What Is Your Role As A Transformational Leader?
Living Our Deeper Song
Ashe
(“Ah-Shay”)
The Creative in me honors the Creative in you!
My mission statement is “I help Transformational Leaders deepen our relationship with the Unseen World and expand our role in the New Consciousness.” I reaffirm that every day. And then one day I realized I didn’t know what the New Consciousness looks like or feels like or even exactly how to get there. It’s a lofty idea and it’s sort of floating out there and it needs some physical plane support in order to implement.
For me, the New Consciousness is about focusing on the well-being of the whole – the whole planet, the whole of humanity, the whole universe. It is about identifying myself more as a strand of light in the Web of Life than as an individual human on the planet. So the first step is to keep my sights and thoughts and focus on what it means to be a strand in the Web of Life. Am I doing a good job? How can I make my strand stronger? When will I do that?
Imagination creates our reality so if I turn my focus on visualizing peaceful cohabitation on the planet, that would make a difference. If I see the climate of the planet as being balanced, what would that look like? Can I put aside the visions of what is happening to create a vision of what could be when and if everything is balanced again in nature.
My work is pretty much on the inner plane. If I were younger that participation might take some form of activism, perhaps writing articles to motivate and educate and inspire others to take positive action. Oh, I’m doing that now. What is your role in the New Consciousness?
Deeper Song Affirmation
I give contemplative thought to my role in the New Consciousness and expand my expectations for myself.
Deeper Dong Process
- Look closely at your life and notice where and how you are already participating in the unfolding of the New Consciousness.
- Identify and explore possible new places and roles for you to expand your impact.
- Get to work.
===INNER WORK===
Deepen Your Inner Awareness
Is It Time To Shed Your Old Skin?
A snake sheds its skin two to four times per year in order to grow. Young snakes that are actively growing may shed their skin every two weeks. Older snakes might only shed their skin twice each year.
It made me stop to think about what layers it is time for me to shed either because I’m at a turning point or they are no longer useful.
I can begin with habits I no longer find useful. I’m trying to develop new ones that help strengthen my body as it shifts and changes. I’ve actually tried on several new skins in the form of Qigong and Tai Chi. We can shed one skin to make more room for us to grow a new one.
I am already beginning to grow a new skin in my newsletter as I search to define our expanding role in the universe.
On a personal level I am bursting through my skin of spirituality in order to take it to a new level of exploration, experimentation and insights.
It’s rather interesting to think of being able to simply shed an old pattern and grow a new one that fits you better and gives you room to grow.
What patterns do you need to shed in your life and what will you grow in the open space that it provides?
Are You Dreaming Big Enough Dreams?
Is it time to go exploring, to open new doors and wander down new paths and try on what calls to us?
I don’t think I have any dreams going on right now, particularly ones that show me how to have more impact at this late stage in my life. I could change that. I will change that because we should have big dreams at every stage of our life.
My main big dream is about being a Light Bearer. What does that look like? What does that mean I do at this point in time to save the planet and to save humanity? You know, small stuff.
I was not aware I’m having impact in my long-term care facility. I recently recorded a video that was shown to open a fundraiser and I made the videographer cry when I recorded it.
It feels meaningful to have a goal – not the plan – a purpose. It makes me feel relevant and it focuses my actions and my thoughts.
A big dream may take a little longer to manifest but it adds depth to the meaning of your life. Are you dreaming big enough dreams?
===SELF-HEALING===
Take Responsibility for Healing Yourself
True Movement Comes From Within Yourself
Nudges are unexpected gifts from the universe but the manifestation comes from within yourself. You have to listen. You have to observe. And you have to act.
The listening part of getting nudges from the universe is interesting. When you sit quietly and go within, you can have a lively conversation with your Higher Self, a discussion, if you will, about the potential of certain choices. It’s good to talk things over with your Inner Self.
And I think it’s fun when the Universe bops me on the head with an idea or a circumstance that opens doors for me to create new experiences and adventures. I had no idea moving into long-term care would be so rewarding.
And then there are the internal nudges that suggest you look in a new direction or explore a different path. We must stay open to the potential that change offers.
But true movement only comes from within yourself. When you make a decision. When you take an action. When you release a belief or expectation. Trust your inner guidance and have a good ride.
===OUTER WORK===
Explore New Potential and Possibilities
Move On
Don’t stay in places where you don’t want to be. Find your place.
– Chris Brogan
It’s important to know when to quit. It’s important to know when to move on. Every time we break the ties with the stagnant position we are clinging to, we soar. New ideas dance in our heads, new opportunities appear on our doorstep, because we have decided to move forward. To make change. To be changed.
What are you settling on? What are you settling for?
Change can be very dramatic and it can also be very slow. Change can sneak up on you until one day you look up and you are no longer in a place you want to be. You are no longer using the skills you love to use, you are no longer working with the people that inspire and motivate you. What do you do in those circumstances?
Do you have the courage to cut yourself free? Can you identify new venues where you can fully express your gifts and talents?
One of the major roles in our life is to fulfill our potential. Are you encouraging situations that use your creativity and imagination and your spiritual expression? If not, do you have the courage to move on?
Check Your Boundaries
Boundaries are not set in order to be restrictive, boundaries can be seen as guidelines for where to draw the line – for both expansion and containment. When is too much? When do you need to let go of that is no longer satisfy or rewarding? And what are the guidelines that need to be removed or expanded?
I want to expand the boundaries of my curiosity. I want to expand the boundaries of my physical body. I want to expand the boundaries of the number of people whose lives I touch.
Sometimes we don’t even know we have unconsciously set boundaries or limitations for some aspects of our life. Look closely to identify the areas where you are stopping yourself from expanding.
I Hit The Jackpot!
I’ve been looking for how I want to add more movement into my life and I decided upon Qigong. I have taken a lot of classes on The Shift Network and I still have access to those classes so I really hit the jackpot. I am able to start over with my Qigong practice and take it to a deeper level.
I have taken lots and lots of classes on the Shift Network and could probably spend the next 10 years of my life reviewing those classes and strengthening what I learned as I re-establish and anchor the practices in my life.
I have to make some adjustments because I can’t stand up straight right now but Qigong is about moving energy and opening meridians and strengthening organs.
What classes or books are there for you to review and re-establish in your life? Repeat some of them and bring those that resonate now more deeply into your life.
===DEEPEN YOUR SPIRITUAL PRACTICE===
Self-Healing Spiritual Practice and Deepening Awareness of Our Cosmic Oneness
Nature And Spiritual Expansion
I built my wall of flowers to separate my shared space in this long-term care facility. It is two white open bookcases each with five shelves that I have filled with green plants in white pots. It is very serene and soothing. I built it as an energy of protection. But in editing a previous newsletter, my friend and proof-reader Noralee changed a word and the sentence said, “My entire wall of flowers has gradually filled up with lovely plants that are deepening my connection with nature and symbolizing my ever-deepening and expanding spirituality.” And my energy changed. My personal reason for creating the wall changed.
I don’t know where you keep plants around you but they are nature that you can keep close at hand. As I watch these plants grow new leaves or sprout new roots or turn towards the sun, I get to think of and examine my spiritual growth. Am I nurturing it properly? As I watch for new leaves to appear, I think about what new leaves and roots I can grow in my own life.
What can I add to my spiritual practice that would deepen and expand and enrich it? I think it will be in the form of my three-line poems that I learned to do a long time ago. Write a line. Begin the next verse with that same line and add a line. Take those three lines to the third stanza and add another line – like:
My Wall Of Flowers
My wall of flowers is my protection but it is also a reminder of my spiritual growth.
My wall of flowers is my protection but it is also a reminder of my spiritual growth. Each new leaf, each new root reminds me to keep expanding and growing and expressing my inner self.
My wall of flowers is my protection but it is also a reminder of my spiritual growth. Each new leaf, each new root reminds me to keep expanding and growing and expressing my inner self. I nurture my spiritual being as a part of nature.
– Cara Lumen, August 2023
===TRANSFORMATIONAL VISIONING===
Exist In A State Of Pure Potential
“Potential” means having the capacity to develop something in the future. It is shaped by our belief system of what is possible, the creativity of our imagination, and our deepest desires.
On one hand, it means that all things are possible. On the other hand, it also means we have to believe it is possible.
I don’t believe I will be able to walk around the block again, but I can imagine walking the halls and maybe even outside.
I’m going to opt to live in the world of possibilities. I love it when the universe surprises me with its gifts and opportunities. I’m going to practice imagining myself walking well and seeing well. I will use my resources and inner strength to do the work on the physical plane and my spiritual strength to make changes happen. What do you believe is possible for yourself? For the world? See the potential in your imagination and place yourself there. Exist in a state of pure potential and watch what unfolds.
===RELEVANT AGING ===
Become An Advocate
Where do people who have no family get help when they get old? More and more people are choosing to not have children so that potential support is not open to them.
My sister chose to stay in Phoenix after her divorce and when she got dementia, she asked a friend to be her advocate.
We have social workers here at Evergreen who act as advocates for those with no families.
What are you going to do when you get really old and needs an advocate?
===HOW TO BE A STRONG CONTRIBUTING MEMBER OF THE CIRCLE OF LIGHT BEARERS===
Expand Your Role in the Rapidly Evolving Universe
Get Rid Of What No Longer Serves You
In order to move on, we periodically have to examine and release beliefs and habits and expectations that no longer serve us. It’s sort of like a spring houseclean where you re-think and re-choose to make room for what is evolving in your life.
Examine your inner life, and the choices you make to fill your time, and prioritize and make room for those activities that expand your awareness and your spirituality. Get rid of what no longer serves you.
===BROADEN YOUR HORIZON – EXPAND YOUR VIEW===
Raise Your Sights and Your Expectations
How Do You Encourage Communication With Your Highest Self?
Sometimes it’s an unexpected circumstance. Sometimes it’s a sudden realization. And sometimes it is simply knowing. How does your Higher Self speak to you and how do you encourage those exchanges?
Many of my nudges come in as phrases or concepts that I turn around and write about in order to figure them out for myself. Then I share them with you. Sometimes it takes a major bop on my head from the physical universe for me to get the message. And sometimes it’s something someone says that resonates and prompts new possibilities for me to consider. Much of my writing could be thought of as reflective journaling as I seek to understand and apply new concepts to my life.
I don’t specifically sit down with the intention of having a communication with my Higher Self, I exist more in a state of constant readiness to recognize and expand upon phrases and principles and insights that resonate and call to me. How do you encourage communication with your Highest Self?
===OUR EVOLVING FUTURE===
Support and Encouragement for our Unfolding Role in the Future
Raise Your Gaze
As I become more aware of my role as a Light Bearer, I am looking for ways to express that in the world around me. Since I don’t know the specifics of that role, it’s hard to figure out specific actions. But I keep looking. I keep listening. I keep feeling. And I know that the path and my role in it will make itself known.
For me, I think the work is energetic and expanding, perhaps writing to give others ideas for action. It’s the over-arching goal that is still evolving for me.
What is your role as a Light Bearer in this massive global change that is taking place? Expand your role and let’s change the world.
===REFLECTIONS OF A DEEPER SONG PODCAST===
The Cloak of Empowered Service
Listen to my
Reflections of a Deeper Song Podcast on
Apple / Spotify / Googleand the
Deeper Song Website
==== DEEPER SONG EXPLORATION ===
Past issues of this newsletter are found at Insights Of A Deeper Song. Past Podcasts are found at Deeper Song Podcasts
===REFLECTIONS===
When I left Kansas City for New York City in 1977, my neighbor brought me a copy of this famed poem which has always been present in my travels and sits on my altar today. It is my life:
The Road Not Taken
BY ROBERT FROST
Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;
Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,
And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.
I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.
===CARA’S CORNER===
How Others Change You
I was on a Zoom call with a group of friends and was talking about how kind everyone is in this long-term care facility. And they told me that I had changed a lot since moving here and I too seem more kind. I never thought about how being in a different environment can change you in a big way. I had allowed myself to become very isolated in the past few years.
Leaving a stressful job ultimately allows room for you to find your rhythm, to make major changes, to rebalance physically and mentally and emotionally. Starting a relationship or ending one may allow room for major changes and how you respond to the world around you.
Major change happened for me because the Universe nudged me and prodded and guided me to this new place so I would have this experience. My friends say I changed a lot since I moved here. I do know that my heart is more open, I have expanded the places I serve and I feel more useful and valued.
Identify the times that you feel empowered. It may be a time that you are receiving support from someone. It may be a time that you were giving support to someone, or both. Notice the change that happens on the inside and the nourishment that comes with it.
Notice what you were doing and if you were doing it with anyone else. Do more of that.
===SING A DEEPER SONG ===
My Heart Is Touched
I have been touched by kindness and gradually I radiate kindness in return.
I have been touched by kindness and gradually I radiate kindness in return. My heart opens. My life opens. My expectations change.
I have been touched by kindness and gradually I radiate kindness in return. My heart opens. My life opens. My expectations change. Being touched by the light of others has expanded the reach of my light. I am glowing with love.
– Cara Lumen, August 2023
We create our future with every thought we think, every action we take. Move forward mindfully as you sing your Deeper Song.
Namaste,
Cara
Come Sing a Deeper Song
I help Transformational Leaders
deepen our relationship with the Unseen World
and expand our role in the New Consciousness
Cara Lumen, explorer, spiritual philosopher, teacher, guide, leads us on a journey of self-awareness, spiritual expansion and impactful service. She helps us believe in our value, trust in our gifts, express our passion in a unique manner and build something meaningful around our wisdom and expertise. She helps us sing a deeper song.
Live in the nowhere that you came from,
even though you have an address here – Rumi
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