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Self Mastery

Stoking the Fire Within

September 8, 2016 By Cara Lumen

fire phoenix

Our passion is the fire that propels us forward. Our determination is the fire that makes it happen. Our willingness opens us up to more fires of inspiration. How do we keep stoking the powerful fires within?

Listen

The fire of your passion has been present since the beginning. You know it, your recognize it as a vital part of your being, and you put it to work. Where and how you put your passion to work depends on how well you listen.

Listen within

I got a very clear message when, as a metaphysician, I moved into a senior center where everyone just seemed to be killing time until they died. I was consumed by the need to make sure that I didn’t buy into that mindset!

The reality is that I’m 83, and death is higher on my list than it used to be. I had a strong, comforting spiritual concept of death, but since it was now a stronger consideration, I decided I wanted to explore my spiritual beliefs and develop a stronger spiritual connection with what the Persian poet and mystic, Rumi, calls “the nowhere that we came from.”

That became my inner calling and I went exploring. The call is extremely strong and the more I give myself over to listening, the more I hear.

Listen without

I love to learn and am forever listening to what others have to say. Recently I was on a webinar summit sponsored by The Shift Network and heard a lot of people who are drawn to Shamanism talk about changing our fragile planet by doing our inner work.

I believe inner work is a key way we can change our world. I was grateful to find others equally convinced and actively working with the idea. As I listened and learned, a vital inner shift occurred. The goal of my work became not just personal but very global in nature. What a powerful expansion and an additional focus for my exploration!

So, the fire within me was fueled when others expressed their personal fire within.

Allow fire to clear the space

Fire performs many important tasks. One of them is to burn things to clear the way for the new. In nature, that often looks very destructive but it has always been the way of nature – the old must make room for the new.

As I follow the glow of this new fire toward the expansion of my work, I leave behind some of the thought processes, focus, and even projects I’ve begun so that I can move rapidly into this new space that has been opened up by the fire of the vision of others that expanded my personal purpose.

What do you plant in the new, cleared space?

I now have a new space before me. Around the edges are the tools I’ll use, the depth of the work I have done so far, my passion for learning, my compelling need to write, my philosophical insights, and the wisdom of my heart. What I’ll plant there is emerging.

“Be a sheet of paper with nothing on it.
Be a spot of ground where nothing is growing,
where something might be planted, 
a seed, possibly, from the Absolute.”
-Rumi

I don’t know exactly what I’ll plant in this new space, but for the moment it is cleared by the fire of my enthusiasm for my ever-deepening direction. I’ll call on the fire within to direct my passion and soon, very soon, my new crop will begin to flourish.

Follow the fire of your passion

Allow the fire of your enthusiasm to clear the field. Then plant from your heart.

To Sing a Deeper Song Consider:
What if You Broke the Mold?
How Do You Define Success?
Message from a Rainbow Mother
The Length of Your Reach
The Many Faces of Your Calling
44 – How to Define What You Do So Others Get It
46 -How the People You Hang With Affect Your Life

Filed Under: Positive Change, Self Mastery, Spiritual Expansion Tagged With: Self Mastery, self-awareness, Spiritual Expansion

How To keep Negativity Out of Your Life

September 6, 2016 By Cara Lumen

keep out sign 2

I watch the world make scary choices. I watch people vent anger without any thought to coexistence, and the only thing I can do is make certain that my vibration is as peaceful and loving and thoughtful as I can make it.

When I send that vibration of inclusion and serenity out into the world, it resonates with those who need and accept it and they, in turn, respond and modify their own vibration. My job and primary place of power is to change myself. And that keeps me very busy.

How do you handle the negative?

Sometimes the negativity in the world is so prevalent that I feel helpless. Why are people afraid to allow others to be different? We’re all the same energy with unique expressions that add to the richness of our life experience. There’s so much negativity and judgmentalness affecting our world. I don’t care where or why this negativity exists. But I do care about what I’m going to do about it.

How do we change the world?

The major way we can change the world is to change ourselves. When I get through a day without thinking a single judgmental thought, my vibration reflects that. When I sit quietly and listen to a rant while trying to hear what is underneath the words without being judgmental, I gain some insight. And that leads me to compassion, which, in turn, changes my personal vibration.

Then, my compassionate, inclusive, vibration is felt by others. And perhaps it changes them. Perhaps it calms them. Perhaps it reassures them. My job is not to cause a change. My job is to be the change.

Shift how you see the problem

“Problems” are simply opportunities to consider a different approach. We learn from each of the barriers, blockages and problems we encounter. They prompt us to think. They broaden our frame of reference. They deepen our understanding. They cause us to make a new choice. They cause us to release something – a belief or an expectation.

So I watch people being unkind to other people and the first thing I do is look at my own life to make certain my circle of influence is filled with my own kindness and that I encourage acceptance and compassion in those around me. Even better, if someone in my circle is negative and critical, I release them from my circle.

Notice negativity

I can feel negativity in my body. It hurts and I need to walk away from it. Now, I don’t know whether it’s because of being old or bored or feeling irrelevant, but old people are often very negative.

I live in a senior center and have had to withdraw from being with people who are negative, who gossip and who criticize. This is so not my tribe. I am lucky the Internet exists because my forward-thinking, still-getting-things-done tribe is online. Even when I’m alone in my apartment, I’m surrounded by like-minded people online!

Notice the energy of negative and remove yourself from it.

Monitor your own negativity

I have to watch my own negative thoughts. As my body ages, there are things that I have to work harder to do. I started to write “things I can no longer do” but that’s negative.

The positive side is that I’ve begun to put more effort into my physical well-being, whatever that means and looks like to me. So instead of indulging in self-talk that says ‘I can’t do that any more.” I become consciously creative and learn to say, “How can I do that differently that’ll work for me?”

The more thoughtful you are, the more alone you become

Because I’ve been a moderate rebel all my life, I finally figured out that the majority of people in the world do life differently than I do. That doesn’t make either of us right or wrong – just different. I like being different. I like standing alone in my own selection of values.

But what I no longer spend any time doing, now that I’m interacting with people who are like-minded, is giving much thought to what those who aren’t like-minded are doing and thinking. l’m focused on making as much of my life positive as I possibly can. I’m focused on deepening my own spiritual understanding.

Are you focused on the negative?

What would feel different in your life if you only looked for and noticed the positive? That means that if something feels negative, you excuse yourself and go find situations that are more positive. It may mean releasing some friends. It may even mean changing jobs. But most of all it means changing yourself.

Just focus on what you love, what you do well, on who inspires and motives you. And go fill your life with more of that.

That’s how you keep the negative out of your life. Fill yourself up with the positive!

To Sing a Deeper Song consider:

Our Opinion Requires No Thought
Mindfulness as a Path to Self-Awareness
Lose Your Attachment to the Outcome
The Power of the Label You Choose
46 -How the People You Hang With Affect Your Life
35—How to Hold the Space for Change.

Filed Under: Mindfulness, Self Awareness, Self Mastery Tagged With: self-awareness, Spiritual Expansion

What if You Broke the Mold?

September 1, 2016 By Cara Lumen

celebration
A mold is a funny thing. It’s meant to turn out things that are shaped the same way. There’s a mold for being a wife, a mother. There’s a mold for being a corporate worker, or a farmer, or a student. There are molds for everything and we shouldn’t strive to fit into any of them.

You may not be aware you are trying to fit into a mold

And yet, we often see someone we’d like to emulate, their hairstyle, their type of clothing, their ease of manners. It’s easy to spend a lot of time finding ways to make yourself “better.”

You are perfect just the way you are

When you’re true to your own uniqueness, you express your true self. When you accept your unique version of being and doing, you’re celebrating your own truth. Adopt something if you like, but always know that it’s your unique take that’ll always make you stand out.

“Mold” also means “to shape”

“To shape” is much more appealing. The only way we change our own world is to change ourselves. We can change how we see the world. If we look for positive, we’ll see positive. So, if you feel you’re being confined in a mold, ditch the mold and simply shape your life as you need and want to.

I was reading a novel in which a wife of 19 years was getting a divorce. She had been operating in the mold of “good wife and mother” for a long time. Suddenly the wife part was gone and she had to redefine herself. Had she allowed herself to become hardened in the mold? Or was she still capable of assuming a new form – and if so, what would that form look like? Don’t let yourself get hardened in any mold.

Take your time changing

I’ve never identified with being old, or even aging. But it’s taken me seven years living in a senior community to figure out that not only am I not like the other people here, but I’m going to do everything I can to not fit that expected mold!

Breaking the mold means I have to take a little heat

If I’m going to not be like the majority of old people, what am I going to be like? There’s only one place I can go – deep within to see the unique mix of all that is me, and shape it into whatever I need to be right now.

I’ve had to make it OK with myself to not participate in this community. I have to look deeply within to see what I need to learn at this point in my life. I examine my skills and my knowledge base; but most of all, I follow my heart.

I’m alone in my immediate environment but through the Internet have discovered strong, supportive, warm, incredible friends all over the world. I founded the Deeper Song Community to gather like-minded people together. This new “mold” is fluid and ever-changing.

You shape your own destiny

The choices I make are based on what I need right now, at this point in my life. It’s not about what I should do, or am expected to do. It’s about what is calling me next, what I have to do.

That’s what I’m doing. That’s how I’m shaping my current mold.

If you are caught in a mold you don’t want, break it!

Look closely to see if you have conformed to things in your life that aren’t what you want, that don’t honor who you are and don’t make you happy.

Then reshape your life by changing how you think and what you choose. Break the mold you’re trapped in and shape your life with free-flowing, in-the-moment choices.

To Sing a Deeper Song consider:

How Do You Nurture “Different”
How Do You Define Success?
The Length of Your Reach
Are You An Independent Learner?
What Do You Do for People That They Can’t Get Elsewhere?
35—How to Hold the Space for Change.
24-How Not Fitting In Helps Your Be Extraordinary
27 – Why Have You Been Chosen

Filed Under: Positive Change, Self Awareness, Self Mastery, Spiritual Expansion Tagged With: positve change, Self Mastery, Spiritual Expansion, Unfolding

How Do You Define Success?

August 30, 2016 By Cara Lumen

top-12

If you do not define success in terms of money or clients or sales or followers, how do you define it? What values are important to you and how successful are you in making those values stand out in your life?

Success may be doing your best work

I was so proud of myself when I got my books up on Amazon. Although the writing part was easy, figuring out the formatting when I was brand new to Scrivener took perseverance and consistent effort. And I was successful.

Success may be “getting it”

I had a major important shift because of some webinars I was on. Through the shared vision and words of others, I deepened the direction of my work. I “got” the next level my work was to take. That was an enormous shift.

Success may be figuring something out and acting on it

It doesn’t take much to figure out that if I want my body to be stronger I need to eat better and move more. My success is in the acting on it.

I have actively searched for and found new triggers to create new habits that are reversing my physical decline. Figure it out and take action.

Success may be felt when you are an inspiring example

It’s hard to be aware of how we inspire others. I was recently reminded that I am an unusual and motivating version of 83. It never occurred to me that my enthusiasm and my outpouring of content could be inspiring – not just for the amount of content but because I’m an old lady doing her thing.

A friend pointed out, “Success is when people can look at you as a beacon for how they want to finish out their life or to simply live now.” That’s huge! That’s letting your light shine through by being you. It’s an example of success you may not even know you have.

Success can be “inspiring people to be different”

Finding out that I’m a Rainbow Mother, the one who sings and dances and writes and doesn’t fit in, was a huge release for me. There are two sides to our feminine energy and I only knew the nurturing, make-things-happen-for-others role. Now that I know there are other ways to express our femininity, I can offer people inspiration and ideas about being OK doing what they feel inside, with no need for permission or validation from others.

Success can be following your calling

The more I allow myself to move more deeply in the direction I’m being called, the louder and more urgent that call becomes. I’m practically sprinting down my inner hallways to talk to my inner voice. So, for me, success is about listening, and about interpreting and map-making for others what I discover.

How do define success for yourself?

Let’s not, for the moment, measure success in physical-plane results. Let’s talk about what’s going on inside. What are you changing within yourself? What values are you standing behind? What qualities are you encouraging within yourself? Inside is where the real work is done. How are you measuring up? What work do you need to do next?

To Sing a Deeper Song consider:

The Many Faces of Your Calling
The Length of Your Reach
Message from a Rainbow Mother
How Do You Nurture “Different”
44 – How to Define What You Do So Others Get It
41 – How to Make Decisions When Your Let Your Life Unfold
37-Self Mastery As a Choice

Filed Under: Positive Change, Self Awareness, Self Mastery Tagged With: business growth, Self Mastery, self-awareness, vision

Do We Manifest or Simply Choose?

August 9, 2016 By Cara Lumen

Wizzard Hat

Several people around me are in the dumps because they have not manifested what they were visualizing and affirming. I wanted to explore to see if we actually manifest things in our lives or if we simply choose from what the Universe offers.

Embrace the simple act of shaping things as they come

I no longer visualize a future goal or work to manifest things. I simply observe and shape things as they come – allowing each moment to offer a new opportunity for me to consider and choose.

Here’s the quote from Stephen Mitchell’s translation of the Tao Te Ching that started me on the path of letting my life unfold:

The Master allows things to happen
She shapes events as they come
She steps out of the way and 
lets the Tao speak for itself.

That quote totally changed how I was living my life. I stopped planning and simply watched while interesting opportunities showed up.

I find it awesome to simply trust, to allow ideas and circumstances to show up. And then be aware enough of who I am and what I want at this moment in time that I can simply take what I want and need in the moment – shape things as they come. I’m letting my life unfold and this is taking me to unexpected places that are exceptionally rewarding.

You are manifesting, whether you want what you get or not!

A friend of mine was very discouraged because she thought that she had lost her ability to manifest what she wanted. She felt helpless and discouraged.

But I’ve been watching her progress and she’s now manifesting awesome things that point to her new path. She just can’t see them in this moment. But I can. She is indeed drawing to her what she needs next.

She quit a high-profile corporate job to start her own business. It was taking longer than she expected. But each week when we spoke I got more excited about the ideas and concepts and interpretation she has to offer. She can change so many lives. It just doesn’t look like she thought it would, so she thinks she’s not succeeding.

That’s the key – you are manifesting things all the time, it just may not be taking you where you thought you were going and in the manner you had imagined.

Understand yourself

You have to look at yourself in a fresh way. Your skills, your passion, the wisdom of this time in your life are all components that factor into your choices. If you ignore your inner growth, that ongoing change within you, you may still be seeking things that you have simply outgrown. Identify your inner desires.

Simply trust

Learn to trust your own intuition and insight. Learn to trust that the organic, ongoing unfolding of your life will bring to you the perfect opportunity. Then trust that you’ll have the wisdom to act from your own inner awareness.

Chose and explore

Back in the days when I used visualization, I understood there were some major reasons that things didn’t show up. It’s possible that what you’re visualizing is not what you need at all. You may be destined for something else.

Another reason some things don’t show up is that the time isn’t right or, something better is on its way to you. If you committed to the thing you want, you wouldn’t be free to take what is intended for you. Be patient with the unfolding process.

What is your calling today?

I didn’t visualize where I am now, I simply adjusted and adapted and listened and made choices. I’m now in my early eighties, and oddly enough, I’m putting out some of the most profound work of my life. I’m feeling rewarded and satisfied, entertained and enlightened. I didn’t plan this – it evolved.

I don’t know where I’m headed. In fact, “future” is not in my thoughts. I stay in the moment of exploring and discovering and sharing what I discover. It’s an exceedingly strong calling. I am not doing the business thing of trying to serve a specific target audience; what I am doing is writing from the heart and sharing it. People are finding me – the right people, at the perfect time in their life – like you and I have connected.

Each moment is filled with undreamed of opportunities. Our choices shape our journey.

Can you let go and simply shape things as they come?

To Sing a Deeper Song consider:

Is Everything You Know Still True
Fitting In Is Not What You Do To Be Extraordinary
How to Develop Your Distinctive Voice
Allow the Right Action to Emerge
27 – Why Have You Been Chosen
28 – How to Walk Beside Someone in Service
Hold the Space for Things To Change
How to Deepen Your Calling

Filed Under: Positive Change, Self Awareness, Self Mastery Tagged With: positve change, Self Mastery, Spiritual Expansion, Unfolding

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