Ducks in a row: Power lies in aligning your heart and head

Is there something more powerful than brain power, when it comes to making your business work? So often, people are raised to think their way through most situations, with the implication that we should stop feeling so much and use our heads more.

I love to read and ponder what Socrates, Plato, Nietzsche have to say about the truth of the human condition. But we’ve blown past one of the most fundamental truths: We have to have our hearts and our brains in literal harmony to be our most powerful and productive (and human) selves. Scientific research now proves this.

The Institute of HeartMath, which has 17 years of work under its belt, has found that the heart is the largest generator of electrical and magnetic energies in the body. The heart produces the largest rhythmic electromagnetic field of any of the body’s organs. Its electrical field is about 60 times greater in amplitude than the electrical activity generated by the brain and its magnetic field is 5,000 times greater.

We’ve been conditioned as a mind-dominated culture to believe that emotions are inappropriate and ineffective in our professional lives. In truth, the most powerful source of our inner power lies in the heart and in our ability to experience and manage our emotions.

To help the brain to begin seeing and acting from a clear, logical perspective, it’s necessary to consult the heart, and it is often a variety of emotional elements that need clearing and clarifying. The heart’s magnetic field — some unresolved emotional component of fear or self-doubt or some little old memory of things going south — keeps the system from delivering the most powerful performance. Once the emotional component is brought into clarity, the heart and brain come into alignment and there is no stopping the force of that talent, insight, even brilliance.

My advice to you? Go out of your mind. And check your heart. Then get them aligned. Think how powerful you will be when you’ve got both those energy forces going in the same direction! Read more!

Living Your Passion

Every rule in the book can be broken except one: Be who you are and become all you were meant to be.
-- Sidney Harris

People interested in peak performance know that the first and foremost consideration for clarity is this - are you pursuing your deepest passion? Are you heeding the still small voice that gives you the same clear message year after year about what you are to be doing and yearn to be doing?

All too often, many of us trade our passion for what seems to be the sensible thing to do. "Be sensible." We do what we think we should and lose our aliveness. We worry that what we want is beyond our reach, that we're not smart enough, we don't have the right schooling, that what we want sounds silly and our friends and family will certainly not agree. These false beliefs have seeped into the pores and cells of each and every client I've seen over the last 23 years. And these clients are usually the brightest and best. But the self-doubts, the fears, and the prescriptions of others to keep yourself in your place have taken their toll.

We must know and trust that if our still small voice is urging us to do something, the universe will support us when we take action. Let me repeat that - when you know and trust what your knowing tells you are to be doing with your life, the universe absolutely will support you in this endeavor. Everything lines up, for it is the thing you are here to do. Listen to your inner voice - it rings clear and its telling you the truth!

Jean Houston's study of 55 of the most creative people in the U.S. revealed interesting commonalities. Each was familiar with their interior world and believed its ideas and images could spark their projects - and followed its urgings.

Know you are here for a purpose. It's important. This purpose serves the world and serves you - with passion, joy, enthusiasm, excitement and power. Choose to honor what's in your heart by following its lead. The only other choice is to set limits. Limits create dull, passionless lives. Ask yourself, "What do I love to do? What brings me joy? What do I have fun doing? Joseph Campbell said, "When you follow your bliss, you put yourself on a track that has been there all the time waiting for you." I like that. Read more!

What it takes to Survive -- and Thrive

I'm not addicted to too many things, well . . . not really. But I do like to read my Newsweek magazine each week. I look forward to its arrival in my mail box and I always start at the very back page to read "The Last Word" by either Anna Quindlen or George Will. They see the world through quite different lenses, and I do like to imagine how they came to such divergent conclusions. I exercise my tolerance muscle, or lack thereof, when I disagree.

An article that caught my eye was about what it takes to survive, given the recent airline crash into the Hudson River in New York City. All the points they mention about survival also apply literally and metaphorically to the business world as well. Why do some people walk away from a plane crash or thrive after a job loss, while others seem to fold in and lose themselves?

Here's what really caught my attention since it goes hand in hand with the work I do with aligning your thoughts (and your physiology ) with what it is you really want to happen for your thriving success.

Quoted from Newsweek, February 2, 2009: excerpt from Dr. David Spain, Stanford Medical Center

After two years of research, I discovered that everyone has a crisis personality - a Survivor IQ - that they marshal in a moment of adversity: a mindset and ways of thinking about a situation. The best survivors and thrivers understand that crisis is inevitable, and they anticipate adversity. Understanding that even misfortune gets tired and needs a break, they're able to hold back, identify the right moment and then do what they need to do. Psychologists have a clunky term for this: active passiveness. It means recognizing when to stop and when to go. In a critical sense, doing something can mean doing nothing. Action can be inaction, and embracing this paradox can save your life.

I would like to add that one's deep, inner sense of safety and confidence in the world is a tremendous factor in whether a person can possess any ability to assess when it’s time to do nothing or time to take decisive action. In crisis, only a brain not flooded with panic and fear can make any discernments of clear thought. Unconscious beliefs such as “I’m not safe,” “The world is always out to get me,” “I never get a fair shake” leave one feeling vulnerable at best and absolutely paralyzed or panicky when something critical calls for the best you have.

It’s important to get to know your unconscious beliefs –- you can’t know what you’re dealing with until you get them into the light of the day. Energy Psychology methods can easily help you transform these beliefs into positive, confident ones. It can save your life. Read more!

Believing In Your Success Makes It So

We don't see things as they are. We see things as we are.
-- Anais Nin

I saw the movie "Doubt" a few nights ago and was so moved by this thought-provoking film that I went right home and began journaling. I wrote about the complexity of perception and reality, of what we deem "right and wrong," of moral certitude threatening the reality of the heart and flexible considerations. Did Philip Seymour Hoffman's Father Flynn take advangtage of the vulnerable boy, its first black student, Donald Muller? Or was he taking a special interest to love and guide him amidst the dangerous waters of his situation? Meryl Streep's sister Aloysius rules with the iron-handed assurance of unwavering discipline and installation of fear. She always knows what is right. Was she?

We now know that Belief, yes, what we Believe, actually creates our Reality. Perception is through our own lenses. We have known this for a long time. Anais Nin said it well at the beginning of the writing. Norman Vincent Peale knew what he was talking about in his "The Power of Positive Thinking." Our thinking is Powerful! Now in the 21st century, we actually have the science to back up the knowlege that Belief creates your reality.

I urge you to visit Bruce Lipton's book, "The Biology of Belief: Unleashing the Power of Consciousness, Matter and Miracles," Bruce H. Lipton, 2005. Also please note Dr. Masaru Emoto's work entitled, "The Hidden Messages in Water," Masaru Emoto, 2001 (Japan), 2004 (USA). The scientist in you will be marveling at how our beliefs create literal chemical synaptic changes in our body's functioning. Dr. Emoto shows pictures that display how your belief and emotional attitude toward water( whether loving or hateful) actually changes its crystals from beautiful and symmetrical to ugly and asymmetrically harsh.

Imagine how our own thoughts could shift to create a more supportive, vibrant, powerful, productive, successful reality for ourselves and for those around us. Check out the science of Belief. And if you aren't interested, well just take a look at how things have manifested in your life. Really, how did your success come about? Believing makes it so. In Doubt, we are left not really knowing what is the truth - at least that is what my lenses left me to believe. What do you believe? Whatever it is, it is so. Read more!