Cara Lumen | Sing a Deeper Song

Sing a Deeper Song

personal growth

What to Do When You Don’t Know What You Need

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question and circle

She had come to the end of a big chunk of time and a lot of money spent and she wasn’t where she had expected to be. In retrospect, she had gone into the project not knowing what needed to be done. She had been overwhelmed and because of her inexperience in developing an online business, she didn’t have a clear overview and she had not chosen wisely. She had not even followed her heart. So what do you do when you don’t know what you need?

Explore and collect

As with everything else in life, the more self-aware you are, the more on-target your choices will be. The first step is to not quit your day job until you know what it’ll take to sustain you and how to make that happen. My friend’s problem was that she had been in a huge corporate job with ten-hour days and didn’t have the time or energy to explore new possibilities.

But you have to figure out what combination fits you. You have to know how skilled or unskilled you are in certain areas. You have to know what you love to do and what you’d rather not even learn to do.

You look at what other people are doing in a similar venue, decide what resonates and what does not align with who you are and then you make your list. Prioritize what you need first. And they explore one piece at a time.

Allow your direction to evolve

Look at a choice as an exploration. Wander down the path of that choice and see where it takes you and how that feels. If it doesn’t fit, make another choice, try another path. Build on what you learn.

Identify your weaknesses

Early in my entrepreneurial career, I took a marketing class. The advice was great but marketing was and is not my skill set. A wise choice would be for me to consider a partner in my endeavor, one with the skills I am lacking. Or even to hire someone to coach me through my reluctance. The bottom line is that the skill and willingness to market is not there for me. I’m an introvert. It has always been a hole in whatever I try to do.

Go with your strengths

What have you been doing well all of your life? How does that fit into your business? I’ve been a communicator in many forms throughout my life, so I build on that. The rest I have to learn or hire out.

Learn by doing

It seems like I’ve been immersed in technical stuff forever. I had to learn Rainmaker , I switched from PC to Mac and had to learn GarageBand and KeyNote. Then I got Scrivener and loved it, even though there was a big learning curve for me.

When I was setting up my site in Rainmaker, I often cried with frustration — not at having to learn a wonderful new platform that was going to make a huge difference in my life, but because I felt overwhelmed by all the digging in I had to do to learn a new, better system. I wanted the final result so much that I just dried my tears and went at it again.

An entrepreneur is responsible for it all

If you’re an entrepreneur, you have to be willing to learn. You have to be willing to fail and thereby to learn what does not work. You’re going to have to learn enough about every facet of an entrepreneurial business that you can know when the person you hired is working effectively.

Explore before you dive in

Start simply. Master one thing at a time. Perhaps you start with a blog, a WordPress site and an email provider. Use that platform to try out your idea, to measure the response, to shape your own method.

Failure is a gift

When something doesn’t work, that’s a gift. When you do it poorly, you have received the gift of at least going through the process and you know that next time will be easier. You know what you like. You know what you don’t like. You increase your strengths and you make adjustments to allow room for your weaknesses.

What do you do when you don’t know what you need? Go exploring. Go adventuring. Try on some ideas. Learn some techniques and give yourself time for it to all flow together into the gift you, and only you, can give to the world.

To Sing a Deeper Song Consider:

The Move From Inner to Outer Work
What Do You Do When You Feel Stuck?
What Makes You Valuable?
The Responsibility of an Artist
How Do You Define Success?

The Shedding of Your Skin

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snake skin segmeent

In order to grow larger, a snake periodically sheds its skin. What skin do you need to shed now in order to grow?

The skin of self-limitation

The most restricting skin we live in is how we perceive ourselves. Our self-esteem and our self-confidence both need to be examined for weakness. Look at the words you use to describe yourself. Toss the negative ones. Listen to the words of praise from those around you. Believe those. Discard the beliefs you hold about yourself that hold you back. Make room for you to fly higher.

The skin of fear and stuck-ness
Fear and helplessness can wrap around us like a too-small shirt. They can keep us from taking action. We feel we either don’t have the skill or information or simply don’t know what to do next.

What steps can you take to unwrap yourself from fear and helplessness and stuck-ness? Your positive energy is a perfect place to begin. Send your positive thought to wherever you feel needs to be balanced. Shed your skin of fear and step into the sunlight.

The skin of passion

The skin of passion is a driving force in our life. It is our “look”, our “style”, or our “way of being”. Because it is constantly evolving, our passion can slightly change direction and that means we can find ourselves on a new course.

Our passion skin may be too tight and restrictive. We may need to change its color or its texture. When you find it’s time to shed your skin, look to see if your passion has opened new doors for you to explore.

My skin is changing in both texture and color. I’m going in the general same direction but my search has deepened and an alternative path has opened up to explore. That means I abandon some things and focus on a more specific path. I shed my skin.

The skin of self-expression

As we develop new skills, we open new possibilities for self- expression. When you are ready to shed your skin, look to see what new doors have opened and which will feed your passion most effectively.

I’ve spent several years expanding my skills. I’ve been steadily discarding skins that either do not fit or that are less effective than the newer skin I’ve chosen. In the course of becoming aware of my continuing growth, I’ve become more self-aware. I know where my skin is too tight. I feel the freedom that awaits me so I poke a hole in my skin and explore a new direction.

As I go deeper, I leave things behind and sharpen my skills on the new direction I choose. That’s all part of the adjustment you make when shedding your skin. You discard what no longer serves you.

The skin of service

Stepping into a new place of service may be the catalyst for unexpected expansion and another reason to shed your too-tight skin. It may be a small shift that allows you to simply adjust your skin, or a big step that demands more space to expand.

Get rid of what no longer serves

Snakes also shed their skin to remove parasites that may have attached to their old skin. Now that’s an interesting concept — leech, bloodsucker, bottom feeder — no one wants those.

A parasite comes in various sizes, it can attach itself in dark corners of our awareness. It can grow so slowly that we barely notice how intrusive it has become. Part of shedding your skin is to get rid of the parasites in your mind and in your life. Hmm.

Shedding your skin is a gradual change

We’re talking about a metaphorical skin here, a skin of emotional barriers, of fear of trying, of lack of confidence. Life is a constant cycle of change and when we embrace that, our life becomes much smoother. Even better is when we regularly examine our lives to see where we have allowed it to become too tight, too small, too restrictive and simply take active steps to expand our inner space. We must shed our restrictive skin, our confining ideas, everything that’s holding us back.

Is your life too tight, too confining, too limiting? Close you eyes and picture what it would feel like to shed all that confines you, holds you down, pulls you back. Shake it off. Release it. Step beyond it and leave that confining, restrictive skin behind you on the path. Picture yourself standing on a clear path with no burdens, just your gifts and your passion and an expansive opportunity before you. Where will you go? What will you do?

That’s the freedom you’ll feel once you drop the skin that’s holding you back. Feel the expansiveness as you move into the new, bigger, more expanding you and explore the path that has now opened up before you.

To Sing a Deeper Song Consider
Fitting In Is Not What You Do To Be Extraordinary
How to Develop Your Distinctive Voice
Your Art Must Originate Within Yourself
What if You Broke the Mold?
How Being Different Makes You Special
Be the Story you Want to Tell
Where Do YouPlant our Stake?

Why We Are Afraid of Change

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choices

What we’re seeing in the political responses around the world is a reaction to change. People want to go back to the way it was. They’re afraid of change.

That’s helpful to know.

It’s hard to keep up with change

Technology is moving us faster and farther than we ever dreamed of. It’s hard to keep up. It takes determination to keep learning It takes flexibility to change. And although, to those of us who are older, it may seem like today’s world needs an entirely new skill set, our children and grandchildren are being brought up with technology and instant access to information and the answers they seek.

Change is a constant

Here is the core truth — change is constant. Life goes in cycles and that always means change. Even when you think the cycle has returned to a situation you’ve experienced before, you find that you’ve moved forward and are standing in new and unfamiliar surroundings. Change is ever-present. Change moves you forward.

You can’t hang on to the past

It will never be the way it was — and that’s a good thing. I remember when there was no TV. I remember riding in my grandfather’s Model T car. I remember blocks of ice delivered to my grandfather’s home to a real “ice box”. My mother could vote only twelve years before I was born. Very few women my age went to college. It wasn’t expected of us. It wasn’t the norm.

Yet today, 80 years later, women are heading large companies and entering politics and making a huge impact in our world.

All because the world keeps changing.

Our roles change

House-husbands began to happen when the man stayed home and the woman was the bread-winner. Both women and men took a closer look at marriage and the long-term commitment to raising children. People of diverse genders began to define themselves. Women began to stand up for themselves and men were uncomfortable as their roles and power changed.

That’s still the case. Old male power is still in place but it will disappear in a generation. And women will have to change how they see themselves and their role. We will have to change how we participate.

How do you adjust to change?

First you have to accept that change is constant. You can never, ever, go back to the way it was. You change every minute of your existence. So does the world around you. Going back is not an option. There’s only going forward. And that takes increased flexibility, and usually some effort.

Learn from others

If you want to learn how to use your computer or your cell phone, talk to a young person. If you want to understand environmental change, listen to those who study it and reach informed decisions based on your own inquiry. If you want to learn about your own city government, get involved. Become informed. Do your homework. Check the facts.

Know yourself

Look closely at where you stop yourself with your beliefs or opinions. Identify your strengths as well as your weaknesses. Where are you happiest? What do you need to learn in order to expand your path of service? What are your gifts? Your passion? The more self-aware you become, the more aligned are the choices you make. And there will be choices — many of them —often. Knowing yourself well is the foundation upon which you stand and from which you choose. Be flexible. Be accepting. Be willing to change.

Change takes consistent action on your part

It’s very easy to learn new things. The internet gives you instant answers. Videos can show you step by step how to do anything. You now have access to fascinating thinkers online and innovative research and diverse-minded people gathering for a common cause. It’s all there, spread out before you. Don’t hide your head in the sand. Don’t harbor any desire to go back because that’s simply not going to happen. We’re going steadily forward, like it or not.

How to keep up with change

Listen. Listen to what others are saying.

Look. Look at what others are accomplishing.

Absorb and choose. Immerse yourself in possibility, choose ideas and actions that are aligned with your passion and your gifts and take the steps that will help you move forward.

Trust where you are led

When you focus on listening to your inner voice, when you use your emotions and your feelings to determine what calls to you at this moment in time, and when you simply let it unfold, it will find you and call to you clearly.

A recent shift in my own direction took a while to clarify itself. First there was just a wisp of a thought. Then waiting. Then a bit of an idea. I explored how I felt about it. More waiting. Then came a knowing about the general direction. Again waiting. And finally, like a geyser, the specifics and action steps began to flow out and fill my life. I went to work.

Don’t push your calling. Let it emerge. Don’t push change but do welcome it and enjoy the adventure.

After all, change is all there is.

To Sing a Deeper Song Consider:

How to Hold the Space for Things To Change
How to Hold the Space for the New Vision to Emerge
Reserve Space For Yourself in Your Life
How to Design an Unfolding Routine
Mindfulness and the Moment

Are You Inspired By Your Own Life?

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indiviual light

I bet you never noticed whether you inspire yourself or not. Why not? Why do we always look at the lives of others for inspiration?

Notice your own path

Stop and see yourself as others see you. Listen to what they say about you and to you. Watch their faces when you interact with them. Notice how you feel when you’ve accomplished something. You’re doing so much more than you realize you’re doing.

Trust that your light is shining

Whenever you affect someone’s life, this creates a ripple effect because the person turns and to the next person offers a reflection of how you’ve affected him or her. Your presence goes on and on and affects many more people than you can imagine.

I’m a writer. But I truly have no idea how I am changing lives. Yes, there are “likes” on Facebook, and personal notes on occasion, but what I really care about is that someone has read what I wrote and was changed by it. I’ll probably never know how far-reaching that ripple is. But I know I am compelled to keep on sharing.

Shine your brightest light

What I can do is be the best me I can be. I continue to explore what calls to me and explain it the best way I can and let it go. I have grown by the doing. Others will grow by the reading. And still others will be affected by the resulting changes in us.

You can’t measure your brightness nor can you have any idea of what darkened corner your light will reach into. What you can do is shine your brightest. Do you best work. Be your kindest self. Express your best ideas. Do your best work.

And feel.

Feel the power of your own life

If you’re growing as a person, you’re inspiring others. If you’re enthusiastically going about your life, others will most certainly be inspired.

Make a list of what you have accomplished and the known effect it has had on others. Be inspired by touching even one person. Be inspired by the completion of a project, no matter how small it was, knowing that you did your best in the moment.

Look in the mirror and smile and know that your mere presence is inspiring.

You’re inspiring not because of what you do but because of how you are. When you are the best you possible, you are inspiriting.

Trust that.

To Sing a Deeper Song Consider:
What is Self-transformation?
Where Do YouPlant our Stake
Our Work in the World
How do You Put your Spiritual Insights to Work?
The New Wave of Powerful Purpose
The Move From Inner to Outer Work

What is Self-transformation?

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butterfly

I know the importance of self-awareness — the need to know our passion, recognize our gifts, understand our needs and define our core values. The better we know ourselves, the more aligned are our choices. But when I came across the concept of self-transformation, it called deeply to me. It’s so powerful and empowering. What is the difference between self-awareness and self-transformation?

To transform is to reshape

Transforming ourselves takes us beyond self-awareness.
It’s like being a potter, holding a ball of clay in your hand. You have shaped it to the best of your ability through your self-awareness; now you must take the additional steps to turn it into a cup or bowl or vase. There are the transforming steps. For instance, pottery requires steps like glazing and firing.

If I want to transform my life, where do I begin?

The first step is to know that you can. You can change anything — how you act, what you say, what you think. All of which shape your life experience.

Begin there. In particular, get rid of the beliefs of self-doubt and know that you can change, you can transform.

Let it unfold

Self-transformation. What does that look like? Feel like? Just be still and listen to the voice within and shape whatever shows up.

Begin with the work within

What calls to you? What do you want to learn, to explore, to try?

As I deepened my connection with the voice within, I could hear it and interpret it more clearly. It required stillness and receptivity on my part for several weeks before any direction began to emerge. Now the signs and ideas and opportunities are emerging clearly and rapidly.

What shows up, what evolves, what changes, cannot be planned for. It can only appear as it will. Work with what you are given.

Be willing to change

Your actions and choices will automatically transform your life. That means you make a choice, watch what shows up because of it, and choose and re-choose until you feel you’re closer to the right place, the center of your being, the core of who you are.

You’ll have to let go of some things, adjust others, and push through perceived barriers in order to achieve new understanding, move in new directions, rise to new heights.

What is your next step?

You embrace the concept of being willing to transform — to be responsible for your choices, to actively take part in deepening your inner life and broadening your reach. Be present. Be aware.

That’s the beginning of self-transformation.

To Sing a Deeper Song Consider:

Where Do YouPlant our Stake
How to Manage Your Subtle Energy
How to Hold the Space for the New Vision to Emerge
The Power of Positive Purpose
The Move From Inner to Outer Work