transformational ideas Archives - Cara Lumen

Where is the wisdom we have lost in knowledge?
Where is the knowledge we have lost in information? -T.S. Eliot, “The Rock”

What do you truly know? What information have you absorbed enough to apply, reject or question?

It takes time and effort to sift through the flood of readily available information to figure out 1) what is true, 2) how it aligns with your core values and 3) if or how you want to take action.

What is true?

We have a responsibility to check the facts, particularly when it affects the well-being of our world. Identify a fact-checking source, bookmark it and run some of the things you hear through it. Find news sources you think are reliable. I love PBS News Hour for its thoughtful questions, rational discussions and in-depth reporting. I learn a lot. It educates me, expands my understanding and increases my empathy.

My practice is to write my interpretation of the situation or question in order to help me figure it out. I like to share my discoveries online. It may or may not resonate with you. That’s why we have choices. Follow people that inspire and motivate you and people who stretch your understanding of areas that call to you.

How does this information align with my core values?

Most people haven’t looked for or examined their core values. Core values are how you guide your life — honesty, kindness, empathy, exploration, inclusion, continued learning, spiritual expansion.

What’s important to you? What do you need more of? Where will you find it? From whom?

There are wonderfully thoughtful people on TED talks. There are also bloggers and podcasters who will inspire and motivate you. Listen, strengthen, expand and even question your core values to make certain they lead you where you want to go.

As I continue to embrace and expand my core values, I develop specific ideas in my work, try out new concepts, and seek new teachers. The idea for this article is based on a statement by an actor interviewed on the Stephen Colbert show that resonated and motivated me to explore. Allow inspiration to come from anywhere.

Be open. Remain curious. Question. Explore.

Is there an action I want or need to take?

Do you need to take action because of your expanded understanding? What would it be? Sometimes it’s enough to clarify the facts so that in the future your decision will be more clearly informed. More extensive information may change your mind, open up your thinking and offer new solutions.

My concern over US politics promoted me to explore the power of focused group energy and to become active in worldwide peace meditations. My State does not represent my political views but I still plan to write to my congressmen to ask them to be statesmen and Americans before they are a political party.

There’s power in numbers. There’s informed and knowledgeable action you can take. Take action and know that you make a difference.

How do you know what you don’t know?

I was deeply shocked to find that I was so unaware of the needs of so many people in my country. It was simply not in my experience to know what some people were going though. Now I find myself listening for ideas on how to train people for the new technology jobs and how education in general needs to change to prepare us all for the rapid changes in our world. I look for ways to protect our environment and to motivate others to do the same.

I take courses in what interests me. I read blogs that educate me. I listen to TED talks for motivation, inspiration and to make me think. And I watch for the nudges the universe provides that suggest a direction I should explore — either to clarify or to investigate an idea more thoroughly to see if it’s mine to do.

How deep is your knowledge?

If you’re really focused on a specific area of interest, you’re going to know a lot more about it than you do about areas that you have not explored. Know that. Identify resources you respect to keep you up to date with areas that resonate with you and keep moving deeper into your own area of expertise and thoughtfully share that.

Have you moved beyond mere information into owning it — into true knowledge?

To Sing a Deeper Song consider:
How Choosing the Right Word will Clarify your Choices
The Shedding of Your Skin
Accept Yourself as You Are
Mindfulness and the Moment
How Do You Define Success?
VLOG: Insights of a Deeper Song
PODCAST: Reflections of a Deeper Song

Some of us are now called to join together in a conscious focus on wholeness. Wholeness of the planet. Wholeness for its inhabitants. Peace, wisdom, understanding, empathy, inclusiveness. Whatever we feel is missing, whatever we feel called upon to change.

We manifest this wholeness with our minds and our intentions.

Are you being called to serve?

Whatever you feel called to protect, or change, or help manifest, you can do it in your own spiritual practice, whatever form that takes for you. Change is in the intention. Change comes from the vibration of focused thought.

We have work to do.

Alone or collectively?

I’m very busy sending positive energy to the negative news I hear, to the people who are making the news, to the safety of the planet and the people, and… I’m very, very busy.

I actively join in worldwide group meditations focused on peace and balance and planetary well-being. That strengthens and supports my individual work and increases the power and reach of the focus of our collective work.

We can change the world

Each thought we think, each word we speak, each action we take has impact. For better or for worse. Check yourself for anger and judgment and clean your inner house. Look for the core value of inclusion and see how well you’re doing that. There are many ways we can help change the world. Inner work is a powerful place to begin.

Our inner and group work will help write a new story. There’s a reason all these strong emotions and dramatic changes and feelings of being off balance are emerging. We’re in the midst of major, major changes. That means we have to look within ourselves. And we have to study and acquire a broader more global viewpoint. How do we do that?

We have to understand, connect and then proceed.

But first we have to create balance

We have to create balance in our own feelings, our own responses. No fear. Just a deep knowing that we are light workers and we are here to hold the light so the darkness in the corners can be uncovered and that new insights and ideas may fill them.

As the change begins to unfold, we’ll be an active presence participating with our strong spiritual awareness to help write a new story, create a new world, to heal and nurture and balance with an ever-deepening awareness that comes from our continued energy practice.

It begins with the work within.

What new story do you want to help write?

Something that is now unbalanced calls to you. What is it? Where do you want to focus your “enlightened energy”?

Energy workers are a small percentage of the world’s population but we’re everywhere on the planet. Even if we come from different spiritual practices, our common connection is for the greater good. What new story do you want to help write?

I, for example, am very concerned about the planet. How would I rewrite that story?

My story would see an increase in the acceptance as true and awareness that global warming is vitally important to everyone and there are things we humans can do to slow it down.

No planet, no home, no life on earth. And in my story, no one kills for food. Ever.

In my story, we become so attuned with nature that we live in organic, naturally unfolding cycles and all striving and struggling ceases.

You get the picture. What story do you want to write and what would it look like?

Focus on directing your energy toward that cause. Do it by yourself or join with likeminded others. But do it regularly. Your consciousness can change the world.

As spiritually conscious inhabitants of our world, we are very, very important in the rebalancing that is necessary and for the creation of the new story that’ll be told.

Do your inner work.

To Sing a Deeper Song consider:

The Core Value of Inclusion
The Shedding of Your Skin
Clean Your Inside Home
Accept Yourself as You Are
The Move From Inner to Outer Work
Change Your Expectations

Too Much Information, Too Little Knowledge

How To Write a New Life Story