Big change

May. 21st, 2012 04:18 pm
sabrinamari: (Godhooks/Transformation)
I've been saying that I am going to leave LJ for the longest time.

I've been threatening to start a Dreamwidth journal forever.

Up to this point, I have conspicuously not done so.

I hate switching out big things and switching over from one place/thing/person I've invested in to another. It's deeply annoying to walk away from a big investment, which is probably why I dislike buying new cars so much. All that research, all that decision making, all that energy, and then you have to get used to an entirely new car. Drat!

However, since I had so much trouble with this regarding LJ, I simply asked someone else to help me do it.

If you don't have to sit there and remake the decision every second, it's much easier. It's tremendously easier to simply ask someone to do a big switch for you, so all you have to do, emotionally, is just stick by the decision you've made.

Thus I want to thank sleepymaggie for researching the options and backing up my LJ for me---all the way back to 2004---and then setting up a Dreamwidth account in my name.

I'm not leaving LJ in the sense that I'll still read it religiously and comment on my friend's posts. But I'll write from Dreamwidth now, since it automatically crossposts to LJ for me.

If you have a Dreamwidth account, you can add me there.

You are welcome to comment in either place.

Here's to big changes!
sabrinamari: (tiny seedling)
I have an incredibly important meeting at noon this Monday. Reason would dictate that after this meeting, I should go get a massage or something. That would be logical.

But today I got a call from a woman who defends her dissertation in a week and a half. She needs someone to help her prepare and work with her a little bit to spin her talk. She doesn't have a coach or a mentor/ally. She just needs a little friendly push to help her get past this next scary bit.

And my meeting ends an hour before she has to teach a double only a few floors below me.

I know I should have said no. I know this.

But...

But...

I remember what it was like to be so scared. It meant so much to have people's help. It made all the difference in the world.

And who knows what she will go on to do, to change, to create, to make better and more beautiful in this world. Who knows what she will bring to us all.

I can schedule my massage for later, after both she and I have had our chance to shine.
sabrinamari: (Golden Buddha)
April is a very important month for me. Many, many things that really matter to me come up for action this month.

I need to put in my TED talk application before mid-month. I have a big career opportunity this month, and I need to approach it mindfully and with planning. I need to produce a good article draft by mid-month (and the analysis isn't finished, either), a reviewed chapter draft and a book timeline even sooner *and* I have two weekend gatherings to help run along the way.

I also applied for a long shot opportunity that comes to culmination this month. It's a *very* long shot, but I am hoping.

If I'm wise, I will stack the deck in my own favor.
Read more... )
sabrinamari: (tiny seedling)
...and it was fun.

I can now tell high-quality fabrics from low-quality fabrics, I know what works on my body, and I get how to use accessories on a suit.

Found some wonderful things and spent lots of money but feel good about it.

I really had a good time.
sabrinamari: (here comes the sun...)
I have passport stickers everywhere and I renewed my passport really fast because I DON"T WANT TO STAY HERE. I am going SOMEPLACE ELSE in my life.

Duh!

Gigantic concrete metaphor for what I am calling!

Go cognitive chunking.
sabrinamari: (Godhooks/Transformation)
One of my very insightful friends ([livejournal.com profile] divalion) wrote this to a group of us on another website:

"...from my observations of this group alone, I see mile markers in the change process that nearly all of us have had in common regardless of what it is we're changing, things that aren't obvious when you're setting out-- like, identifying a new venture or project in the direction of the change one is making, lots of joy and excitement and initial success, and then a period of extreme hardship, derailment, or failure with it-- an expansion followed by a difficult contraction---that seems like it might actually be a necessary part of the process..."

I think this is an important observation. The moment my friend proposed this kind of thought for the first time, I thought "Yes. Yes. Yes."
Read more... )

People get both wiser and wealthier in groups.
sabrinamari: (Alice)
For days I've had the urge to rewatch "Kill Bill" without understanding why. Now that I've had a chance to re-experience the end, I understand exactly why.

No urge is without its meaning. It just takes a little digging.
sabrinamari: (Godhooks/Transformation)
From today's Early Morning Buddhist Inspirations:

"The tighter you squeeze, the less you have."
 
  ~Ma-Tsu


I never thanked my first husband for one of the most important lessons he taught me, and it seems important to do it, even though I am not speaking directly to him.

Thank you for teaching me never to try and convince someone that they could/should love me.

That lesson was worth its weight in gold.

Understanding that love can only be inspired, and never demanded, has made my life better.

Thank you.
sabrinamari: (Godhooks/Transformation)
Some months ago, a dear, dear man said something like, "Hmmm, your body is almost like a divining tool...". What he meant, I think, was that I feel things approaching on the horizon of my life well before I can see them coming in a more intellectual, frontal-lobe kind of way. In another recent conversation, I told him that I could feel changes coming in the professional side of my life, and even though I couldn't articulate, intellectually, how they were going to manifest, I could feel them strongly about to emerge and I wasn't afraid of the challenge.

So today, a piece of that change walked into my office, sat down, and laid out a potential future path that I had not even vaguely imagined in any kind of intellectual way. This slowly coalescing door would require the use of many of my skills, and might even permit me to stay connected to my current path and the mentor I so respect and admire.

I listened carefully as this future was laid out before me. I asked many questions. I felt it out. "Is this what you've been talking about?" I silently asked myself. "Yes, one piece of it," my body replied.

I am proceeding slowly, as is my way. No rushing, no pushing, no sense of urgency. Just a steady, ongoing opening up, a careful exploration of the possibilities.

We'll see. We'll see, over time.

****

Possibility number two just arrived over email. Oh, and possibility three emailed me last week and I forgot about it...I guess that makes it possibility 0, the origin...

OK, now I'm getting weird. That's OK, as long as I can keep the socially awkward stuff to a minimum.
sabrinamari: (Golden Buddha)
 
"Human potential is the same for all. Your feeling, "I am of no value", is wrong. Absolutely wrong. You are deceiving yourself. We all have the power of thought - so what are you lacking? If you have willpower, then you can change anything. It is usually said that you are your own master."
 
  ~His Holiness The Dalai Lama 
Read more... )
sabrinamari: (Godhooks/Transformation)
I think I have two posts in me today: one is about imposing control in relationships, and the other is about colonialism. Really, they are about the same exact thing expressed at two very different levels: the harm that inevitably emerges from one entity's all-encompassing attempts to control another, whether the entities involved are individuals or nations.

I've been thinking about this a lot over the last week or so, probably because I've been making arrangements to go home and I've also been been watching and listening as friends and dear ones around me attempt to grapple with their own control issues.

There's also another reason: I always look at things through the twin lenses of agency (or lack thereof) and resilience, because (together with compassion) they make up some of the most important concerns in my life.
Read more... )
sabrinamari: (tiny seedling)
Today I'm thinking about the incredibly important role that generosity plays in relationships. Here, I mean a generosity of spirit---the kind of feeling that inclines you to trust in your partner's good sense and overall good will towards you, even during difficult encounters. Lately Michael and I have been talking about how we can tackle some of our career and money-related issues, and I've noticed that although these discussions could easily become tense and difficult, they don't.

Instead of falling into unproductive habits of shaming, blaming and being defensive, we mostly just walk right past those pitfalls and go straight into brainstorming solutions. I've also been thinking about how rarely we fight, and noticing that when we do, it's usually pretty fast-moving: he encourages me to talk, we alternate talking and listening, and even when hard things are said, it's usually OK. I think this happens because each of us is very convinced of the other's good will. Each of us feels generous towards the other, even when we feel scared or angry or defensive. That generosity of spirit isn't so much a feeling as it is a fundamental orientation, a way of seeing each other in the world.

I think I've spent so many years living with this more generous orientation that I've forgotten what it's like to live in a relationship without it. That's an encouraging thought---for almost a decade and a half I lived in a relationship that completely lacked generosity. And before then, I think I only experienced it once, for about two years, maybe less. Yet only six years of a different, healthier kind of experience has been enough to completely reorient my thinking and shift my world view. Those are pretty good numbers. And if I think about it, they get even better. It probably took me only about four years to adopt the new paradigm completely, even after a lifetime lived mostly without it.

So...this tells me that generosity can be learned, and profound shifts can happen in relatively short amounts of time. Hmmmmmm.
sabrinamari: (Inanna/Transformative work)
So today I had a conversation I do not feel good about. And what I don't feel good about is the way I presented myself in, it as well as some of the things I said to the person with whom I was speaking. I made a promise at FoV to be "proactive, open-hearted and direct" in my one-on-one conversations, especially those that challenge me. And since I made that vow (and even a few days prior) I've been doing well at keeping that promise. In many, many conversations since then I've been able to do all of those things: I've been proactive, open-hearted, direct and more. I've also written to several people in ways that kept all of those promises.

But I didn't do it today. And I'm not going to beat myself up about it. I just want to understand why, so I don't do do it again.
Read more... )
sabrinamari: (Venus)
I am completely stunned at the capacity for love that has been waiting, only as potential, in my heart. The last year's work---really, the last two years of very hard work---have opened me up profoundly. Nowhere is this more evident than in the growth and insights I have experienced with both C. and L., who have become my teachers in the Buddhist sense of the term. Each woman, unknowing, offers me the opportunity to grow in poignant and unexpected ways by choosing to remain present, honest and unflinchingly courageous in their communications with me. I don't know what I expected, but it wasn't this.

I am a better, more powerful person for it.

I am also growing and expanding through each interaction I experience with M. and O., but I expected something like this. It is no less powerful, no less profound, but some part of me isn't surprised by it.

C. and L., however, are shaping me in ways I never really considered. And neither of them has the slightest clue.

Got it!

Sep. 19th, 2011 11:39 am
sabrinamari: (...what is brain?)
This post is about what I've learned over the last four or five or six years about how groups come together to create great work. The facilitation I do with small teams of health care workers and the Priesting I've done in my spiritual life dovetail beautifully in this area. In each place, I help small groups learn to talk to each other, work together and use their dysfunctions to help make themselves---and the things they create---stronger and better.

Talking to Abe a few weeks ago I got of some of it out, but if I don't write it down either I will go crazy or it will be gone.

Here's the core thought:

It's the relationships that make or break the work.

The obvious thing, the commonsense thing, is for group members to focus their primary efforts on whatever it is they are trying to produce: high quality patient care, a gorgeous, deeply transformative ritual or a training group that births great Priest/esses.

This is absolutely the wrong thing to do.

The most stunningly beautiful results come not from focusing on the goal, the work, the end products themselves, but on the relationships amongst the people who come together to create them.

Focusing on healthy and loving relationships of trust promotes positive transformation among all those involved and creates a powerful, positive egregore.

It's the egregore that creates the work.

So, don't put your primary focus on the details of the work.

Put your primary focus on the creation of powerful, positive relationships of trust that will sustain and feed the group.

Focusing on the work itself is important, but secondary.

If you get the order right, you will create great work.

One big caveat: it's very important, at first, to bring together the right group of people to do the work.

But once this is done, most of the energy then needs to focus on creating and sustaining good relationships amongst them.
sabrinamari: (tiny seedling)
Today I decided to clean my office.

I've been doing a lot of things lately, and my office has acquired a metric ton of clutter. I believe that clutter always has emotional energy attached to it---stale emotional energy. So I thought I'd file things, clear away the clutter, wipe away the dust and generally put stuff away.

I cleaned for a good 40 minutes and then came to my old computer docking station and stopped. It's big old thing that holds up a gynormous monitor and also has my old keyboard shoved up inside it, along with a mouse and various cords. I never use it anymore and I haven't for months---maybe even a year.

I noticed that it was dusty and kind of nasty, and it was taking up a big chunk of space on my desk. To accomodate it, I had arranged many of my desk-top items on the other side of my work space.
Read more... )
It could just be me, but I think there's a metaphor for personal growth in here somewhere.
sabrinamari: (Inanna/Transformative work)
Today I am the bringer of unpopular news. I remember that Erishkigal, too, is my homegirl, alongside Inanna/Aphrodite, and I honor them both.



See the original image, and artist, here: http://kometani.deviantart.com/art/Ereshkigal-131661824
sabrinamari: (Godhooks/Transformation)

Every now and then
I can see that I am getting somewhere
where I have to go is so deep
I was angry back then and you
know I still am
I have lost too much sleep
But I'm gonna find it


Shawn Colvin, Diamond in the Rough

This week has been full, full of ups and downs. I am trying hard to absorb everything I've been exposed to over the past two or three months, and the process of adaptation has been tricky and spotty. Sometimes I'm totally up to it and I feel good---completely up to the task. Occasionally, though, there are serious drops in mood and temporary bouts of insanity. I can feel myself sliding into them even if I can't stop them, but mercifully, they are usually quite brief. Once I'm out, I'm pretty much able to say, "Huh, that wasn't helpful at all. Look at that: massive acting out. Now, how can I minimize the chances that I'll do *that* again?"

Overall, I think I'm s-l-o-w-l-y succeeding at shifting my perspective/s into something newer, something more useful and something that's bound to allow me greater happiness. Very, very carefully, I'm shedding my old tired skin and exposing the fresh new skin beneath it.

And, as Shawn Colvin sings out loud to herself, that's enough.

You're shining
I can see you
You're smiling
That's enough, and

I'm holding on to you
like a diamond in the rough
like a diamond in the rough
sabrinamari: (Venus)
My heart is expanding and growing like crazy. Sometimes it is painful and scary, and sometimes it's wonderful.

I am noticing that when I stay in the present with what is actually happening, it is really, really good.

When my head wanders off into possible future challenges, I lose the fun and get scared.

This brings me a whole new perspective on 'learning to stay'.

It's really, really important.

Being present allows me to love.

Triumph

May. 12th, 2011 10:18 am
sabrinamari: (tiny seedling)
"There are only two mistakes one can make along the road to truth; not going all the way, and not starting."

~The Buddha

You know, there are moments when I look at myself and think,

"It doesn't even matter, in this particular moment, whether I succeed or fail at what I am attempting to do. The progress I've made in even being able to to take this step is breathtaking."

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