Part 3: Passion

I'm continuing my big project to transform my life towards hope, resilience, and flow, because these will allow me to be a wise, flexible, creative, and positive leader for my family, community, and for the earth. 

The last part of the project (that I haven't touched on yet) is to be passionate and brave - let go of caution and involve myself wholeheartedly with what I love. Stretch beyond the way I’ve always done things.

Agenda:

1. Love Meditation

2. Read "First Things First"

3. Creative visioning

4. Make an inspirational postcard

1. Love Meditation:

Every month after the full moon, in the quiet-energy yin time of the waning moon, I practice a love meditation that progresses from receptivity, to gratitude, to generosity:

Day 1: Practice a love meditation, and open to receive blessings - send a prayer to the universe asking to be showered with love, kindness, health, and happiness.

1. 1 minute - Relax your body, and focus on the tender emotion of generous love. Allow a smile to settle on your face and in your heart.
2. 1 minute - Visualize love as soft, tingly, warm, pink light, and see it move from your heart to every part of your body so that every cell is glowing and vibrating.
3. 1 minute - Now see the pink light of love radiating to fill the whole room, then the whole city, and the whole planet earth.
4. 1 minute - See that all people, plants, and animals feel warm and happy.
5. 1 minute - Send an extra dose of love light to those people you want to have a better connection to.

2. Read "First Things First"

Last Fall I began to review this book by Stephen Covey (1994) that was pivotal in my growth. I'm on section 4: The Power and Peace of Principle-Centered Living.

Chapter 15 (the last) is The Peace of the Results. Covey says,"Peace is essentially a function of putting first things first." He is talking about the peace of living with balance and joy; in developing my character and competence; in pausing in the moment of choice to listen within; and of living in inner synergy with all my roles.

The two keystones to peace are contribution and conscience. When we give focus to these we will find the energy, passion, and meaning to fuel great things.    

3. Creative visioning:

I have challenged myself to either work on art every day, OR  come up with a creative idea or vision every day. I'd like to have an easy process for this creative visioning that I can do in the bathtub or while on a walk.

Visioning is different from visualization: It's "a way for my soul to reveal my heart’s desires and help me break the limited patterns of past thinking", and touch in with the passion I'm looking for:

1. Begin with a dream I have that is authentic to my desires and can also help service humanity. (Such as a teaching students, or a published book, or a series of inspirational artwork, or a garden sanctuary...)
2. Add a creative opening - a "what if" question - to unlock my mind to dream up the possibility of new options (Such as, What if I was a revered sage and teacher? What if I was published a Nature-Culture book? What if I could produce art that changed minds? What if my garden became a haven for butterflies?"
3. Stay in the playground of imagination - don't make it into work. Focus on the feeling good parts of the dream. 
4. Step in to the mental picture; wear the shoes of this future self, and create an exciting story for me to inhabit.
5. Sum it up in an introduction: Write on a post-it note how my future self would be introduced to someone I'm meeting for the first time. ("This is Cynthia. She wrote an inspirational book on Nature-Culture that helped me find practical and creative ways to change the paradigm of using the earth into one of unity with the earth.")
   

4. Make an inspirational postcard:

This month I've been exploring how to use what Jill Hodge calls "creative self-care" to build a hopeful flow that will anchor me, build my resilience, and help me to impact the world. I've got lots of ideas for hands-on art projects. I'm almost finished with my peace amulet, and today I want to make an inspirational postcard to print and give people. 

The is the hope component of my flow project: Hope provides emotional stability, anchoring us in meaning rather than outcomes. By combining flow and hope I can build resilience in this time of unpredictability.