Cara Lumen | Sing a Deeper Song

Sing a Deeper Song

Service

Does Your Work Stir Your Heart?

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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

The Constant Search for New Wisdom

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I don’t like to repeat anything after I’ve learned it.  I seem to be in a constant search for new wisdom.  That makes me see myself as an explorer and mapmaker rather than a teacher or even a guide.  To teach and guide requires a detailed translation of what you find.  I just want to explain it, and then keep exploring.

The role of mapmaker

Think of Lewis and Clark.  They explored uncharted territory, made maps, they wrote reports and they moved on.  They were not the people who settled and developed the land.  They simply explored and reported what they discovered.

For me, the role of explorer and mapmaker is exciting, the role of a settler is not. Are you an explorer or a settler?  Or a bit of both? It’s helpful to know so you don’t try to fit yourself into a role you don’t truly want.

To teach is to learn

One of the most powerful ways to learn is to teach something to someone else.  It makes you organize your thoughts, discover the necessary learning sequence that’ll make sense to others and figure out what’s important to learn first; the foundation, if you will, the core information.

I used to teach courses, but if I teach now it’s in small blog posts that explain my thinking and insights.  I simply offer it, you read it, and it sparks something in you and you apply it to your life – or you don’t.

Through doing, we teach

I had stopped thinking of myself as a teacher because I felt I was simply offering my new insights.  It was pointed out to me that the fact that I’m both old and productive teaches others what’s possible.  I hadn’t thought about that.  How you live your life can be a lesson and an inspiration to others.

So I’ll stop beating myself up for discovering, tasting, sharing what I find and moving on.  That’s simply what I’m doing right now.

Don’t beat yourself up if you are an explorer and not a settler.  Explorers are needed in the world too.

To Sing a Deeper Song Consider:

Why Do You Believe What You Do

Your Desire to Heal the World

The Language of the Stubble Realms

How to Effortlessly Radiate Light

How to Explore Your Invisible Self-

Who do You Serve?  

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As far back as Marketing 101, I understood how important it is to know who you serve.  Your target market, the people who’ll hear and understand you, the people who’ll want your product, the people you’ll want to work with. You can’t serve everyone.  You have to pick your tribe and serve it well.

What are they doing in their lives?

When I was becoming a Reiki Master Teacher we went around our group to say who we were going to help.  One person said she was going to help all the poor people.  In that moment I knew who I was going to serve – thought leaders who were already deeply in service so that my work would support them in flying higher and touching more lives.  And that has never changed.  I don’t want to teach “beginner” anything. I want to teach conscious, exploratory thinkers.

It’s important to know who you want to serve.

Why do you want to help them?

I am really self-focused in my choices.  I love to learn.  I have a burning desire and calling to explore the spiritual realms.  So my first reason for doing anything is determined by my own love of exploring the metaphysical.

And I also have a powerful need to explain what I figure out and share that with others.  But I no longer want to teach even the beginning steps of the exploratory work I’m doing.  My need to explore and figure out is first, and that is not a particularly good marketing strategy.  But my passion and excitement is contagious and there are those who are listening and reading and absorbing what I share. And that’s what I want.

Why do you do what you do?

It’s been very revealing to be retired, to no longer be focused on doing a job for the monetary reward. I find it both indulgent and expanding.  And I move rapidly and deeply into whatever I choose to explore. My focus is on learning more about the unseen world.  Not everyone wants to know about that, but those who do read what I write.

Your passion has been with you all your life

Whatever you’re supposed to be doing in your life, you have either been doing it all along or longed to do it all along.  Sometimes a gift shows you the way. I am a writer but the gift that makes the difference is my ability to quickly see the overview and make connections that others may not be able to see.  That helps me guide people toward new insights.

Many people are reaching mid-life and taking a hard look at their level of satisfaction, find it lacking, and go start their own business, or follow a more personal calling.

Don’t be afraid to change your life, wherever you are on your path.

You never know who you’ll reach

I did a podcast interview and the person who did the interview has shared with me some of the positive responses it received.  I know nothing about those people other than their responses.  But that’s enough.  I touched some lives. I made a difference. And I have no idea what I said or what idea touched them.

We often don’t know how we touch lives.  We just have to trust that we do.

Your calling is deep within

Go into meditation.  Ask your inner self for guidance.  Ask to clarify your passion and offer suggestions for its expression.  Then go do that.

To Sing a Deeper Song Consider

Are You a Conscious Elder?

Where toy Radiate Your Inner Light

What is Your Unique Purpose?

How do You Put your Spiritual Insights to Work?

Your Gift to the Future

Find Your Most Impactful Spiritual Practice

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I love to learn and I keep finding great forms of spiritual practice. However, as the day is not long enough, I need to make some choices. So how do we choose the elements that will most enhance our daily spiritual practice?

Active practice

To meditate and do shamanic journeying or to simply practice radiating light, I have to sit in silence.  I need to be present, I cannot be doing anything else. It can be only a moment of taking a deep breath and focusing my thoughts toward increasing my inner radiance. Or it can be twenty minutes spent journeying, or meditation, or moving my body in a mindful way.

I need to make daily choices that create an environment that allows me to deepen my spiritual awareness by being present and aware.

Choose the right ceremony

Part of what I’m doing is exploring and learning and making up my own version and combinations of mindful practices that deepen my spiritual connection.  The next step is to make some choices.  There’s a radiating light practice I’ve added to my daily spiritual practice.  I also love to do a shamanic journey every day.  They will both stay in my life.  That means I either get up earlier or go to bed later, alternate or let some things go. You can’t do everything; choose the action that offers you the most profound change.

Learn to “be”

Becoming more mindful is a constant focus of my spiritual practice.  I may need to set my timer so that when it goes off, I stop and center myself with a deep breath and look out my window and let go of my body suit focus and take a moment to bask in my inner world.

What about “tune in” time?

If you don’t contemplate your life, your changes, your new discoveries, if you don’t figure out how you want to adapt them to your life, nothing happens.  You must take time for contemplation, for being more self-aware, for feeling what’s aligned and consciously releasing what’s not.  That takes some quiet “me” time.

I happen to use writing to figure things out.  What’s the meaning of an idea? How will I use it?  The result of this inner exploration is posts like this. My introspection makes me productive as well as contemplative.

Sometimes I draw what I’m trying to figure out, using stick figures and arrows and big print and lines that link.

It’s a good idea to regularly take time to simply contemplate what you’ve come across lately, figure out some ways you might incorporate it into your life and see what you want to explore further.

In that same period of self-examination, decide what you can let go.

Inner Work, Self-Awareness, Choice, Release

Do the inner work that shows you your options. Go exploring.  Try new things.  Play with the options that appear.

Use your self-awareness to decide what forms of inner work fit best with your personality and your time. Make choices that fit into your present life. Find a form for deepening your self-awareness so that your outer choices are aligned with your inner work.

Then release the rest.  That opens up space for you to explore new ideas.

Add those new choices to your daily spiritual practice.

How have you balanced your inner life with your outer life?

To Sing a Deeper Song Consider

What is Your Unique Purpose?

How do You Put your Spiritual Insights to Work? 

Your Gift to the Fut-1ure

Building a Transformational Community to Heal Our World-

Your Desire to Heal the World

The Guardianship We Hold

The Three-Year Promise

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three - rainbow

We overestimate what we can do in one year and underestimate what we can do in three years. What do you want in three years?  Are your goals about work, or relationships or health?  Are you thinking big enough?

What do you want to have accomplished in three years?

Stop. What just popped into your head when you read that? What do you want to have accomplished in three years?  That thought you just had. That’s it. That’s what you work on.

It doesn’t need to be particularly specific, but keep that goal in mind as we explore some ideas to make your goal a reality.

I was totally surprised to find that my three-year goal was that I wanted to recover some of my physical ability. Being a metaphysician, I don’t want to buy into the common idea that as we age our body becomes less effective. However, that’s hard because I live in a senior facility filled with walkers and stooped-over people on oxygen.

I work to see and feel my body as strong and supportive. But I have both inner and outer work to do and beliefs to change and things to learn. So I choose as my three-year goal that my body will be stronger than it is now.

What did you choose?

What would that look like?

What would that feel like?

You gotta have a plan

The first thing I realized was that I need to have a plan. A plan that I’ll stick to and improve on for three years – steps I’m willing to take, goals I truly want to achieve. I need to formulate a plan that’ll help me achieve the desired results.

You gotta have determination

You need to want this goal – a lot.

I have a friend who is sick. There’s stuff wrong with her but she is not helping. She’s not eating. She’s not moving her body. She’s not helping herself. This passiveness has been a pattern in her life. Not pushing through. Not taking charge of her own destiny.

I can’t help her. No one can. She is totally responsible for the outcome of this opportunity in her life.

As are we all.

What your life looks like now is a direct result of your choices and actions. What choices are you making in your life that are manifesting in what you see before you?  What do you need to change – about yourself – about your actions? What choices will you make in order to achieve your three-year goal?

Make a plan you can follow

I gave this idea of a three-year goal a lot of thought because my natural tendency is to work my mind rather than move my body. So I had to create a plan I would follow, either through determination or trickery.

I choose the number 21. It takes 21 days to change a habit. I would do whatever form of movement I chose for 21 minutes. I don’t think I’m going to do 21 different forms of movement, but you get the picture.

Trick yourself. I can add 12 (the number 21 reversed) leg lifts every time I stand at my kitchen sink. I watch The View every day and for one 15-minute segment I will stretch and move. I walk each day but may count 210 steps or walk for 12 minutes. I could climb 21 steps 21 times. (Doubtful). There are 16 steps in the hall by my mailbox so even one trip up and down would be a positive move.

Dancing is a sneaky way to exercise. Turn on some music and sing and dance with great enthusiasm. Get creative. Sneak in small steps.

I have discovered that the most productive time to sneak in a new habit is during television commercials. When I use that time to move my body, during one hour I may get as much as 15 minutes of movement tucked in. I could also use commercial breaks to dust or put stuff away or tidy my kitchen.

Whether you sit in your chair and stretch, or get up and lift some weights, or take some other action toward your goal, look for the hidden down-time moments that are organically built into your day.

If my three-year goal was around relationship, I would work very hard on changing me.

If my three-year goal was focused on a project, I would mind-map broad steps, divide them into manageable segments and begin.

Listen to your inner voice

As I make these physical choices, I have to learn to listen to the messages of my body. I have to learn to give it what it needs in the form and amount that it needs. And I get to notice whose voice it is that says “do three more steps” and to ignore the voice that says “too hard.”  They are both me, but I need to find the balance between pushing too hard so that I get discouraged and pushing just right so that I feel and see progress.

Check your progress

The only way I know to track my progress is to record my starting stats. Then I record my progress monthly. That progress may be in mental attitude, or in actual physical change. Decide upon the signals you can read that will let you become aware of your progress. Take time to reflect on this progress and make adjustments that will help you get more results.

I do a self-awareness check on my birthday. I check in with myself at the end of the year. I am also reflective at the time of the New Moon and at Full Moon. Pick what works for you but do record your progress so you can see it and you can tweak your plan.

Visualize your results every day

Each day in your quiet inner time, visualize how you will feel at the end of the three years when you have surpassed your own expectations. It’s awesome for me to remember the freedom my body used to afford me, the adventures we went on together. I want that back. When I visualize, I feel that way again and it inspires and motivates me. Your emotions are a better indicator of success than what things look like.

Allow room for change

Your goals may change as you change. As my body improves I may change my vision, my goals, even the action steps I choose.

What is your three-year vision?  Will you begin working on it today?  What’s your plan?

To Sind a Deeper Song Consider:

My Three Words for 2017

What Do You Need to Leave Behind

What Seeds Do You Allow to Grow in Your Garden?

The Shedding of Your Skin

Clean Your Inside Home

Why We Are Afraid of Change

Be the Story you Want to Tell

VLOG: Insights of a Deeper Song

PODCAST: Reflections of a Deeper Song