Gratitude at Journey’s End

June 28, 2008 | Leave a Comment

The business trip I took this week was long and hard – a seven-day journey with stops in three countries. Despite the difficulty of the trip, this journey for me was punctuated by multiple moments of gratitude: gratitude at the outset and gratitude upon arriving home plus many moments in between. The gratitude at the beginning had to do with the shift in perspective about business travel that I wrote about in a previous post – I was truly embarking on a new era in my thinking. I was excited because I knew for certain that I had re-programmed a limiting belief that I had been holding for over 15 years. What a delight such a shift in perspective is! I remember sitting in the airport at the beginning of my trip, noticing and appreciating everything, from the gate agents to the baggage handlers to the other passengers. I was grateful that I could approach this trip with a new perspective.

Returning home, my gratitude is more earthly than ethereal. I am so grateful to be home, in my own bed, in my own car, with my own family. I see my home and home life with new, appreciative eyes. I am thankful for the adventure of the intercontinental journey I just completed, thankful for arriving home safely. I am tired but happy.

Posted by admin | Filed Under blog, gratitude

Releasing Judgmental Thoughts

June 26, 2008 | Leave a Comment

Can you think of a colleague, co-worker or acquaintance who really annoys you, but is probably a pretty agreeable person underneath their irritating qualities? Stated another way, are there people who make you bristle because of a certain aspect of their personality, but if you consider them with an open heart, you could find quite a few redeeming qualities? I can say yes to both of these questions, so I assume that you can, too.

Psychologists tell us that the qualities in others that most irritate us are the qualities that we fear in ourselves. If it weren’t so, then the other person’s behavior wouldn’t bother us and we wouldn’t even notice it. For example, I mentally label loud and talkative people as rude or braggadocio. But, if I am really honest with myself, I have a tendency – or perhaps it is an internal wish – to be loud, talkative and braggy. However, if I weren’t somehow conflicted over that tendency, it probably wouldn’t annoy me so much when I encounter loud and talkative people.

What happens when we unmindfully hold onto judgmental thoughts about others? Those feelings can grow from a mere irritation to a huge iceberg of resentment, jeopardizing your working relationship with that person and sometimes poisoning the team’s spirit if the person is a co-worker. Because negative emotions create stress in our minds and bodies, holding onto a judgment or a resentment hurts us – it is a self-inflicted wound. To recognize and release a judgment allows us to lighten our load of destructive emotions. We do it for ourselves.

There are some steps we can take to stop our judgments of other people:

Make an inventory of past triggers.The first thing we can do is take a mental inventory of the people and their qualities who have angered, annoyed or irritated us in the past. This prepares us with a list of traits that has triggered our reactions in the past and helps us recognize them as we experience them in the future.
Notice when you label or judge someone. We need to train ourselves to become aware of our judgments, which fortunately becomes easier with practice. Mentally scanning the body for emotions occasionally during the day can help us identify a judgmental feeling, which usually lodges in our solar plexus or lower in the abdomen. As soon as possible, notice when you judge or label something or someone – before the judgment turns into a resentment.
Stop. Interrupt your run-away thoughts, emotions and judgments. Breathe, imagining that you are breathing through your heart space. Five breaths will open your heart space and neutralize your cascading judgmental thoughts.
Gain perspective. View the person or event from a neutral or different point of view. You might attempt to perceive the situation from the viewpoint of an unconditionally loving mother, saying to yourself, “Surely this person’s mother loves her.” Or you might perceive the situation from the perspective of a disinterested third party. What might a person who has no emotional investment in the situation observe or think? Lastly, consider the situation from the soul perspective, opening your heart and your spirit to the essential goodness in the other person and the ultimate perfection of the situation. This is where miracles happen.
Thank the person at a soul level. There are no coincidences. This person or situation has appeared in your life for a reason, perhaps as an opportunity to learn a life lesson. The other person’s soul agreed to engage in this encounter for your benefit, or for the benefit of both souls. On some unseen level, there is perfection in the situation. Gratitude is an appropriate response. Thank the other person. Or you can use a phrase common in the southern region of the US, and mentally say with deepest sincerity, “Bless your heart.”

Recently, I noticed myself judging someone in a business meeting. Fortunately, I caught myself before I got too deep in my judgmental interpretation of the behavior that I found irritating. Taking a deep breath, I found myself thinking of how her mother must love her. I found that amusing but helpful. Then, in my spirit, I miraculously caught a glimpse of her soul. That sudden shift in perspective surprised me and I smiled to myself. All of this happened in a split second, so rest assured that I didn’t zone out of the meeting for more than a couple of words! Only later did I remember to thank her soul, but when I did, I immediately felt a shift in energy between us.

I am grateful for the opportunity to develop my awareness and learn from my experiences. As always, my hope is that, by sharing my journey, your journey will be enhanced.

Posted by admin | Filed Under Forgiveness, Mindfulness, Work, blog

Freeing Ourselves from Limiting Beliefs

June 20, 2008 | Leave a Comment

Limiting beliefs are those mental blocks that keep us from living happy lives and fulfilling our potential. They tell us things like, “I am not good enough” or “I will never have enough money”. Limiting beliefs are created in reaction to life experiences. The most powerful limiting beliefs are formed when we are children and adolescents, when our brains are not yet fully developed. When we are young, we react to events the best we can, forming beliefs that protect us from further psychological harm. Not all limiting beliefs are formed during our young years, however. Adult experiences can cause us to form limiting beliefs, too, but they generally don’t exert as strong a hold on us as ones created when we are young.

Becoming aware of our limiting beliefs is a large contributor to overcoming them. I know about this from first-hand experience. I recently became aware of a limiting belief formed during adulthood, and the simple awareness of it has made a huge change in my life. I’ll share how it was formed in hopes that others can relate to the story and begin to identify some of their own limiting beliefs.

The limiting belief that I was operating under was “I shouldn’t travel for work because bad things happen to my family when I’m gone.” This belief has caused me extreme internal conflict every time I travel for business – I love my work, but I hate to leave my family. Here’s how it was formed.

When my son was an infant, he was chronically ill with asthma, extreme food and environmental allergies, ear infections and constant colds. Every time he caught a cold, he would have a severe asthma attack. Asthma in an infant or small child is extremely dangerous – their small airways get so closed down that they cannot breathe. We called him the canary in the mineshaft, because he was so sensitive to almost everything. He was hospitalized numerous times during the first three years of his life, and my husband and I nursed him through many anxious nights.

When he was three years old, I planned to extend a business trip to New York City to spend the weekend in Maine with an old friend. This was the first time that I had planned a solo pleasure trip in the three years since my son’s birth. The night before I was supposed to go to Maine, my husband called and told me that our son was getting a cold. My husband and I kept in close touch by telephone. By noon on my last day in New York, it was clear that my son was in the middle of a severe asthma attack. I needed to go home to take care of my family. I changed my plans to go to Maine and re-scheduled my flight so I could return home that night. My husband said he would meet my plane and drive me home from the airport.

I arrived at my hometown airport at 1:30 am that night, exhausted. When I got out to the curb, I realized that my husband wasn’t there to meet me – a bad sign. I called home, and, to my horror, my minister sleepily answered the phone. My heart sank, fearing the worst. He told me that he was staying at our house for the night to care for my daughter while my husband took my son to the hospital.

I took a cab home and then drove to the hospital, where I exchanged places with my husband, who went home to be with our daughter and send our minister home. I joined my son in the Emergency Room, where several doctors were working on him. They needed to put an IV in his arm, but my son couldn’t lay still due to the asthma drugs that made him jumpy. He was wheezing, crying and thrashing his arms and legs. They had to put my baby in a straight jacket to restrain him. At that point, the doctors suggested that I leave the room, perceiving that I was about to lose it. I sat down on the floor in the hallway, put my head in my hands and wept as I listened to my son scream in the adjacent room. I never felt so desperate and hopeless as that night.

Although my son and I survived that night, I internalized that traumatic experience into extreme guilt and worry during every business trip I’ve taken since then. It’s been a limiting belief for me – robbing me of internal ease and confidence when I traveled. Now that my children are almost out of the nest, it seems time to give that up.

At my prayer group meeting recently, I had a revelation. During our sharing time, somehow this story came up. I told it and wept. Then I realized that this event had caused me to develop a limiting belief around travel. I had told myself that I hate to travel for business, which is not entirely true. I felt compassion for myself, understanding how and why I had built up this belief. It had served me well during the years my children were young, influencing me to make decisions that kept me closer to home. But now, girded with the knowledge of this limiting belief and that my family is OK without me, I can start believing that business travel is OK and maybe even fun!

I’m off to both Finland and Nashville tomorrow for a week-long business trip. I look forward to testing my revised belief that business travel can be fun!

Posted by admin | Filed Under Stress Management, Work, blog

Simple Everyday Miracles that We Give Each Other

June 17, 2008 | Leave a Comment

Most of the time, we go through life totally oblivious to how our words and deeds can positively affect – indeed, change the course of – another person’s life. It could be a simple observation we say to someone, it could be a random act of kindness (as simple as a smile), or it could be the role model we become for others that can make all the difference. Several instances have come to my notice this week that remind me of the way we are connected to and bless each other. And most of the time, we have no idea that we have given a miracle to another person!

Last week, I received an email from a friend who thanked me for helping her get through a tough episode during a recent road trip. I replied to her email saying I didn’t know what I did to help her. She explained that the example I set of praying before meetings at our church gave her a tool and the inner strength to get through that difficult time. I was flabbergasted. I had no idea that I had any influence over her or any other person.

Similarly, I recently received a text message from a friend who thanked me for being an angel for her. I texted her back to ask if she sent the message to the wrong person! No, she assured me, I was the intended recipient. She was thanking me for being there for her during some rough times.

Here’s another example: Several months ago, an executive at a large company hired me to consult with her department. She assigned a much younger woman to be one of my main contacts for the project. I took the younger woman to lunch after our project was done, and she told me what an outstanding role model the executive had been to her, teaching her that a woman could be both business-like and caring in a high-level job. With the young woman’s permission, I mentioned her words to the executive, who, like me in the previous stories, was flabbergasted that she had that much influence over another person.

And, the story continues. That executive (who gave me permission to write about this) recently received a LinkIn.com invitation from another younger woman who thanked her for being a great role model to her. And get this – this young woman never worked for the executive, but her husband did!

I can think of times when friends and acquaintances have done something for me or said something simple that profoundly affected me and influenced my life’s journey, if only just a tiny bit. Even tiny mid-course corrections can change the ultimate destination of a journey. If you are driving north from Austin, veering left at a critical junction instead of bearing straight can mean the difference between arriving in Dallas or Fort Worth! So that means that I am here, right now, writing to you in this blog because of all the tiny miracles I have so abundantly received, that each changed my life’s course if only a little. It gives me shivers to think about it.

I ask you to do two simple things:

Be aware of the simple, everyday miracles that bless your life. Did someone smile at you at the grocery store? Did someone hold open a door for you? Did a co-worker bring you coffee? If you can, make that person’s day by thanking them.
Take advantage of opportunities to create a simple, everyday miracle in someone else’s life. Smile, laugh, love and perform acts of random kindness. You may never know how you affect another person, but do it anyway. It will make you feel good, even in the middle of a busy, stressful day.

Posted by admin | Filed Under Newest Posts, The Journey, Work, blog

Building the Temple of Well-Being

June 12, 2008 | Leave a Comment

An everyday mystic understands that she must build her life like a Greek temple. The foundation of the temple represents her personal values, those things she holds most dear and important. The values support the temple columns, which represent different parts of us that we must nourish in order to be whole people: our hearts, our minds and our bodies. The ceiling of the temple is our spirit, which depends on support from our values, our hearts, our minds and our bodies. The roof of this temple is our Holistic Well-being, the pinnacle of a life well-lived. In order to reach the pinnacle of well-being, an everyday mystic makes a commitment to honor and develop each of these aspects of herself, knowing that ignoring even one of them will contribute to an unstable temple. What is true for the individual is true for the organization or team as well – each of these aspects of well-being must be nurtured in order to build a highly functional and productive team. Let’s examine each of these elements that contribute to building the temple of well-being.

Foundation: Values – Values represent the foundation of your character, and include the beliefs you hold most dear about living a good life. This building block can encompass mission, vision and purpose statements as well as the values which govern your behavior. Most corporate entities have created mission, vision and/or purpose statements that get shelved or filed in a drawer, never to have life breathed into them. An everyday mystic might wish to create his own mission and purpose statements and discern his personal values. Values include statements of how important things are to you, like money, achievement and the relative importance of family and friends vs. career. I am creating some assessments for my coaching clients to help them identify their values, purpose and life mission. My own personal purpose statement is to be a teacher of spiritual intelligence to others, and help them evolve their souls. Whatever your values are, the real questions for both individuals and organizations are – are you living them, and how do you keep them alive?
Column One: Body – The body represents our physical manifestation in this world. There is great wisdom in the body, and it is intimately connected with mind and heart – indeed, body, mind and heart come together to support and build your spirit. Some say the body cannot lie. This is the basis of Applied Kinesiology, an alternative medicine practice that uses muscle testing to diagnose illness. The fact that the body registers emotions is being proven by researchers, but we intuitively understand that through our own experiences: embarrassment causes our cheeks to flush, nervousness produces butterflies in the stomach, sadness makes us cry. We need to take good care of our bodies by feeding them well, exercising them appropriately and getting adequate rest and relaxation, all of which support the spirit.
Column Two: Heart – The heart represents our emotional balance and social abilities. In building spiritual intelligence, we strive to achieve mastery over our emotions. Mastery of emotions does not mean walling off your feelings and denying your emotions or moods. Rather, it is to feel emotions intensely but to let them wash through you without sticking, as it were – to let them roll off you. One does that by noticing and deeply feeling the emotions, but gaining perspective on them so they don’t become your self-image. The heart also represents the health of our closest relationships – are we in right relationship with our families and our close friends? Are we being a best friend to ourselves?
Column Three: Mind – The mind represents our intellectual capacities and our innate talents. An everyday mystic is constantly on the look-out for new learning opportunities, whether it be through formal means (such as reading and attending classes) or experiential means (like traveling or trying new things). The mind also represents self-awareness of our strengths and God-given talents, and the wisdom to know how best to develop them. The mind, though full of wisdom, also holds wisdom’s opposite – the ego or false self, which is the negative inner voice that says you are separate from Source energy, that evil abounds, and that you are not good enough. Our job is to feed the true self’s voice so the false self dies of starvation. Then do we feed our spiritual intelligence.
Spirit – Our spiritual intelligence is our awareness of our connection to Source/God and to all that is. It is our awareness of the meaning of our life, our conscience, our ability to forgive and let go and our ability to evolve our souls to higher levels of consciousness. It is spiritual intelligence that encourages us to change perspectives, to see things from another person’s eyes, to keep things in perspective and to honor the inter-connectedness of all living beings. Developing all the other aspects of ourselves allows our spirit to soar, but an everyday mystic spends as much time developing and honoring his spirit as he does taking care of the other aspects of himself.

It is the aim of The everyday mystic to provide avenues to develop each of the elements of holistic well-being. Stay tuned for future blog posts that will explore the building blocks of well-being. Be sure to check out our training and coaching services as well.

Posted by admin | Filed Under blog

June 12th 2008

June 12, 2008 | Leave a Comment

I’d like to introduce to you my newest business endeavor, Brio Leadership! Many of you know me as the president of KR Consulting, a professional services firm that focuses on the technical services industry. I continue to work in KR Consulting’s business, but have launched Brio Leadership to broaden the audience we speak to and to follow my ultimate passion, which is to help individuals and teams positively transform their lives through the teaching of spiritual intelligence. I feel compelled to do this work; indeed, I feel like I’ve been preparing my whole life to take this step and help others live integrated lives that are in alignment with their spiritual values.

Incorporating spiritual intelligence into the workplace means bringing our highest selves to work, everyday. How can we bring our highest selves to work? We need to identify our life’s purpose, do work that we love and provides meaning. and seek an everyday connection with the divine self within us. According to Stephen R. Covey, “Spiritual intelligence represents our drive for meaning and connection with the infinite.” (from The Eighth Habit: From Effectiveness to Greatness, page 53). Spiritual intelligence does not mean that we practice religion at work, or that we preach or force our religious views on others in the workplace. Spiritual intelligence transcends religion – or better, it is the bedrock of religion.

I take this step with excitement tinged with a bit of fear – it’s something new and very different from my past.

If my new endeavor resonates with you, I’d love to hear from you – you can reply to this email or post a comment on the blog at BrioLeadership.com. If you think of others who would like to hear more about Brio Leadership, please forward this to them.

Of course, if you prefer not to receive future e-zines from us, you can anonymously and safely un-subscribe at the bottom of this email.

Blessings to you on your path,

Kristin

Posted by krisrob02 | Filed Under Greetings from Kristin

The Three Hill Walk

June 9, 2008 | Leave a Comment

I did a "three hill walk" tonight at sundown. I live in a neighborhood that’s unusual for these parts – it has hills. There are three streets that go up that hill, and I walked all three of them tonight. Fast. I got up a bit of a sweat. Despite the glow I achieved, it was an Everyday Mystic walk. Even though I’ve walked that route countless times, tonight I walked those hills like I’ve never walked them before – with beginner’s mind and new eyes.

This afternoon, a summer thunderstorm blew in, dumped lots of rain but blew out the humidity and dropped the temperature significantly. Tonight was a magic night – unusually cool for June, but warm enough to envelope a sundown walker in a wrap of summer evening-ness. As I walked, my senses were alert. I noticed that I couldn’t hear any traffic noise – which can’t be said for the mornings, when I usually walk those hills. What I heard were two airplanes flying overhead, one dog barking and the constant sound of my feet walking – per-thum, per-thum, in 2/4 time, accented by an occasional skreek when my shoe scraped the pavement. And then – oh my! – there were the cicadas in the trees, with their rhythmic drone. I noticed the music of one band of cicadas fade out as I walked away from their trees; then I would hear another band grow louder as I walked toward them. It reminded me of going to a parade and hearing five bands march by, spaced out over the length of the parade. Every now and then I heard a tree frog’s quiet squeak-squeak. I stopped to put my hand in a stream of water coming from an irrigation sprinkler. I was surprised at how warm the water felt. I nearly swooned as my nose caught an intoxicating waft of perfume from a nearby honeysuckle bush.

Exercise is a great way to get in touch with our bodies and our connection to something greater than ourselves, if we pay attention to the moment. I enjoy going to the gym to get my exercise, but sometimes it feels like a microwave experience – quick, efficient but devoid of true flavor or aroma. That’s why I enjoy walking so much. If I remember to 1) go alone and 2) be aware as I walk, I can be present to the sites and sounds around me and to the wonder of my body as it propels me through space.

I recommend an Everyday Mystic walk to you, especially after a busy or stressful day. Open your senses – see, hear, feel and touch what is around you. Feel the stress drain from your body. Appreciate your feet as they carry you on your journey. Be in the moment. Be grateful. Feel alive.

Posted by admin | Filed Under Mind/Body Connection, Stress Management, blog

Spiritual Practice Breaks are OK

June 1, 2008 | Leave a Comment

Lapses in our spiritual practice cannot be cause for beating ourselves up. If we wish to practice forgiveness in our lives, it has to start on the inside by allowing ourselves to take sabbaticals every now and then from even our most cherished practices. An attitude of acceptance is the best approach – “it is what it is” is a good affirmation. Self-acceptance is spiritual maturity.

I speak from my heart today, as I realized this morning as I was journaling that it has been many days since I have written and meditated. I hadn’t journaled since Tuesday – and today is Sunday, so you can count the days yourself. I am sorry for my lapse because I promised to you several months ago in this blog that I was committing to a daily practice. But I am proud to look back over the week and appreciate what I’ve done instead. I’m really grateful for this break in my routine, because it has produced such richness. I give myself permission to take a short break from my mediation and journaling practice. And, I am glad to come back to it now.

The week has been one of discovery and learning for me. I attended a three-day train-the-trainer class to learn about CoreClarity’s approach to training people to recognize and play to their strengths, rather than fixing their weaknesses. This positive approach to team-building and individual productivity was transformational for me, and I know it will be transformational for the organizations that I hope to bring it to. The training was exciting but it was also exhausting because of the deep inner work that we did. Plus, it was an hour or more commute each way to the class for me.

But, an amazing result came out of those long commutes – I created a dream for where I wanted to be in five years. I was inspired by my business coach who invited me to her birthday party last week. I couldn’t attend because I was out-of-town on business. What she invited her friends to was not a “come as you are” party, but a “come as you will be… in 2013″ party. Come as you will be in five years – now that’s a fascinating challenge! As I battled rush hour traffic this week, I turned off the radio and mentally envisioned where I would like to be, what I would like to be doing, and what my life is going to look like in five years. I have captured my dream in my journal, and I hope to make a story-board (a visual depiction) of my dream also. I didn’t realize it at the time, but I look back now and am happy that the space in my practice allowed me to do this inner work.

We must give ourselves permission to take breaks from our spiritual practices. We can just notice them, just as we notice our thoughts come and go during meditation. The trick is in getting back into the practices. In meditation, we notice the thoughts and let them go – and then direct our minds back to the breath. We must direct our lives back to our practice in the same non-judgmental way.

That is what self-forgiveness is all about.

Posted by krisrob02 | Filed Under Forgiveness, Loving Yourself, Meditation, Newest Posts, blog

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