What Do You Feed Your Mind?

743. Join me in inspiring truly powerful people. Each day I will add a new thought, story or idea to support your quest and mine.

I found a document in my files labeled, “Prompts.” I opened it to find out what it was. This is what I found:

The mind becomes powerful with language. What we put into it becomes important
Because
In order to create, we start thinking. What do you feed your mind?

Watch your thought. The energy of your thought goes somewhere
So,
Being ‘out of your mind’ takes on a whole new meaning.

A brain opens; thoughts fly free.
Think on that the next time you ask yourself:
“Where did that thought come from?”

I create this perspective so it must also create me.
Don’t you want to know
Where is the outer limit of this thing called “awareness?”

The perspective we choose is the story we tell.
Likewise,
Every thought impacts everyone all the time. It’s a cycle. It’s a ripple. We are constantly in a cycle of re-creation (do you know it?)

“Paradox is hard for the intellect to deal with,”
I said to no one in particular,
“However, Intuition expects paradox.”

The thought that tells me I am stupid is secondary pain,
It follows
After I trip or say the wrong thing (initial pain).

Soul thinks wide and deep thoughts
And does not understand Limitations.
So think soul thoughts and act accordingly.

Move Beyond Belief

717. Join me in inspiring truly powerful people. Each day I will add a new thought, story or idea to support your quest and mine.

Judy (She-Whom-I Revere) liked my post about geese and sent this addition to me: the collective pronouns for geese are: ‘blizzard’, ‘chevron’, ‘knot’, ‘plump’ and ‘string’ of geese. I agree with Judy, I think I like ‘blizzard’ the best. Someday in idle party chat I would like to say, “Recently, I was caught in a blizzard of geese!” I would have been confused by the pronoun ‘blizzard’ as it applies to geese had I not seen them en masse the other day. My experience opened my eyes to wonder.

Words have the capacity to both imprison us and to set us free. Words are used in an attempt to describe the indescribable as the poems of Rumi attempt to do, or they can box us in, cage us in a dedication of limitation. Daily in my coaching practice I hear some variation of “I can’t.”

Can and Can’t are two very powerful words because both have deep roots in imagination. One reaches while the other rejects. One steps toward the unknown while the other resists movement. Take a look around your home or your city. Everything you see or touch, turn-on or plug-in began with an imagining and an action all wrapped in the big arms of “I can….” The important thing to note about both Can and Can’t is that they have a counterintuitive association with belief. Can’t is firmly vested in it’s belief. Can’t leads with belief. The lack of belief in possibility is a firm belief in impossibility. Can has no need for belief. Can moves without belief. Can leads with exploration and discovery; belief, for Can, comes second, after the doing is done.

The same rule applies to almost all powerful words: those that imprison us are planted firmly in belief; they are arguments for limitation. Those words that liberate our imaginations are vested in possibility and exploration; for words like “can,” “imagine,” and “discovery,” belief is not necessary. Belief follows; belief comes second after experience and wonder.

See The Elegance

659. Join me in inspiring truly powerful people. Each day I will add a new thought, story or idea to support your quest and mine.

Bryan and I talked tonight about the elegance of design. He told me that many years ago he became interested in the Golden Mean, which led him to research the Fibonacci sequence, which led to an interest in eclipses. He became fascinated by the simple elegance and paradox of astronomer’s capacity to precisely determine when an eclipse would happen and the impossibility (due to weather) of predicting if we would be able to see it. The Golden Mean and the Fibonacci sequence are simple equations that, when replicated, maintain the integrity of design throughout very complex structures and calculations. They are fractals. Much of classic architecture is based solely on the Golden Mean. Much of what you will learn in contemporary art school about composition is based on the Golden Mean.

Our physical bodies are complex structures based on a simple cell design. We are at the same time miracles of complexity and simplicity; more space than solid, more water than mineral, reducible to a small pile of dust and yet expansive beyond all imagining. We are elegant in our design, as nature only designs elegant forms from the same simple notion and very simple (yet complex) building blocks.

Our thoughts run according to the same principle. I once read a statistic that showed that we think mostly the same thoughts each day, day after day (don’t ask me how you measure such a thing….). We build our thought on a few replicable principles and then go holographic with them. A few simple assumptions will lock you in prison or set you free. Check out the pattern of the story you tell yourself each day. Are you locking yourself in or opening the cage? I realized years ago that the epicenter of my coaching work – or any other form my whacky work takes – was really about story change. I often say this to groups: change your story and you will change your world. They mostly respond, “It can’t be that easy!” or “Pie in the sky!” I didn’t say it would be easy – we are after all deeply invested in our stories; we are great fighters for our limitations. The wrong assumption is that it need be complex. We are elegant in our design, even down to our repetitive thoughts. Change the simplicity and you will some day be capable of manifesting an entirely new soaring cathedral of thought.

Drop The Story

636. Join me in inspiring truly powerful people. Each day I will add a new thought, story or idea to support your quest and mine.

Skip came home from a weekend workshop with poet David Whyte carrying a few good questions. He told me about the workshop and shared the questions and this one made me catch my breath; I’ve been thinking about it for weeks: What is the old story that you need to let go? Flip the question and ask it another way: What do you get from hanging on to an old story that no longer serves you (this is the question I think educators need to ask – a post for another time)?

Often in my coaching practice I hear clients argue for their limitations. Do you remember the line from Richard Bach’s book, Jonathon Livingston Seagull: “Argue for your limitations and sure enough, they are yours.” Old stories are arguments for limitations. Old stories are like a too small cocoon; the struggle to push through to the new story is precisely what makes our wings strong.

We hang on to things that no longer serve us because they are known. They are comfortable. At least that is the easy answer. The deeper truth is that letting go of old stories invites new stories and along with new stories come new identities. Along with new stories come new powers, responsibility and ownership. Power, responsibility, and ownership are things that people say that they want but generally avoid until pushed; life in the cocoon is sweet – lot’s of naps and no culpability – although the price is withered potential and frustration.

What is the old story that you need to let go? What if no one else was responsible for your happiness or your success? What if your circumstances were just that, circumstances? This will sound as if it is a new topic but consider this experiment: turn off your television for a few months and check your personal email only once a day. Detox from the electronic time-fillers. What questions come up when you are no longer anesthetized? What patterns change? What limitations will you need to transcend when you can no longer ignore them or drown out their call?