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Search Results for: Does Your Path Have a Heart?

Does Your Path Have Heart? 

April 4, 2018 By Cara Lumen

Does Your Path Have Heart? 

“A path is only a path, and there is no affront, to oneself or to others, in dropping it if that is what your heart tells you. Look at every path closely and deliberately. Try it as many times as you think necessary. Then ask yourself alone, one question. Does this path have a heart? If it does, the path is good; if it doesn’t it is of no use.” – Carlos Castaneda

What kind of measuring sticks can we use to see if our path has a heart?

It calls deeply to you. There’s always something you’ve been doing all your life because it’s at your core. It’s easy and natural and constant.  It makes your heart sing when you do it.  It lets you laugh out loud in joy. What is that path for you?  What has been calling you all your life?

You love to do it. You do it often. You do it with deep satisfaction. Expressing this aspect of your journey creates such joy that you can hardly wait to begin to offer it each day.

Your passion for it is compelling.  Your calling is so strong you cannot do anything else.

You experience being in a deep place of service. The path you are on is a gift to others, to the world, to you.  Each time you express this gift, this calling, you feel it touching hearts.

The more deeply you follow the path of your calling, the more fulfilling it becomes.  You become better at walking it.  Better at sharing it.  Better at being it.

Follow your path with heart.

More Deep Listening:

Follow Your Personal Drumbeat

Live in the Center of Your Being

Build on the Distance You Have Come

Are You a Leader of Change?

The Unfolding Vision Board

Filed Under: Deep Listening, Spiritual Expansion, Spiritual Heart Tagged With: self-awareness, Spiritual Expansion, transformational thinking

How Do You Make Your Actions Lasting and Meaningful?

March 13, 2019 By Cara Lumen

How Do You Make Your Actions Lasting and Meaningful?
An Inner-world Exploration

We would all like to feel we have value, that we contribute. How do we make our actions lasting and meaningful? I pose a question to which I have no immediate answer.  I just really like the question.  

When a phrase like this asks me to explore it, to understand what it means to me and how to apply it, I usually begin with the dictionary to expand my awareness and interpretation of the meaning of the words. “Lasting” means enduring, permanent. “Meaningful” means significant, consequential.  I want my actions to be all of that.

To make my actions lasting and meaningful, I begin by working to identify my purpose, deepening my own understanding of my unique gifts and what’s calling me from my core. Then I figure out how to express that in my life. 

What is calling you?  Find the form

You know what’s calling you.  Put it into descriptive words, a label perhaps. I am a ….

I see myself as a spiritual philosopher, an explorer, a map-maker and messenger. Only lately have I realized that I am still a teacher. 

How do you express what’s calling you? How do you see your role?

When you have passion behind what you do, it deepens your impact on everyone you meet.  Your enthusiasm and excitement is as effective as the work you do, the service you perform.  You affect all who come across your path. 

My initial actions can be very subtle. I can be sitting here doing whatever, and suddenly a thought comes barreling into my awareness and I’m deeply called to explore the meaning behind that idea. 

I want to understand the concept and if it resonates deeply, I try to figure out ways to add it to my life. And I need and want to share what I discover.

The initial call is incredibly powerful to me.  The need/desire/calling to figure out is imperative.  And writing it in a form to share with others not only helps me complete my inquiring process, but offers my insights to others as well.  

The form of your offering begins with what’s calling you.

Action – Take your calling to the world

Our actions create our life experience. What we think, say, do, and believe are reflected back to us in our lives.  We are to learn to choose actions that are in alignment with our highest good.

Our actions impact what we receive. What we put out, we get back.  Anger brings back more anger.  Love brings back more love. We get to choose what we receive by being conscious of the energy we put out. 

Our actions also impact what others receive and absorb from us. Just as we are affected by the vibrations we put out, so are those around us affected by the level of vibration we emanate.  Do you have an idea of how your presence is perceived by others?  This is not about pleasing others, it’s about being aware of how you walk in the world. How your mere presence affects others. 

The choices and actions we take are vital.  How we conduct ourselves – the words we use, how we interact with others. Just the simple act of being present is a meaningful action that has deep impact. 

The focus of our actions affects our impact.  What we choose to do with our lives, in our lives, leads us on a path of our own making.  It’s not about what we achieve, it’s about how we go about our lives – our attitude, our consideration, our compassion.  

The form our work takes is revealing.  We may be a leader, a team player, an individual stand-out or a steady support person.  That’s the form our action takes.  How we take that action is key not just to our physical-plane success but to our inner, spiritual development as well. 

Action is in our deeds, our behavior, or conduct and our endeavors. It is also in our thoughts, beliefs, and expectations.

What is a “meaningful” action?

What is meaningful to you includes experiences that feel significant, impactful, important, relevant, important, and worthwhile.  

Spend some time considering what is meaningful to you. Begin there. That will dictate your calling, your actions, your focus, and your development.  

We are talking about how to make your actions meaningful and lasting. But to whom? The world, others, your family?  Who do you want to impact?  Who do you want to see your existence as meaningful?  Who do you want to reach?

You will know about some of your impact.  Much of it, you will not.  A simple smile may be enough to have a meaningful and lasting impact on a person who needs it at that very moment.

A less tangible impact may be something someone said to you a long time ago that you have based a lot of your life upon.  That could be a parent, a teacher, or a friend who encouraged you and that led you to steps to build on that encouragement. Words of encouragement are very impactful. 

We may not have to look very far afield to understand the many ways our actions, both large and small, can be meaningful and lasting. 

We want our work to be lasting

Lasting means “abide or able to endure over a long period of time.” It has a deep vibration, a profound effect. 

To be lasting means that the action you took created change.  It created change in someone’s outlook. It created change in someone’s understanding.  It created change in what someone thought was possible or what they thought they deserved.  It changed them.  It changed what they thought, or perceived or considered or chose.

A very simple action or thought can make a lasting change.  

“Lasting” means a change at the core

This phrase “make your actions lasting and meaningful”  came from something I read.  I don’t even remember what.  But look where it’s taking us.  I feel this exploration shift me as I compose this piece. It has made me stop and think and consider and wonder and question and … That’s a lot of impact for a few words. 

And whoever wrote them will never know the adventure those few words are taking us upon.

You won’t necessarily know who and how you affect others.  

“Lasting” means inner work

Just as we don’t know who our actions and words will impact, we don’t know how.  

But lasting change begins within. 

My work is to identify ideas and concepts that lead me into greater clarity and incorporate them as an actual practice in my life. 

That purpose will impact what I choose to write in my posts and newsletter to share with others. 

That purpose will impact how I interact with the people close to me and the people not so close to me.  

That choice is certainly going to impact my spiritual practice.  When I start holding up each action I take to the measuring stick of “meaningful and impactful”, I will leave a pile of ideas on the floor and choose the ones that are – yes – meaningful and impactful to both me and those I serve.

Choice and your measuring stick

I rely very heavily on my inner voice. It hollered at me to write down that phrase.  It immediately demanded that I write the first draft to begin to figure out what it meant to me.  It was clearly important to my inner self that I both understand this concept and figure out how to absorb it into my life.  And as I live with this idea of wanting my actions to be meaningful and lasting, I have set up a new measuring stick to help me select the next steps I take. 

Sometimes we don’t know what will be meaningful and impactful

A long time ago, I remember walking across Central Park in New York City with a friend who said, “We are rocks.  People depend on us.”  I was a bit startled at the idea, but I recognized myself in her statement. I asked, “Where do rocks get help?” “From other rocks,” was her reply. 

That was 45 years ago.  And that idea, that image has profoundly affected my life and how I live it.  

We simply do not know and may never know, how we help to change the lives of others. 

So besides raising our own vibrations, expanding our spiritual exploration and consciously trying to serve others, we have to simply be true to ourselves. The more we deepen our own spiritual awareness, the stronger our light becomes and the more attractive and vital and meaningful our light presence becomes to others.  

We may never know

I can have an intention to have my choices be meaningful and lasting but I’m not always going to know if they are. But I absorb this idea and look for ways to raise my own vibration, to be of greater service in the world, and I hope, I intend, that what I offer, what I provide, will be both meaningful and impactful when it moves out into the world. 

Deeper Song Affirmation

I choose to make my actions lasting and meaningful.

Deeper Song Process

  • List what you think makes your life and work meaningful.  To you. To others. 
  • Of those things you have listed, what do you think may have the most lasting impact?  To whom?  Why?
  • Do you see any changes you would like to make?
  • Do that.

Deeper Song Affirmation
My life is meaningful and impactful. 

To Sing a Deeper Song Consider:

Does Your Work Stir Your Heart?

What Are Your Weaving in Your Reality?

Life Messages from a Potter

When I See Myself As Light 

How to Interpret the Messages From Within

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Filed Under: Positive Change, Service, Transformational Community Tagged With: self-awareness, transformational thinking, Unfolding

Do You Believe In Yourself?

December 18, 2018 By Cara Lumen

Do You Believe In Yourself?
An Inner World Exploration

I made a shamanic journey into my inner world to find out why I kept starting so many new things but found myself dragging my feet when it came to completing them.  I love the discovery part, but not the technical steps. 

What I found surprised me

I found a limiting belief that was holding me back. A lot. I simply did not believe my work had enough value to make it important to get out the door. 

Bummer. 

A big one!!

A very, very large limiting belief. 

How do I get rid of that?

Call on the helpers in the inner realms

My spirit guides helped me realize how far-reaching my work is, even though I may not know of a particular change it makes in someone’s life.  Knowing I had that limiting belief was a huge discovery and one that I’ll continue to consciously release every day.  It feels like it may take some constant attention in order to pull that weed out of my inner garden. But I have begun. And I will now tend my garden diligently.

However, I still wanted support in my day, some form of discipline to make me do this less creative stuff that is a necessary part of sharing my work. It’s not exactly like clearing your paint brushes so you can paint again tomorrow but it is about taking another step toward completing the canvas.

I got a donkey

I got a spirit guide in the form of a donkey. Remember, spirit guides are metaphors in our imagination, and we are to interpret them.  I got a sure-footed, one-foot-in-front-of-the-other donkey I called Dolly.  

So Dolly’s plan is to nudge me from behind to take a certain number of steps on the “Completion” trail every day.  She is to keep me from roaring off to explore a new trail so often but to keep me on the path I’m on, and urge me to take time to leave the guideposts, the markers I am to leave for others.  

Every day I’m to walk part of the path of completion.  On some project. Any project. 

So I’m going to create “Dolly time” each day and do 45 to 60 minutes of back-end work that helps me get a project closer toward moving it out the door. 

With Dolly’s help. And support.  And nudges.  She is a strong example of putting one foot in front of the other. Persistent.  Determined.  Steady progress.

I’m to broadcast 

In a journey for my “soul purpose”, I understood that I was to broadcast my light from the top of a high mountain.  I’m to do that, each day – prepare another facet of my message, my insights, my explorations, and with Dolly’s help, push them or pull them closer to being visible in the world.  

My journey helped me accept my value

I gained two important insights from this journey.  I have to work on the limiting belief that my work is only semi-important in the world.  And I have to work every day to create the maps and guideposts I leave for others along this path I explore. Which means completing my projects and sending them on their way.

I can do that. Especially now that I have Dolly the Donkey nudging me to complete my work. 

How are the spirit guides helping you complete your work?  

To Sing a Deeper Song Consider:

Our Defense of Non-Existent Boundaries 

What Are Your Weaving in Your Reality?

The Power of Non-doing 

Does Your Work Stir Your Heart?

What Core Beliefs are Guiding You Today?

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: choice, Self Mastery, self-awareness

Expand Your Spiritual Heart

October 31, 2018 By Cara Lumen

Expand Your Spiritual Heart
An Inner World Exploration

Behind our physical-plane heart is our spiritual heart.  It’s who we truly are. When you leave behind the limitations of your body suit, your physical ego, you become your spiritual heart.

Our spiritual heart lives in the Nowhere That We Came From. It is a universal heart. It is our collective heart. We must learn to live there. We must learn to live from there.

Our physical heart is our ego heart, our body suit heart.  It’s restricted and small and egocentric. It’s not the heart we want to use because it limits us.  It limits our vision. It limits our understanding.

When I use my universal heart, my spiritual heart, I see everyone and everything as radiant light. That’s all. Radiant light. There’s no physical plane argument or anger. Everything goes beyond even the human plane emotions of compassion and empathy.  The spiritual heart sees everything as radiant light. One light. It’s us. It’s me. It’s you. It’s all there is.

When we learn to see everything as light, the discord will disappear. That’s how much power we have. We see others as light. We see only light. We must learn to see only light. Because radiant light is all there is.

When you begin to reach out to another person, do so from your spiritual heart. Not your ego heart, not your human heart. Connect from your spiritual heart where you are light and they are light. Where you see only light.

It takes practice to come from your spiritual heart. It takes focus to continue to come from your spiritual heart.  We just need to practice it. Every day. Every moment. See the world and the plants and the animals and all the people in your life as light. Because that’s what they are. Radiant light.

Can you do that? Can you move out of your human heart, your body suit heart, into your radiant heart?  Your life will change when you do. 

Spiritual light is formless energy. Spiritual light is who you are.

To Sing a Deeper Song Consider:

 Do You See and Hear and Walk in a Sacred Manner?

Are You Sacred Space?

What Does Spiritual Friendship Look Like?

Where Do You Find Your Inner Circle of Light Beings?

 Live in Your Center 

Filed Under: Our Luminous Legacy, Spiritual Expansion, Spiritual Heart Tagged With: self-awareness, Spiritual Heart, transformational thinking

Does Your Work Stir Your Heart?

October 3, 2018 By Cara Lumen

Does Your Work Stir Your Heart?
OUR LUMINOUS LEGACY

At the end of your day, do you feel a deep glow of satisfaction at what you got to do and how well you did it?  Did you get to stretch yourself a bit, offer your best self in service, change a few lives?  

If you did, you’re doing work that stirs your heart.  Keep doing more of that. 

I’m lucky. There’s nothing more awesome in life than having the freedom to do exactly what you want to do every day.  As a retired old person, my days lie open with an invitation to soar. And I do.  It’s only now that I no longer have to make a living that I realize how vitally important it is to do what you love to do.  

What’s your passion?

What do you love to do more than anything else in the world?  Forget about its financial potential.  What calls to you in the moment?  What makes your heart sing?

Follow your gifts

My passion is learning new philosophical things.  I read, I take courses, and I write to clarify and figure out how to apply it to my life. Then I share what I learn with others. As long as I can keep learning and exploring and sharing, I’m fulfilled and joyously satisfied.  I don’t like to repeat things. I prefer to keep building and expanding.

All it takes to stir your heart is a passionate interest and identifying how you want to express that interest.  What’s calling you?  How do you express it? How do you explore it?  What are your unique gifts?  How do you use them?  What do people ask you to do for them?  What is an over-arching pull that takes you on life’s adventures? Go do more of that!

Your gifts will call throughout your life

I began using writing as a way to express myself in my teens. I remember writing poems for my high-school newspaper. I still write poems – odd ones – but I call them poems. My senior year, I was tapped as Managing Editor – not Literary Editor – because someone recognized organizational skills I had no clue I had. I’m still a fabulous organizer.

My first job out of college was as a radio continuity editor at a major station in Kansas City.  I have no idea how I qualified for that right out of college but that was another call to develop my writing and organizational skills.  I have written for print, radio and television, served as on-air talent for both radio and television and worked as a copywriter in advertising agencies.  I have produced small books and blog posts and podcasts and a few videos. I’ve always been called to be a communicator.  

You have a similar thread, something you have done throughout your life. Look back and identify the most joyous and satisfying times until you see signs of the path you have taken that shows your passion, your calling, and your place of illumined service. 

Let your heart guide you 

What calls to you so deeply you cannot resist the pull?  What makes you tear up in anticipation of sharing it?  There is some way that you participate in the world that deeply nourishes you.  Go do more of that. 

This calling, this deep urge to share in a particular manner, needs to be a part of what you offer, an integral element in the work you do.  That doesn’t mean you have to start your own business around that gift or even do it as a major part of your work. It simply means you need to know your own passion, your own gifts, your own heart and use them regularly throughout your life.

Begin with that call, that deep yearning, that undeniable need to explore, discover, and share. 

Follow that. It’s your heart calling you. Share it with the world.

Do those things which stir your heart and change the lives of others.  What you set out to accomplish has to consume you with the need to express it. Then you find ways to make it valuable to others.

To Sing a Deeper Song consider

Make Work Your Offering

Live in the Center of Your Being

What are the Foundations Stones Upon Which Your Build Your Life

One Powerful Way to Change Our Future

The Path of Supportive Service

Filed Under: Our Luminous Legacy, Positive Change, Service Tagged With: self-awareness, Spiritual Expansion, transformational thinking

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