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Living Your Intentional Life |
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Living Your Intentional Life Installment 6 of 10 Infuse Your Life with Self-Generated Ritual Hello again! I hope you are all doing a little (or a lot!) with Qualities 1-5. If not, Jean is kind enough to have them posted- following this article. When I work with groups, the most confusion comes up around ritual. For those grappling with being “un-affiliated” with the religion or church of their youth, it brings up all kinds of ghosts. Ritual can also be a no-no word from certain ethnic and religious backgrounds, implying god or goddess worship or pagan behaviors. How we carried this into the 21st Century is another article, but suffice it to say that these reactions are real, at the body level, and deeply imbedded. So, why would we want to “infuse” our lives with more of what we have removed or ignored for years? Because ritual is not what we think it is. Ritual is a reverence for things of the spirit, the family, the country and memory. I usually ask my groups, after the groans, some of the following questions:
All of these things are ritualistic—places of energetic spirit where we evoke the memory and the presence of family and friends. They are things we do naturally, without thought, because they are part of the tapestry of our lives. Maybe we have carried them on unknowingly because we learned them from someone else. Maybe we created them in our childhood rooms or dorm rooms or in the early days of our marriages. Maybe our children are already creating similar spaces in their homes and offices. Because of the amount of pleasure they create, we can infuse our lives with our own self-created rituals or places of sacred energy. Family ritual changes as the family changes. Divorce, death, illness, children grown and gone, all create flux in the way we observe our rituals. Sometimes the time has come for us to create personal behaviors that are honoring of ourselves as much as ancestry or habit. For those who came from Orthodox religions, particularly Catholicism, recreating an altar in our own vision of our spiritual life is healing. The most common way of creating ritual is to build a small altar that is ours alone, made up of items that inspire us or create memory of sacred precious times for us. The altar doesn’t have to be fancy, and it can be anywhere. Most women choose the bedroom, so they have privacy and quiet to create their own sacred space. Some use a dresser top, a small end table or a low table with a cushion in front. A lot of us put a scarf or cloth on the altar, then decorate it with things that are meaningful like an angel statue, a Buddha, a Kuan Yin or Blessed Mother or a Native American pot. They then add things that bring them to a spiritual thought, such as candles, flowers, music, feathers, sound bowls, cards and pictures. Altars can be as elaborate or as plain as you like. Mine are reminders of my May altars, when I worshipped the goddess in the guise of Mary, with peonies and lilacs galore. Then, it’s time to choose a specific time of day where you will devote at least ten minutes to clearing your mind, sitting in front of your altar, and inviting guidance, memory or meditation. Generally, women choose first thing in the morning and last thing at night to put their mind at ease and prepare them for the day and for sleep. At those times, it helps to open your meditation/prayer with similar saying or wording to create a sense of ritual deep in your body. Rituals can be individual or include members of the household. If you all begin dinner at the table—even if only on certain days—and open with a blessing, prayer or saying, you are creating a ritual for the family. Using dishes that have been in the family, and sharing that with your children, creates a sense of continuity in a world that is moving at the speed of light. Helping your family to create their own personal altars, with their own choices of décor and creation, heightens a sense of their spiritual self as much as awards and statuettes heighten their sense of mental or physical accomplishment. As you go along, ways of infusing one’s life with the ways of the higher self will begin to change how you look at life in general. There will be daily reminders of how life can be peaceful, loving and intentional, as opposed to chaotic, rushed and disorderly. You will want to spend more time in the place of celebration and ritual, and that can be a wonderful life change. Just start small and see what happens.
Installment 5 of 10 Pay Conscious Attention to Thoughts, Actions and Words Hello to everyone! First, I would like to acknowledge the upheaval going on in the world at the current time. Given the moon’s phase, the eclipses (especially on the 26th of July) and the uncertainty abroad in general, most of my clients and friends are experiencing some degree of chaos in their lives. I would like to ask everyone to go to the archives sometime this week and re-read the first Quality of an Intentional Life—Tell the Truth/Be True to Yourself. Those women who are coming to me right now are having great difficulty continuing the process of hiding their true feelings and trying to be everything to everybody. This is a good thing! With the upheaval in the world in every area—from Mother Nature to finances—we are being signaled to show up and be ourselves. That won’t happen as long as we are being people pleasers. A reminder: when you are asked to do something, pay attention in the body. If you feel “contracted” (a knot in the stomach, etc.) that is your body wisdom telling you to be honest and say no. Don’t give excuses, because that opens you up to argument. Simply say “I am unable to do that at this time.” If you feel “expansion” you will have a nice warm feeling or even joy in your body. That’s a yes—go for it. Anytime a decision requires you to hide your True feelings in order to accommodate someone, you are hurting yourself. How many times do you hear yourself say “I’m sorry, I can’t,” and the response is “sure you can. Just for a little while, please? “and you feel so mean-spirited that you can’t give this person your time. Maybe what the universe wants is for you to give your SELF more time. If that creates guilt in you, it’s time to look for the source. This article is about number five in the Ten Qualities of an Intentional Life:’ “Pay Conscious Attention to Thoughts, Actions and Words.” This quality goes right along with number one; Tell the Truth/Be True to Yourself. When your thoughts become angry or resentful because your words and actions went against what you truly wanted, you are damaging many parts of your body with chemicals that are released by those emotions. I advise everyone to take a very deep look into yourself and determine where your greatest desires exist. When you go into silence, close your eyes, and ask “What is my greatest desire?”, pay attention to what part of the body “feels” the answer. Do you picture this happening in your life and feel a great uplifting in your heart, or a warm cozy feeling in your solar plexus or belly? If so, that’s where your desire resides. Write, as I outline in Quality Four, what your desire is and meditate every day on seeing it grow in your life. It’s important that you then apply the pay conscious attention to thoughts actions and words part of the equation in the following manner: whenever something comes up, especially as it relates to your passions and desires, observe how it feels in your body. In other words, if it feels good and draws you closer to your desires, that’s an expansive and positive signal. If you feel a contraction, some kind of uncomfortable feeling in your body, that’s a sign this thing that is coming up would take you away from your desires, goals, passions or dreams. Use this measure throughout your day, and it will soon become second nature. You will see the strength of your purpose and desire grow, and your need to please others to the detriment of yourself will shrink. Don’t EVER think that this means you are denying others what they need. There will be times when fulfilling their desires feels really good. The tip-off is when you don’t feel good and do it anyway. This creates a reservoir of resentment in us that eventually flows over into the relationship, and by then it’s often too late. Honoring yourself is the answer. Blessings.
Installment 4 of 10 Put Your Vision in Writing I can already here the groans—“I’m not a writer”, “I hate writing!”, I haven’t written since I graduated.” Well, never fear. This is self-directed fun writing—honest. Why write? Because the brain needs to lay down new neural pathways in order for us to change how we act/react to life. The deep grooves that are now in our brain are activated every time certain challenges are presented, and these situations slide right into that groove that says how we have reacted for more years then we’d like to admit. In other words, our reactions are triggered by the brain’s familiarity with earlier reactions under similar circumstances. If someone says “you can’t do that,” our brain will take that in and respond in the way we have responded to “you can’t” our entire lives. This could be anger, resignation, agreement or even depression and anxiety. In order to create new neural pathways—or grooves—the more tools we use the faster it will happen. For instance, if we want to create a vision for our life and we think it, it will deepen the experience if we say it and again if we write it. Changing behaviors requires that we adopt skills that move the process along as fast as possible. The act of using the hand, the eye and the brain at the same time—also known as writing—is the most profound human way to write in the body. Begin with a journal. Before you write a single word, sit quietly in the space you use to practice Intentional Qualities two and three: Develop a Practice of Meditation/Prayer and Experience and Express Gratitude Daily. (If you haven’t begun those practices, please re-read the articles.) In your sacred space, put on a favorite piece of quiet music, light a candle, sit comfortably and close your eyes. Breathe deeply. Inhale deeply into your abdomen, feeling it rise. Exhale slowly, letting your abdomen sink toward your backbone. Do this four or five times. Now ask, aloud if you’re comfortable, for guidance on seeing the vision of your life and how you want to experience your life. Use your imagination—nothing is impossible! Picture yourself where you want to be—what it feels, smells, sounds and looks like. Add in anyone you would like to be there with you, or enjoy the feeling of solitude. Breathe deeply as you feel yourself in this place. What are you doing, or not doing, there? Take your time. When you’re ready, open your eyes and write everything you can remember about the scene, but especially how it felt. Every day for a week, be observant of what things in your life support or don’t support your vision. As you do, write those observations in your journal. The purpose, in the long run, will be to learn how to support creating your vision. Each day, when something arises that is a request, requirement or suggestion, pay attention to how your body reacts. If it doesn’t feel “good” in your body, it is not something that supports your vision. If someone in particular is asking you to do something, and it’s not your boss ordering you, respond with the Truth—the number one intentional quality. If it feels outside of your vision of your life, say “I appreciate your asking, and I can’t do that” The “and” is better than “but” because the “but” allows the person to argue the point. On the other hand, if your body feels good about the choice, agree whole heartedly. Soon you should find yourself behaving in ways that show you the new groove you have created—one that honors who you are and what your desires are. More about this next time!
Installment 3 of 10 Experience and Express Gratitude Daily For a lot of people, this is the toughest quality outside of forgiveness, and yet with the application of purpose, Gratitude is the easiest of the qualities, even during tough times. It’s a matter of sifting through the daily “stuff” and finding the gold. Let’s say you’ve had a tough day at work—deadlines were missed, a staff member threw you under the bus with the boss and lunch was fifteen minutes of cold leftovers and lukewarm coffee left from breakfast. Then the school called and said your son was suspended for three days for bullying and he’s only five! First, I would recommend closing your office door, or if you’re in a cubicle, find a closet or go in the bathroom. If you have a copy of the second quality for living an intentional life, Meditation and Prayer, get it out right now and re-read it or scroll down as the previous installments are just below this one. The secret beginning to gratitude is to breathe—deeply, in and out, imagining yourself as a puppy or a baby with your stomach rising and falling slowly and peacefully. Once you are out of the grasp of your anxiousness, or anger, you’ll notice the difference the breathing has made on your body’s feelings. The next thing to do is to close your eyes and imagine yourself in a place where you felt loved, peaceful and in your right place. Breathe deeply as you experience this place. Your body will give you signals that show you this is a much better place and it’s a lot happier. Now, the things that happened have not gone away, but it is never the thing that happened that is the problem. The problem is how you feel about the thing that happened, and that is in your thoughts and emotions. If you’ve calmed your emotions by breathing and going to your secret place, you can now face the thought of “what is the worst that can happen?” Now change that to “What is the best that can happen?” In the above scenario, the day is over and you’re going home. Tomorrow is a new day, and life goes on even when a deadline is missed. Also, you’ve been tipped off to the co-workers mode of operation. You do not throw people under the bus. Tomorrow, you possibly go to your boss and accept responsibility and make a suggestion for how that deadline will not be missed again. Still, you have to go home to a five year old “bully.” Can you see this as an opportunity? He’s still young enough for you to model peacefulness—especially if you do some deep breathing before you talk with him—and you’re grateful that the incident pointed out a possible problem while he’s still only five. You have the chance to discuss what it feels like to be on the receiving end of bullying, and maybe he’ll tell you something that shows the school missed the boat in blaming him. Whatever happens, it’s an opportunity to create an intentional life with your son and teach him about pausing and breathing before he acts or reacts. Change the problem to an opportunity. For me, gratitude for retaining a sense of humour is a big deal. I experienced a lot of anger when young women in my retreats and workshops expressed hatred of their bodies. They were already considering botox and other procedures to stave off aging. I’ve known many women who have had these procedures, so I am not judging them, but I am judging the world that makes young girls hate their beautiful bodies. Using my ability to write about things that bother me, I wrote a poem about what it would be like to visit a plastic surgeon. I based the poem on the old song “Embraceable You” to defuse my anger and get me in touch with my humour. I am so grateful to be able to do that. Use your skills, whatever they are, to create gratitude for the smallest things in your world. Here is the poem—I hope you like it. I would be grateful. Operation She Change He hums Embrace me, my sweet Mmmm, he hums, gently twisting my nose think of him there, roaming among See you next time Moxy Women!
Installment 2 of 10 I am happy to be continuing this series with you. As I prepare to lead a retreat for women in April, I have been thinking a lot about the return to simplicity and inner spirituality. The second of the Ten Qualities for Intentional Life is to “Develop a Practice of Meditation/Prayer.” Some people instantly see this as a call to a religious practice. The truth is (The Truth being Quality Number 1) that meditation is simply the process of being still long enough to allow the chatter in our heads to subside, and prayer is our own choice of how we converse with a higher power that we recognize, even if it is a vision of our higher self. The most important ingredient in both is the breath. When we are breathing shallowly, as most of us do, we don’t get enough fresh air to our cells and therefore are toxic to our own bodies, unable to be still and present. Look at a baby, or a puppy, and see how they breathe deep in the belly—you can see the abdomen or stomach rise and fall as the breath moves in and out. Adult humans rarely breathe that way, though it is the healthiest possible activity. We are tense through the chest and shoulders, causing the breath to be a shallow, quick action, rarely reaching further than the chest. The first thing to do when we want to calm ourselves is to take deep, conscious breaths. Conscious means to be aware and watching what is going on in our bodies. At this point, ask your body to do what it would like to do, and it will often let out a great sigh. At moments of high emotion, we will sometimes feel tears surfacing. This is the body saying “thank you for paying attention.” Continue to breathe deeply. If thoughts continue to flow, simply watch them go like clouds moving across the sky, and thank them for leaving. Concentrate only on your breath. When you are calm and breathing deeply, you can continue to just feel this peaceful flow or insert a positive thought or desired outcome and breathe it in on the in breath, out on the exhale. Continue this practice for at least five minutes. Doing this activity before getting out of bed and before going to sleep will start to create a new “groove” in your brain and a new reaction in your lungs and abdomen. Be patient with yourself! You didn’t learn to breathe shallowly and talk non-stop to yourself in a short time. Changing that behavior will take a little time, though not nearly as long as the other behavior because now you are acting consciously. Your body, your heart and your mind will thank you. Next time, we’ll talk about other easy ways to change negative behavior to conscious positive actions. Let it be easy—just breathe! For more information on Therèse’s retreat at Pasa Tiempo in St. Petersburg Beach, call her at 727-593-3757 or go to www.IsisInstitute.org.
LIving An Intentional LIfe- Introduction There are ten qualities that ensure you will create an intentional, passionate, purposeful life. When you put your attention on these qualities, you will see things from a new, heightened, passionate place. These Qualities are interchangeable with self, mates, family, community and the world at large. In future articles I will expand on each of the ten qualities. Every area of your life will respond to the practice of these qualities. You will know how powerful you are in your life once you enter the process of Living an Intentional Life. I have already addressed this process on a general level, and look forward to narrowing the focus and seeing you take charge of your own passionate life. Feel free to contact me!
Installment 1 of 10 Tell the Truth/Be True to Yourself “But,” we protest, “I always try to tell the truth.” That’s the truth with a lower case “t”. Before we can really tell the truth, we must uncover the one with the capital “T”. The reality is, we skirt the truth of our lives daily for many legitimate sounding reasons: I don’t want to hurt his feelings; what good would it do anyway? Life’s too short; I’m too tired. All of these may be true, but the energy it takes to be, do or say what is not true for us is exhausting, and can really shorten our lives. I’m not suggesting that it has any value whatever to go around saying what we think about Joanna’s dress, the books John is reading or advising Midge that we notice she’s gained a little weight. That’s not truth—that’s self-indulgent unloading of whatever happens to be on our mind. Telling the Truth and being True to Your Self is deeper at the core of us, and is felt at the cellular level—our bodies tell us when we are covering up our Truth. When we say “yes, I’ll be happy to,” and our hearts are saying “no, no, no,” we will feel it in our stomach, heart, shoulders, or we’ll even develop a headache. As I explain in my book The Promise: Revealing the Purpose of Your Soul,” the body is the tuning fork for the universe, and vibrates at a high level of satisfaction when we are in our right place. When we are denying our Truth, the vibration is low and creates discomfort in the body. This is important, because the state of energy in the body determines health. For a very basic example, think of a couple who likes movies. She’s very spiritual, practices meditation every day and volunteers in anti-violence campaigns. Her movie choices are calm, loving and people oriented. Her husband is a lawyer and is used to being surrounded by lower vibration energy through his clients and the courtroom. He loves hockey and so-called “action” movies, usually containing lots of violence. They have agreed to take turns choosing the movies they will see. The Truth of the wife is that the movies her husband chooses actually hurt her emotionally and physically, but she promised. Her small “t" truth is that she likes to make her husband happy, and she likes to be seen as a good sport. Her capital “T” Truth is that his movie choices are harmful to her. Her choices are sometimes boring to him, but mostly he seems to enjoy them. Sounds like it’s time for a truthful conversation about what’s really happening here. It may end up that they choose another pastime to do together and she sees “her” movies with girlfriends and he chooses a way to see his movies, if they are important to him. Who we are, who our True Self is, wants to be seen. After years of covering up and covering over, each of us must choose to reveal who we really are in order to live an Intentional Life—for women, this is often a matter of asking the question: “Who am I trying to please?” Sometimes it is a long dead parent or a religious belief—other times it is a spouse who withdraws approval when we are not who they want us to be. Whatever the facts are, now is the time. All aspects of an Intentional Life involve Truth. Start by being kind to yourself and asking your higher knowing to help you make friends with the real you—then bring her out to play. Author Bio Therèse leads workshops for Women of Spirit, and also co-conducts workshops for couples and singles focusing on relationship as well as writing workshops with her partner. She teaches the importance of the Sacred Feminine, and ways in which women can focus on spiritual growth in work and relationship while nurturing the feminine. She also teaches workshops to professional women on recovering the passion that led them into their work or relationships, and discovering the energy of life passages such as menopause. Therese has served on many boards and committees, including The YMCA Writer’s Voice, The School Community Council of Teacher Corps, the local chapter of the Institute of Noetic Sciences and The Chopra Foundation. She is a member of the International Women’s Writer’s Guild and the Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators. She lives and thrives in Indian Shores, Florida. You can visit her website at: www.Isisinstitute.org or contact her via email or phone at: Ttappouni@aol.com 727-593-3757 
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Therèse has combined wisdom and insight to create a spiritual path for her life and work. She is a Time Dimension Therapist, Somatic Intuitive Practitioner, Grief Counselor, Hypnotherapist, Writing Teacher and Poet. However, she creates her life’s work most typically through the written word and workshops.Her latest releases are "The Promise: Revealing the Purpose of Your Soul" --which has an accompanying CD of visualizations read by Therese with the Prague Symphony Orchestra--and "Me and Green", a book on sustainabity for young children. Her prior books are the novel A Time to Reap, Lot’s Wife (Poetry); Walking Your Walk: A Woman’s Guide to a Spirit Filled Life; and Night Gardening: Passionate Poems for the Beloved with her partner, Lance Ware. She has written a novel for young people titled Escape from Iraq. Her latest project is co-producing a CD of her poems with a Grammy winning composer. Therese has been published in many literary publications and anthologies, including the Grammy-nominated Grow Old Along With Me: The Best is Yet to Be, where her work was read by Alfre Woodard; and she was featured in Through a Child’s Eyes: Poems and Stories about War. The International Association of Moxy Women ™ is a Division of Women Taking Care of Business, Inc. ®
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