Cara Lumen | Sing a Deeper Song

Sing a Deeper Song

Self Mastery

The Length of Your Reach

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As we move along in our lives, we sometimes forget how many lives we actually touch. Like the pebble dropped into the pond, our waves go on and on until they reach the far shore. That’s a lot of territory to cover – a lot of lives to touch.

The power of your personal touch

It’s easy to see how you touch the lives of the people you personally interact with – your family, your friends, your co-workers. Your interactions with them are tangible and the results often evident. This is the perfect place to begin to practice expanding your reach. Make certain you say only kind things, listen to what is not being said and respond to that, watch the reactions you elicit and decide what to change about yourself. Notice the effect you have, the difference you make. The people you interact with are a mirror in which you see the reflection of yourself.

The power of your passing touch

You touch people by your mere presence. They’re attracted to your enthusiasm, your joy, the spiritual energy that emanates as you check out at their counter, or walk by them, or they simply feel your energy from across the room. You don’t realize that you touched those lives and you don’t know how profound the impact was. It’s the reflection of the goodness within you that they respond to. They see your light within.

The power of people you inspire

You may inspire someone because of your tenacity, your thoughtfulness, your determination and perseverance. You may inspire them by a kindness you showed.

We can become more impactful when we move consciously through our lives. Begin to give some thought to how you inspire people and how that, in turn, affects their lives.

I do what I do because I’m deeply called to my work. Although I don’t set out to inspire people with what I write, I know I do. They respond to what comes from my own inner truth; they’re touched by the words I use and the ideas I share.

I know this because people write to me about how they were moved. Otherwise I’d never know. But we have to trust that the way we live our lives, and the energy and positive intention of the work we produce, will inspire people we don’t even know.

The value of the lives you improved

Look back at the various nudges, helping hands and inspiration that have come your way over the years. For me, it was the teacher who made me Managing Editor of my school paper and started me on a lifetime of writing, the teacher of a comparative religion class that peaked my curiosity about the world’s great religions, the friend who got me involved in reiki so I became a reiki master teacher third degree, the practitioner who invited me to the Center for Spiritual of Living, where I spent the following five years becoming a practitioner, people I coached and learned from in the process, people whose webinars and tutorials sent me off on new creative directions.

None of those people know how much they changed and improved my life. But their effect was deep and lifechanging and has shaped how I have moved in the world to affect others.

You have done the same for others and you will never know how many lives you have changed.

Your energy and the far reach of social media

I had two signs recently about the ever-growing reach of social media. Someone shared one of my podcasts with her list on LinkedIn and Twitter and several new people from Twitter started following me. I don’t personally know all the people I reach through my posts and podcasts and videos on social media. I don’t know how my offering changes their lives and the lives of those they touch. I don’t know how something I write may spark an idea for someone else, who turns around and interprets it in their unique manner so that it touches another life.

But the signs that this is happening keep coming back to me. When I see them I have to understand that one of the ways I can make my life count is to keep doing what I’m doing – thinking and exploring and sharing what I discover. It all counts. It all matters. It’s all part of that ripple.

The next time you’re feeling irrelevant, like your life doesn’t count for much, just know that the wave from your pebble has hit a lot of shores, gone over a lot of rocks, swirled through a lot of leaves, and sent ripples to a lot of fish. Your wave counts. Your wave makes a difference.

Know that. Trust that. Be the best wave you can be.

To Sing a Deeper Song consider:
The Power of Your Personal Path
The Reward is in the Journey
Are You a Gift Person
The Desire for Freedom and the Road Less Traveled
Do You Know How To Love?
27 – Why Have You Been Chosen
28 – How to Walk Beside Someone in Service

The Many Faces of Your Calling

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Our calling evolves over time. We can look back and see signs of it throughout out lives. It appears in the things we love to do most. It usually manifests as something we do so naturally that we almost don’t notice it. But it shows up in different manifestations throughout our entire life.

Sometimes the gifts of our calling are subtle

When I was in high school, I was chosen to be the Managing Editor of the school paper. Not the Literary Editor, but the organizer, the manager. In college, I was House Manager of my sorority – another organizing position. As a young mother, I organized the Picture Lady Program for our school, which ended up being taken over and expanded upon by the Nelson Gallery of Art in Kansas City.

All of those were signs that I was a good organizer – that it was a gift I was to use in my life. But one subtle part of that gift of organizing took a very long time for me to realize. It was that I was also a good organizer of ideas.

This showed up in the clarity of my writing. It was elicited as I identified the overview of their purpose for my coaching clients. And ultimately I figured out that I have a gift for explaining the complex in simple forms.

But it took a lot of years to put all that together.

Look beyond the what for the why

It’s easier to see your calling in retrospect. I have been involved with a lot of newsletters. There is something in me that gets excited about sharing ideas with others. It shows up in my writing and my teaching. I can’t explain the “why” I do it. It is just a very, very, very strong urge. A calling, you might say.

Your calling changes forms

A friend has worked in corporate leadership development. Now she is being called to move from the rigid confines of a big company into a coaching business to help people learn to lead from within. She is redefining her calling, examining the depth of what she knows and reshaping it to add what is calling to her, a spiritual component, that of leading by example. As she searches for her new place of service, she searches for the words to explain it. She’s looking for the people whose lives she can change. She’s still exploring.

She’s taking her huge background in leadership development and exploring the leading edge of a new form of leadership. She has no idea where it will take her, she simply knows she must do it. The call is strong and she’s certainly answering it.

Follow those inner urges

The urges that call me to write are so strong I have no choice. An idea appears and I leap to my computer and explore it. I am lucky. At 83 I get to stay in my own rhythm, follow my own urges, and do exactly what I feel called upon to do.

However busy you are, find a way to develop your own stye, your own rhythm, your own self-expression. Listen. Learn to interpret. Express yourself in a new way. Accept new opportunities. Look for new venues.

Most of all trust those urges. Look at what you do well in a new light. Learn to repurpose it or reapply it in a new way.

Your calling is at your core. It’s your soul speaking. Listen to your calling, discover its many forms and go where it leads you.

To Sing a Deeper Song Consider:

Can We Think our Way to Success?
How Do You Nurture “Different”
Learn to Honor Your Inner Rhythm
The Power of Your Personal Path
Can You Control Your Own Destiny?
40 – Who Do yo Want to Serve?
32 – How to See Your Work As Art
27 – Why Have You Been Chosen
28 – How to Walk Beside Someone in Service

Are You An Independent Learner?

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If I was a kid today, I’d be hard pressed to keep up with technology. If nothing else, technology is moving so fast that it’s easy to be left behind. How can you help yourself, or your children, learn what they need and what is helpful for them? How do you nurture an independent learner?

We need to learn what we need to know to follow our passion

After we study for a while, we learn that we are better at some things than at others. We may be drawn to math, or writing, or art and get excited about one subject over another. Our mind may work in a way that enables us to learn one thing more easily than another. That’s why it’s a good idea to become an independent learner. You pick and choose what you need to know and figure out the best way to learn it.

We need to learn critical thinking

Critical thinking is when you explore something deeply enough to make an informed decision. The Oxford dictionary defines critical thinking as “The objective analysis and evaluation of an issue in order to form a judgement.” But I know that whatever conclusion we draw will be colored by who we are and what we’re capable of observing.

In critical thinking, you gather as much information as possible, you sift it through your own values and beliefs. You look at the facts. You weigh your options. You examine your needs and come up with a conclusion. Then you act. Or you don’t.

We need to learn what we don’t know

Until you explore the possibilities deeply enough, you cannot see all your choices. You need to at least have a glimpse of what you don’t know and decide what part of it is necessary to learn in order to move forward and what part can be left for another time.

We need a reality check

As an enthusiastic and independent learner, there comes a time when I get to look closely at what I’m doing to see if it’s creating the results I want. My example is self-publishing. I had great plans to get my books onto other platforms and on several services. There was a lot to learn in order to do that. My reality check was that I needed to determine the best use of my time – either by concentrating on writing or on learning the technical stuff to get my work up in a few more places.

My greatest value lies in my creativity. I get to trust that whoever needs to read my work will find it. It helps for me to know how to get my books on Amazon, but is there a better use for my time than figuring out how to get them onto other platforms? Should I start recording the audio version? Should it become a course? How will voice recognition improve my writing? Those are a lot of choices. How am I most impactful in service?

When I make that decision, I can make informed choices.

Learn what you want to learn

If it excites you, learn it. I recently discovered how much I enjoy Nova. I seem to have reached a certain point that it resonates with me. Now, instead of watching dramas that seem either too innocuous or too violent, I can learn about places and people and ideas that are new to me. I find that very exciting.

Whatever you want to learn, you can go on Google and find a course or a video or someone to take you through the basic steps. TED talks give me access to fascinating thinkers who express their passion well. I often join webinars and listen to podcasts that offer me a fresh perspective.

There’s no excuse for not learning what you’re drawn to. It’s very available. It’s up to you to apply yourself.

Explore

I enjoy painting, even though I wouldn’t consider myself a particularly good artist. A few years ago I took an oil-painting class, and although the result was a very bad version of Gauguin, I was excited that I had filled up a blank space with something from my mind.

I took a couple of art courses during my senior year in college. In composition I got a C, but in drawing I got an A+ because I had literally gone from stick figures to doing a decent three-minute sketch. That vast improvement was rewarded.

Explore what interests you – whether you’re any good at it or not. Just nurturing that aspect of yourself opens new possibilities.

Learn by teaching

A How to Write Magnetic Articles course I taught years ago greatly improved my own writing skills because I had to research and learn more and organize my thoughts in order to teach it to others.

As I’m on a personal quest to discover the meaning of concepts that intrigue me, writing about them to explain them to myself is how I’m eventually going to share them with others.

Keep learning. Share what you know. It will grow you.

Independent Learning is what you do for yourself

You don’t learn something to pass a test, or even to complete a task, you learn because something calls to you, you are compelled to explore whatever it is that fascinates you.

Are you an independent learner? What’s next on your agenda? How do you nurture your need to learn?

To Sing a Deeper Song consider:

How Do You Nurture “Different”
The Power of Your Personal Path
What to Do When You Are Between Teachers
The Art of Mastery
Fitting In Is Not What You Do To Be Extraordinary
27 – Why Have You Been Chose

Balance and the Flow of Living

By

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It helps me, as I move along this winding, sometimes bumpy, but always adventurous life, to try to be more like water – flowing, adapting, trusting.

Flow like water

I love living an unfolding life. I simply see what shows up and shape things as they come. I can change course. I can go faster. I can rest in a pool for a while. Like water, I adapt to whatever shows up.

Seek balance like water

Water has the awesome ability to adapt to any shape. It easily changes with the situation. It can go rushing down a mountainside or find stillness in a gently flowing stream. Water adapts. It accepts.

We can learn to flow though life. When I have to move rapidly, I do. I work to stay balanced during my day. I try to maintain a steady flow, whatever the speed. I keep the balance between my physical-plane activities and the harmony of my inner self. Balance keeps me flowing.

Be nourishing like water

The image of water is often used to describe Tao, that indescribable, whatever-it-is that is, that “All-That-Is”. Water is nourishing – in so many ways. It nourishes us. It nourishes the planet. I’m comforted to know that I’m surrounded by the care of nourishing water.

When I allow the flow of life to move through me, letting it fill me, and nurture me, all is well in my world.

Be still like water

Even when water rushes down a hillside, it eventually finds a place of stillness. Once there, it simply savors the stillness. It rests in stillness. It lives in stillness.

I mindfully choose moments of stillness. Whether it’s seeking a deeper stillness in meditation or simply a thoughtful pause to look out my window. When I consciously acknowledge the moment of stillness, it nourishes me. Be aware of the moments when you are still – and serene.

Water is powerful

Water wears down hillsides. Water smooths rocks. It does that by being consistent, by steadily flowing forward. Its nature is constant. It flows. Flowing though life is a powerful way to be.

Water is unafraid

Water knows it can adapt. Water knows it can flow into any situation. Water knows it can flow out of any situation. When we trust our “water-ness” we become fluid and adaptable. We are determined, yet we are flexible. We are resilient.

Water is flowing.

Every drop is both fluid and flexible.

Water never fears being divided, because it knows it will flow back together in time. It is eternal.

Water is powerful, its nature is constant. It is true to itself at any extreme.

Let your life flow like water, bringing you balance and flexibility.

To Sing a Deeper Song consider

On Coming to the End of a Cycle
Learn to Honor Your Inner Rhythm
The Power of Non-Action
Can You Control Your Own Destiny?
30 – The No Plan Plan

Can We Think Our Way to Success?

By

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The discussion was about the Law of Attraction, positive thought, and the idea of thinking our way to success.

My friend was being hard on herself because her new entry into the world of solopreneur was not manifesting the way she had pictured it. She felt she had no power, no control and that she wasn’t making things happen the way she wanted to, the way she believed she should be able to do.

But the fact was, she was making very powerful things happen. It just didn’t look the way she thought it would.

Do you have that sort of control problem? If it doesn’t look like you thought it should, it’s wrong, or you failed to manifest it.

I have a different view of the kind of power or control we have over our life – it’s choice. Choice in the moment. Choice that’s aligned with how well we know ourselves. Self-awareness is the key to positive change. Self-awareness is the path to success.

Can you recognize the success that is right for you?

This friend had come from a very big, responsible job in a very large corporation. I pointed out that what she was expecting her business to look like, based on what had been around her for so long, was not what she was going to find as a solopreneur. The “wins” would be on a different scale – a one-person scale. She hadn’t thought about that.

Relax into the power of unfolding

We talked about how she might begin to simply let circumstances unfold. Since I have consciously been practicing allowing my life to unfold, I have been pleased and astonished by what shows up.

There are two steps in allowing life to unfold and they both involve trust. You have to trust the Universe to provide you with the right opportunities and you have to trust yourself to make the right choice.

Making the right choice involves self-awareness

What do you love to do most? What are your strongest skills? What do you need/want to learn next? What do people ask you to do? When you identify your gifts and your passions, they become your guides, your measuring sticks for the choices you make.

The more I honor my natural self, the happier I am. Working and living in my nourishing home, writing from my heart, sharing it with others, making new friends online – it’s perfect. And it has evolved over time as I work to understand myself, making choices aligned with my passion and my calling and simply allowing my life to unfold.

See choice as an exploration

Begin to see choice as an opportunity to discover, to explore, to try something on for size. You’ll find life becomes more fun, more educational, more revealing and more inspiring.

When you make a choice to go down a particular path, you can always choose to turn around and come back, or explore another trail that leads off of it.

A choice is simply that – one choice, in one particular moment in time that seems appealing or right. It will immediately be followed by other choices – to continue, to create a variation of the path you are on, or to try an entirely different path.

Feel your way to success

Use your emotions as a guide rather than your mind. Your thoughts are limiting. Your intuition and imagination have no boundaries.

Stay in the moment and feel your way into a choice. Don’t over-think it. Don’t try to control it. Simply feel how it feels. If it feels aligned, or comforting or fascinating or exciting, go exploring and see where it takes you. See what else unfolds as you journey forward. Then make another informed and aligned choice.

Trust the universe to provide you with the perfect opportunities

Opportunities are always there, you only have to notice them. Pause and take time to examine a new idea, or think about a concept that you just discovered and determine how it feels. Is it right for you? Does it work in this moment in time? What new opportunities does the idea stimulate? What new doors just opened? A range of possibilities open in an instant, in the moment, in the now of simply being.

Can we think our way to success? I think it’s easier and more effective to feel our way to our next step and notice what unfolds. One choice followed by another choice. That’s the path to success.

To Sing a Deeper Song consider:

Our Opinion Requires No Thought
Can You Control Your Own Destiny?
What Do You Do for People That They Can’t Get Elsewhere?
The Power of the Label You Choose
37-Self Mastery As a Choice