Cara Lumen | Sing a Deeper Song

Sing a Deeper Song

Inspiration

The Power of Non-doing

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The Power of Non-doing
An Inner-world Exploration

Practice non-doing,
And everything will fall into place
– Lao Tzu

When we listen, the answer appears. When we wait, the next step unfolds. There’s tremendous power in non-doing, in simply listening and looking and feeling until the message unfolds. 

Non-doing allows for unfolding

When something is in the process of unfolding, all you can do is wait.  You cannot push, archive or cajole, you simply have to give it time to become clearer.

I feel a change coming.  That’s all I’ve got – a feeling.  I get vague images of the direction I may be going but nothing concrete, nothing to even explore.  

I have to wait, do nothing, except be aware of an unfolding process.  And be patient. It will unfold in its own time.

Non-doing allows for contemplation

I can’t even give any thought to possible choices because the choice is not clear yet.  It’s unfolding.  I have nothing concrete to contemplate.  I can only stay in a state of sensitive awareness of the subtle nudges that show up.  I can observe.  And I can contemplate what I observe.  But until there’s a clear message, I do nothing. 

Non-doing gives you time to evolve

It’ll be obvious when whatever is unfolding is not ready to reveal itself yet.  It’s like a wisp of a cloud that has not yet taken shape or is changing shape.  I don’t think this is something totally brand new coming in.  My feeling is that it is an evolution, a next step.  I’ve opened myself up to new possibilities, but I’m too new at those ideas to even understand where they’re taking me, let along where I might end up. 

Non-doing allows everything to fall into place

I may have to learn more.  I may have to experience more.  Perhaps it’s simply not time, I cannot make a choice based upon who I am at this point in my life because I need to change. It’s like a fruit ripening, it simply is not yet time.  The time is not “ripe.”

Although I’m in non-doing mode about this circumstance that’s unfolding, I’m continuing to move forward.  And it’s from these small steps that clarity will eventually appear. 

Be willing to change

My intuition says I’ll have to give up something I’m doing or focusing on now simply because of time. As this new door opens, new insights will appear and I will change.  It’s upon that change that I will build.  It’s not yet time. The change has not happened, it’s in progress. 

Perfect non-doing

There’s nothing I can do.  There’s nothing to do. That’s the point – do nothing.  Be observant.  Be reflective.  Be aware.  Move within, where there are serenity and support from your voice within.  

What’s unfolding for you?  Are you practicing non-doing?

To Sing a Deeper Song Consider:

Are You Sacred Space

Do You See and Hear in a Sacred Manner?

How to Weave the Sacred into the Ordinary

The Power of Being Different

I Row My Boat Alone

Live in Your Center

Live In Your Center 

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Live In Your Center
OUR LUMINOUS LEGACY

“Stay at the center of the circle and let all things take their course.”
-Tao Te Ching, tr. Stephen Mitchell

There’s only one safe place to be in the midst of chaos – at the center of your being.  When you stand steady in the light that is your core self, the world can go crazy around you and you will simply stand there and be – be source, be light, be serene, know that you are integrated in the One Energy.

How do I stay in my center?

First, you have to realize that your safe center exists. You have to know that your center is the safest, most supportive place you can be. It is not a place in your body suit, it is a place in your invisible world.  

It is your center and it is filled with unconditional love for you and your process in life.  You can go to your this spiritual place for shelter – easily and often. 

Change begins from within

You have control over what you think and say and do.  And what you think and say or do affects your life experience.  What you focus on you get more of.  

What are you focusing on?  The good news or the bad?  The harmony or the disharmony? 

Your choice.  Your life. 

What to do when you feel helpless

There are some things you can do nothing about on the physical plane, but you can make great changes on the inner plane. Rather than feel helpless or hopeless, go where you can do a great deal to make changes in your inner self, the place within where we’re all one light and where we can join with others who are working to increase their light so we may affect the collective consciousness.  Working with our light within, we have power to create change. Working with other light beings, we have even greater power. 

Don’t get pulled off center

I watch people continue to make choices out of concern only for their own well-being, rather than the broader good. It’s tempting to become dismayed or discouraged because we’re so connected. 

But I’m not helpless – I have total control over my thoughts, my beliefs, my actions.  My job is to stay open and aware and flexible. And make certain my choices are inclusive and for the highest good of the most people. 

Let your feelings guide you

Notice how you feel.  Use your emotions and feelings as a barometer.  If you feel distressed, let go of what you’re focused on, move within and find that place of peace, that place of oneness where all of us are serene. Stay there for a while. 

Replenish yourself in this center of peace and light and unconditional love until you feel ready to go back into the world.  

Let your feelings and emotions guide you.  Turn off the negative news, the violent television shows, walk away from the angry person, do not continue a competitive conversation.  

You always have a choice. Reside in the center of your being, that place of peace and serenity that you can get to in the intake of a single breath.  

Move within, calm your mind, feel the lightness of the energy you have within you and let that permeate your entire being until the activity on the surface of your life no longer has any effect. 

Breathe – let go. Shift your gaze to focus only on the positive.  That’s how you stay in your center. 

To Sing a Deeper Song, consider:

Are You Sacred Space

Do You See and Hear in a Sacred Manner?

What Core Beliefs are Guiding You Today

You Are Never Separate 

Where Did You Come From?

Your Duty is to Be

 Are You Sacred Space?

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 Are You Sacred Space?
An Inner World Exploration

If I do not see myself as sacred space, I may not act like sacred space. So my first step is to see if I like the idea that I am sacred space and what it means if I am.

Unconditional love is at the heart of sacred space

To see if you can experience yourself as sacred space, sit quietly and focus on your breathing.  Quiet your mind and begin to feel yourself wrapped in a mist of unconditional love.  Feel it permeate your cells, the molecules, the space between the molecules.  You sit there as one gentle flowing mist of unconditional love. 

Do you accept unconditional love for yourself?  Can you feel yourself as unconditional love?

Unconditional love is at the heart of knowing yourself as a sacred space, and that unconditional love has to be focused first on you.  You must love yourself unconditionally. Only then can you see and feel and hear yourself as sacred space. 

You may have to work on that.  I did.

Can you feel unconditional love?  Can you accept it for yourself?  Do you feel you deserve unconditional love?  What’s stopping you?  

What does unconditional love feel like?

Unconditional love feels like you’ are perfect just the way you are.  That you are valued and appreciated and have meaning and impact in the world. You count. In fact, you count a lot. Whatever is going on in your life, you are loved. You are love.  

Stop and absorb that.  You are unconditionally loved. 

Let unconditional love move into your heart, let unconditional love move into your mind.  Let unconditional love move into your all-seeing third eye so that everything you see is unconditional love. 

You are now living as sacred space!

Feel your connection to all

We are all one – one energy, one pulse, one expression of life.  Move through your life mindfully with an increasing awareness of being connected to everyone and everything.  Feel connected to the birds outside your window.  Feel connected to the trees and the clouds and the wind.  Feel your oneness with nature.  

Take that feeling into your life. Feel the connection with your breath. It will remind you that you are sacred and you are to move through your life in a sacred manner.

Cultivate the inner stillness of sacred space

In sacred space, there’s no worry, no anger, no intolerance.  Only unconditional love and serenity.  The serenity of being present.  The serenity of being accepted and the serenity of offering acceptance. The serenity of being safe in the Web of Life, deeply embraced by the Emptiness That Holds Everything. 

Be that.  Feel that. Know that. 

A sacred space is aware

As a sacred space, you must stay present and aware.  Aware of your thoughts.  Aware of your beliefs. Aware of your actions and words.  In all you say and do and think, you naturally and organically radiate your sacredness because you are sacred. You are sacred space. When you mindfully radiate your sacredness, those around you will feel it, recognize it, and respond.

As sacred space, how do you treat yourself?

Sacred space is, well, sacred. You treat it with care and reverence.  Since you are sacred space, your body is a temple.  It houses your soul. You must treat it with appreciation and respect and great care.  You feed it, you cleanse it, you open windows to air it, you take it for walks in nature. You place your body in sacred service. 

How will seeing your body as a temple change how you care for its sacred space?

Learn to recognize the sacredness in others

You are sacred space.  I am sacred space.  Everyone and everything is sacred space!  That certainly changes how we walk in the world.  

Now that you know you are sacred space, what changes do you need to make?  What does that look like to you?  What does that feel like to you? 

I have to greatly broaden my feeling of connection with all the living energies in the world.  All of humanity.  All of nature.  I know we are all strands in the Web of Life and are connected at the core in the All-That-IS.  I need to learn to live as the interconnected sacred space that I am. 

Honor yourself as sacred space

At the end of each day, pause in gratitude for the offerings that have come to you. Those gifts may have come in the form of words or actions or thoughts.  They may be in the form of gifts or actions or circumstances.  Your day has been blessed.  Your sacredness has been noted.  And you have offered your light, your sacred self, in service to the world. 

Pay attention.  You are sacred space. 

To Sing a Deeper Song, Consider:

What is the Difference between Spirituality and Religion? 

You Are Never Separate

How to Weave the Sacred into the Ordinary

What Does Spiritual Friendship Look Like?

Abide at the Center of Your Being

Hold the Vision of Light

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When you lift your vision to see all of us as radiant light, you lift the vision of the world. People speak from their hearts by their actions, even those who are angry. But the bottom line is that we are all one – all one energy, all the same web of life.  And thinking and acting like an individual, as non-connected threads, makes no sense.

One of my favorite metaphors is the “cosmic soup.”

I watch people speak from their hearts by their actions. And that includes the naysayers.  But the bottom line is that we’re all one – all one energy, all the same web of life.  So thinking and acting like an individual, as non-connected threads, makes no sense.

One of my favorite metaphors is the cosmic soup.  We’re all in this soup together, and we each add our own particular seasoning.  If a lot of hot sauce is dropped in, it will be really hot where it is dropped in, but the cosmic soup will gradually absorb it into the radiant light that it is.  But the hot sauce still becomes part of the cosmic soup.  It has played a part in the overall flavor.

What if we just put in light?

I’m really watching what I add to the cosmic soup. I want my part, my contribution, to be nourishing and healthy.  So I check my “life energy” every day to see what I am shaking out into the cosmic soup.  Not too sweet, certainly not sour, and not bitter at all.

We have such eclectic tastes

Just as we in our body suits develop a taste for certain flavors and become accustomed to certain foods, we as people express ourselves as different flavors.  Some are extremely sweet.  Some are rather sour.  But a lot are just right.

We need more of those.

Be light

I only have one way I know to contribute in a positive way to the cosmic soup – and that is to radiate light.  Each day, I go within and simply sit here and become light.  Allowing the feeling of light, the vision of light, to begin in my spiritual heart and expand into my own body, ultimately spreading out into the room where I sit to the people I come in contact with.  I work to make certain that what I add to the cosmic soup is radiant light. Only radiant light. Luminous light. Inclusive light.

Can you do that?

Can you take your fear, or your anger or your disbelief, and take away its power by seeing it as light?  Even the mean-spirited are light.  And yes, we may have to work on our perceptions of them to see those who are exhibiting negative behavior as light beings.  Fellow light beings, if you will.

You have only your own light to shine

You only have one job. It’s to make certain you are the brightest, shiniest, most glowingly radiant light you can be.

That’s it.

Others will see and feel your light and be affected.  They may choose to radiate more of their own light.  They may let your light illuminate some dark place they couldn’t see before.  Light is very powerful. Light goes everywhere.  Light changes everything.

See yourself as light. Know yourself to be light. And let your rays fall where they may.

To Sing a Deeper Song Consider

How Your Spiritual Life Changes You 

Unleash the Power of Your Inner Garden 

Where to Radiate Your Inner Light

Find Your Most Impactful Spiritual Practice  

Are You a Leader of Change?

Repurpose Your Thoughts to Change the Outcome

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rainbow clods

If your life isn’t working out the way you want it to, change your thoughts and daydreams.  It’s all on you.  Your thoughts create your life experience.  You have the power to change that. You have the power to design the life you want!

Look at what’s not working

Sometimes there are very subtle things that keep us from achieving happiness.  It may be some self-worth negativity you’re feeding yourself. It could be that you have set your expectations too high, or too low. It may be that your dreams seem not to be aligned with your reality. Big or little, become aware of what’s not working.

Change your expectation

Take a close look at what you expect can happen.  I sometimes look at people with a broad business platform and mostly see the repetition it takes to acquire that.  I would be bored singing the same song over and over. Or giving the same talk, or teaching the same classes. I don’t even want to write about the same topics over and over. Exploring is at the core of my happiness. So the bottom line is that I don’t want to have a broad platform if what I have to do requires a lot of repetition.

But what if I change my expectation of what it takes to have a broad platform? What if I drop all the “ways I know to get your business known” and just keep putting out my natural enthusiasm and the discoveries I continue to make?  I would be happiest doing that.

Change what you believe is possible

See how I have damaged my expectation?  I hold a belief I need to release. That belief says I have to repeat the same material over and over in order to become more known.  And everything in me is saying, “Keep exploring.  Keep exploring!”

What if it’s possible to simply radiate my ideas and discoveries in the forms that are the most enjoyable to me and believe that more and more and more people will find my work and be moved by it?

My measurement stick is flawed.  It’s not about numbers.  It’s about the results that are created. I have a very high open rate among my readers so I know that lives are being changed by the shift that happens from some of the concepts I explore.  I also know that my work (as does yours) has a ripple effect.

One idea received and absorbed and acted upon can move mountains.

What is your more expansive thought?

In my heart, I know that I touch lives.  I get to release any thought of measurement by numbers.  I now think in terms of the depth of the change that’s made in the people who are drawn to my discoveries and my insights, in my current forms of sharing.  And because in my mind I know that those who are drawn to my work are major players in their own sphere of influence, I know that the ripple effect of my explorations goes places I cannot even begin to imagine.

What do you think you are doing?

How can you change what you think your impact is in order to allow it to be resilient, heart-touching, and far-reaching

One heart at a time.  One life at a time.  One share at a time. Keep shining your light – and trust.

To Sing a Deeper Song Consider

The Mirror of Appreciation

What is Your Unique Purpose?

What Do You Need to Leave Behind

Where Do YouPlant our Stake?

How to Hold the Space for the New Vision to Emerge