coaching business, I’m experiencing the Universe’s response in unexpected ways, and noticing that Universal timing doesn’t always seem to match my own.  Over the past year I’ve put little attention there other than writing this blog each week and on being present for and giving each client my very best. Lately I’ve been asking the question ‘what’s next in my professional life?’ with no pressure to have an answer. That question is coupled with thoughts about reaching a wider audience. Again, I feel no sense of urgency. I’m simply curious and open.

It seems the Universe has acted upon that as well, providing a forum for me to be interviewed and for ‘The Zone’ to be featured to the audience of a leading coach training organization. YES! (and, yes, I’ll post a link when it’s available!)

Whatever is present in our life is the result of our actions and the Universe’s response. That is the law.  When we change we give the Universe something new to act upon and magnify. With experimentation and practice, we can use the law of cause and effect (karma if you will) to our benefit with awareness, gratitude, and a sense of wonder.

'Come on Mom ... we're almost to my favorite spot!'

Reverence for All Mothers

Mother Nature Nurtures with Spring Snow to Increase Summertime Flow!

Mother Nature, planet Earth, gave us our power, our life, our energy. People who give allegiance to the trees, the wind, the sun recognize that the Earth has acted as a parent. They understand that the planet maintains them.  Gregge Tiffen (Mother Nature)

As Mother’s Day approaches here in the United States and many other countries, Mother Nature is doing some of her best nurturing here in the Colorado Rockies, offering periodic showers of rain in the foothills and new blankets of snow high on the peaks above.  Blessed moisture.

It reminds me of my own mother’s nurturing and love, always there when needed yet never smothering or too much. Marge mirrored nature’s balance and grace in many ways.  Although she departed this life some 36 years ago, I think of her often, always with gratitude and a smile: with reverence.

We would do well to learn more about our mothers. Not just our experience of them, but more deeply how the planet, Mother Nature, calls forth the perfect design of birth and surrounds us with the gentle guidance of how to live. If only we were trained and would take the time to listen. 

As I observe nature and explore energy more closely, some of the hardening of the world’s ways falls away. I soften. And, at the same time, I know that I am stronger from that connection with Mother Earth. She reminds me that at any age I can return to the childlike wonder I see in the pictures of my step-granddaughter who just celebrated her first cycle around the sun. 

As I begin to understand energy and nature more deeply, I find something that I can fully put my trust in. I may not always like her answers, but Mother Nature I can count on.  From that foundation of trust, I can allow my curiosity to run wild. I can tap into the energy of enthusiasm (the god inside). I can feel a sense of personal satisfaction that no one can give me. And, I can be generous with myself and with others.

We honor our mothers in many ways: with calls, cards, flowers and gifts of all sorts.  But perhaps the greatest reverence we can show is to tap into our inner Mother Nature, to expand, to grow, to consciously call upon the source from which our mothers received all that they have given us and from which we too receive all that we need to nurture ourselves, our family, our pets, our community and, indeed, the planet herself. 

So, let everyday be Mother’s Day. Glimpse the joyful flight of a humming bird and hear the whirr of her fast beating wings. Smell the rain. Taste fresh, organic food. Feel the earth under your feet and know that you are loved.

The Coming of the Green!

(Re) Cycles

"It takes a period of time (a cycle) for you to recognize what you have learned before you are ready to initiate your new cycle …" - Gregge Tiffen

Lest you think that I’m getting a jump on Earth Day later this month, I’m recycling (with updates) my post from this time last year.

Cycles are in my thoughts this week as spring has arrived and as I launch a new annual cycle in my life – my 65th year.  I feel pulled just a bit in this time between the arrival of spring’s warmth with its pull of new beginnings and my own annual cycle wrapping up with its invitation to reflect and evaluate the experiences of the year.

I’ve been dancing with each this week. I’ve engaged in conversations about getting our garden started. Construction of the new deck is underway. I’m also reflecting and celebrating the accomplishments of my 64th year:

·       Becoming a grandmother

·       Purchasing a home, making improvements, and welcoming my first B&B guests last summer

·       Creating a new culture in a local agency where I serve as president of the board

·       Walking the maze of Medicare and supplemental plans and enrolling in what seems right for me

·       Deepening gratitude for and satisfaction with my life, while welcoming the learning I have yet to experience.

That last accomplishment is likely the process that made the others possible.  And, like last year, I have the legacy that Gregge Tiffen left behind and which is growing as Patrece continues to publish more of his works. 

In this new cycle I’m excited to dive in even more deeply to understand and experiment with how the Universe works, how energy flows, and how to walk through the world as the truly unique individual that I am.  Those are the areas where my curiosity is drawn, and from which perhaps, my next work in the world will emerge.

In this sacred week of beginning another annual cycle, I look forward time for review and reflection here amongst the trees and in the shadow of the Sangres. I hold these questions in my heart and mind as take that look back:

• Where am I?
• What have I accomplished?
• What is my progress?
• What do I choose next on my journey of progression?

While these are especially powerful questions to reflect on as one cycle ends and another begins, it occurs to me as I observe the chaos in our world that they are worthy questions at any time and in most any situation.  They create a container within which we can reach the clarity of thought needed to take life’s next step.

As I look ahead to my new year, that is the clarity that I want to bring and to apply in new ways.

Does life get any better than the joy of learning and experimenting and feeling the deep gratitude for whatever we experience moment to moment, cycle to cycle?

Question for the Week:  What cycles do you observe and honor in your life?  What richness do they add?

Creating Spaciousness

Discovery produces the experience that produces knowledge. Gregge Tiffen  (The Language of a Mystic: Creativity – March, 2009*)

Life is a series of experiments that help us clarify our next step. Cindy Reinhardt

Although not consistently with awareness, I’m always experimenting to discover what works and what doesn’t.  I’ve noticed that, when something works, it often becomes a habit, and that I neglect the need for periodic re-evaluation.

Seeing the empty space behind my home where a deteriorating old deck stood just the day before reminded me of the need to create space for the new by letting go of that which no longer serves (at least in its current form).  I chuckled as I imagined my talented contractor trying to build the new deck, without first removing the old one.

As I reflected for a moment, I thought of many times in life when I’ve hung on to things (stuff, ideas, beliefs, etc.) until the new was right there: a job that provided a paycheck but no sense of accomplishment, a client who wasn’t a good fit,  an affiliation with no spark kept only out of habit.  Experiments that worked initially, but that upon re-evaluation (sometimes prompted by discomfort) no longer worked for the best in me.

I also recognized the awesome opportunities that emerged in those times when I was clueless about what was next.  The examples that stand out are those in which I left jobs: deputy director of the housing authority in Houston, vice-president of a real estate development company, executive coach with a coach training company. 

With each departure, something new opened not only professionally (the next great job, a thriving consulting practice, being among the first to be trained as a professional coach and a founding member of the International Coach Federation), but personally as well (meeting Gregge Tiffen, life-long friendships, a marriage and step-son, my move to Crestone).

Now, as I embrace the newness of this spring (see last week’s blog here), I’m repurposing more than old boards from the deck out back.  My business name, Creative Resources Group and my corporation are being retired.  I’m letting go of my 20-year membership in the ICF.  I’m clearing out old papers and files in my office and ‘stuff’ from the garage. Exactly how the energy, resources and efficiencies of those choices will manifest isn’t clear.  I feel their spaciousness.

For now, I’ll continue coaching as Success Zone, my website for many years. I’ll put much more business energy into my bed & breakfast, Dragonfly House-Crestone (LINK).  I’m also taking a deeper dive into the legacy that Gregge Tiffen left behind in his writing, transcripts of his workshops, and recordings of my many sessions with him over 25 years.  And, more long walks with Luke.

I wasn’t always aware that every choice I make is an experiment that evokes discovery far beyond whether it serves me or not.  But that awareness has created a spaciousness and yummy softness in my life for which I am most grateful.

Worthy of Reverence

"The body is the only thing you own. It’s the only thing you have a total right to work on. It’s the only thing that will bring you absolute results without any other outside addition. There’s nothing you can name that will do that." - Gregge Tiffen in Open Secrets: The Hidden Worth of New Wealth (http://www.p-systemsinc.com/publications.htm)

Inspired by reading more of Gregge Tiffen’s work, yesterday morning I woke to being curious about my body, so I decided, just for the day, to pay attention to what I ask of it. The first 10 minutes alone set the stage for a day of wonder and the emergence of deep reverence and gratitude.

I promise this post isn’t a biology lesson (my least favorite subject in school and one I came close to flunking), but along the way, my curiosity led me to look up a few facts. I learned that the body has approximately 640 muscles (though there is some debate about the exact number) and 206 bones (208 if you count the sternum as three). Those count for only a portion of the billions (some say trillions) of cells that make up each physical body on the planet.

Scientific fact aside, I came to a deeper awareness of my body as an awe-inspiring creation in terms of what it is capable of: movement, food processing, sight, taste, touch, speaking, hearing (just to list a few!). Can even the most complex of man’s creations come close to that? To add to the wonder, each of us has one of these amazing creations. It is ours, and ours alone, to use.

Just how much I take my body for granted began to come clear by the time my first foot touched the floor when I got out of bed. By that time I’d directed my body to open eyes; stretch each arm, leg, and my torso; sit up; swing legs over the side of the bed. Then, to stand, to take a step, and another, and …

Ten minutes or so later having brushed my teeth, built a fire, made a cup of tea and settled into my morning quiet time, the wonder was building. I looked at my hands in awe of their role in my life. I thought of my little feet and their ability to hold me upright as I move through the day. Although I don’t to push my body to athletic limits, I do demand that it move through each day’s events. Some days – like those when I was schlepping rocks up to the labyrinth site, shoveling snow, or hiking high up in the mountains – I ask more than others. With only a rare groan, my body complies.

My experiment yesterday brought me to a place of deeper appreciation, reverence, and gratitude for this body and all that it does. It also brought a sense of deepened responsibility and possibility: responsibility to care for it in perhaps some new ways, certainly with more awareness, direction and purpose; and possibility for the results that are certain to follow.

For Our Home: Planet Earth

"Do not ignore your role regarding the quality of life here on Earth. It is your input that contributes to determining whether tomorrow will be a beautiful day." - Gregge Tiffen in It’s Springtime: Flow with the Power of Nature (available here: http://www.p-systemsinc.com/publications.htm)

Years ago I had a passing thought that we need to become ‘patriots for the planet’. The phrase has never really left me, and now, as I discover more about the ‘nature of nature’ in Universal terms, I’m more clear than ever that we need to kindle new flames of passion and care for Planet Earth. She is after all our home.

Now, while I have deep admiration and support for environmental activists, what I’m suggesting here is that we need to come to a clear understanding of earth’s nature and to know – to deeply know and feel – that we humans are not separate from, but rather are a part of that nature.

We need to understand natural law on a level that science is only beginning to discover and validate: that collectively our level of consciousness literally creates the natural world. Take weather as an example. Most agree with what science continues to tell us: that mankind’s actions (driving our cars, operating our factories, heating and cooling our homes, etc. etc.) have and will continue to have negative impacts on the earth’s climate.

But, what about our thoughts, our attitudes, our level of consciousness? They too affect the weather.

Ancient rituals like rain dances were practiced in cultures more in tune with nature than ours. These people understood that their beliefs and actions consistent with those beliefs would make a difference. They understood that they were a part of nature, not separate from it.

Today though, we’ve lost awareness of that connection. For the most part, whether we are angry, fearful, upset or jumping with joy and gratitude, we don’t consider that our attitude is contributing to the collective consciousness. Nor do we make the connection moment to moment that our individual consciousness is contributing to a collective energy that must find an outlet. Negative attitudes will seek (and find) a weak place in the atmosphere. We call these ‘natural disasters’ without fully understanding what that means.

We’ve lost touch with our power AND our responsibility to the planet. Recognizing that loss presents us with the opportunity to re-establish our connection and to make conscious choices about the use of our power. As spring edges forth her newness here in the northern hemisphere, we have the opportunity to learn how to hear, see, touch, smell and taste our planet’s signs as guideposts in life.

I’m signing up to become a more conscious student of nature. What about you?

The Power of Love

"In order to use the power of love we need to drop all facades and show ourselves as trusting, uninhibited children of a loving Universe." - Gregge Tiffen (The Numerology of Love)

Just what is the ‘power of love’ and how can we discern when we are using it?

Language has its own energy, and like all else, words vary in their vibratory rates. Dr. David R Hawkins in his groundbreaking book, Power vs. Force, distinguishes and measures levels of consciousness. The word ‘fear’ vibrates at a low level. It produces anxiety and withdrawal – not the level one wants to live in when aiming to create a relationship, build a business, or simply life.

‘Love’ on the other hand, vibrates at a much higher level, a level that moves you forward, supports engagement with others, and helps make navigating life’s challenges an opportunity rather than a burden. As, I’ve suggested before, love of self is the foundation on which our ability to love others, to receive love and to create a love-filled life is built.

As I’ve reflected on how I came to (mostly) live a life of love, I discovered forgiveness and gratitude at the core. I’ve learned to forgive myself and others and, in doing so, my capacity to let go and allow has grown. For the most part, I’ve thrown out the mantel of perfectionism and embraced excellence and continuous learning. For many years, I’ve practiced ‘breathing in love/breathing out gratitude’. Over time, I’ve grown to feel and express gratitude for (almost) everything.

When life goes off kilter, I aim to have the awareness to notice whether gratitude or my capacity to forgive are missing. Awareness is key to making the moment to moment choice to live in (and, thus to use) the power of love, to be that trusting child of the Universe.

Taking love and awareness a step further, Gregge Tiffen shared more in a short booklet published in 2007. In his training in mysticism, Gregge learned that each letter of a word links to the vibratory rate of the word itself. The sequence of the links, “defines how the manifestation of the word will flow”. Here’s love:

L – Creative

O – Progressive

V – Emotion

E – Energy

So, we can ask if we are “creatively, progressive, emotional, and energetic” about anything in life – a relationship, our work, projects that we’re engaged in, a trip we’re considering, and even life itself. If yes, then the power of love is present, and we likely are being that uninhibited child of the Universe. If not … well that’s perhaps to muse another day.

Loving Life

"When you love the life you are living, you have the life you love." - Gregge Tiffen

We have a choice about how to be with the experiences that life presents. And, we have the free will to choose what we will do with them. What I’ve come to appreciate is that every experience is a learning opportunity when I’m willing to pay attention to what’s going on, what I’m doing, and how I’m doing it.

I’m discovering joy in this attention, particularly in some of my daily routines like building a fire each morning to warm my home. Through that experience each day and the preparation required I’m learning many things about wood, how to arrange kindling for a good start, and such. I’m already thinking ahead to next winter – purchasing my wood earlier so that it will be dryer, stacking it in a different place, etc.

That’s valuable learning, but it only scratches the surface. This seemingly simple daily event is teaching me much more. I’ve come to appreciate the focus, attention, and patience required to create a fire that will warm my home. Those requirements make it the perfect activity for my morning quiet time, even though I have to get up from my cozy perch and put my reading or writing on pause for a few moments.

Each morning I’m reminded that I choose how to approach the experience. I’m aware that I could choose to make it a ‘chore’ and be grumpy about how long it takes to warm the room and that my reading or writing has been interrupted. I could work up some real juice when the kindling doesn’t ignite with the first match.

And, that daily reminder strengthens my capacity to choose to love and learn from all of my life, even those events that in the moment I might prefer not to experience: an injured toe, ice melt leaking in the garage, the prospective client that chooses another coach, not receiving an expected greeting from a loved one, allowing myself to be duped into a sales presentation having been told I’d ‘won a prize’.

Those seemingly little things in life can teach us so much and remind us to “love the life we are living,” so we can “have the life we love”. In this month of love, what ‘little thing’ in life can you love this week?

Using What I Know

"Knowledge not used is not knowledge." - Gregge Tiffen

"Without knowledge there is no wisdom." - Cindy Reinhardt

This week, I experienced a wake-up call about using what I know. Perhaps that alarm rings more than I know, but for sure this week it got my attention. Of course, I continue my journey of learning that the alarm is not to tell me that I’m doing (or not doing) something wrong, that I’m bad, etc. – you know that self-deprecating voice. Rather the ring was a gentle nudge that I have an opportunity to learn or, perhaps to use what I already know.

Once again, a daily reading (this one from Mike Dooley who has written daily notes from The Universe - http://www.tut.com/ - for 14 years) was right on target:

Isn't it odd, Cindy? Of all the people in all the world who are starting to "get it," how few actually give it to themselves. I think it's because they simply forget to live it … Live it, Cindy - The Universe

That little bell rang for me one evening when I went to bed feeling exhausted, drained, and as if I’d accomplished nothing. That night, I didn’t, as is my practice upon retiring, breathe deeply and give thanks for the day. My out loud ‘Thank you for this day!’ was MIA. I tossed and turned for some time, before I ‘got’ that I needed to review the day to discover why.

As I took time to reflect, I realized that I had walked through the motions and activities of that day with something other than what was in front of me on my mind. I’d engaged in a number of distractions that weren’t especially enjoyable or rewarding. I’d been thinking about something that, although it does need a response, had NO-thing to do with what I wanted to accomplish that day.

My focus had been past (replaying the event) and future (what will happen?). I hadn’t been present to the beauty of the mountains on my walks, the meals I’d prepared and eaten, the wood moved, playing with Luke, the tasks I tackled, or even the ‘entertainment’ that I used as distraction.

I know the importance of being present to and at choice about where my thoughts, my attention are placed. But on this day (and more than I wish to admit), I wasn’t using, or as Dooley said, ‘living’, what I know. The cost was the peace that being grateful brings me.

So, for today and the days ahead, I’m committed to full presence, especially awareness of my thoughts and being at choice about them. What about you? How much of what you know are you living?

Thank YOU 2014!

"Be happy with yourself. The joy you experience provides an indestructible armor against any misfortune. Your voice was meant to be a lullaby giving comfort to the weary and security to the young. You were meant to be the giver and the gift. Do not attempt to take that from yourself. It cannot be done any more than you can take the stars from the heavens. You have your place in the Universe. Accept it with grace and good humor." - Gregge Tiffen

As we often do when we prepare to turn the page on an old year and step into the blank slate of a new one, a look back is in order.

I started the year wondering how to go beyond the measures of success that the world suggests we use to evaluate. I posed these questions to myself and in my first post of 2014:

• What am I here to learn?
• What qualities in my life do I choose to more fully develop?
• How well do I see everything in life as opportunity?
• How strong is my belief in the personal power that I have been given?
• How well am I using my capacity to live in the world without becoming of it?

As the 365 days of 2014 come to a close, I happy to say that I am happy with myself. I’m mostly pleased with how I walked through the year, its opportunities and challenges.

One year ago this week I started serious conversations with the owner (who is also a dear friend) about how I might purchase this home. I felt deeply that I was meant to be here, to steward the property, and to create a place for others to come for rest, renewal, and connecting deeply with nature. And, I didn’t see how that could be possible.

But I took a step, then another, and I continued to walk. I learned more deeply how to trust and to allow things to unfold. Unfold it did: a seller willing and able to negotiate, a gift received, a discovery that now was the best time to begin receiving my Social Security payments, and unexpectedly discovering that I could qualify for a mortgage.

Step by step the way revealed itself and the Dragonfly House was born, receiving her first guests in late July and throughout the month of August.

While I’m proud of simply accomplishing the goal, I’m most satisfied with what I gained in the process – a deeper conviction of the power I have as a co-creator in my life, a rediscovery of what ‘home’ means to me as a quality in my life, and a better understanding of the freedom living life on my terms brings.

As I bid adieu to my friend, 2014, and open the door to her successor, I do so with a deep bow of gratitude and with anticipation for what opportunities this year, 2015, has in store for each of us.