Being Who YOU Are
Current news is full of stark reminders of the temporary and fragile state of everything around us; including us. First responders killed in the line of duty, a tornado that decimated homes and took innocent lives with little warning. It takes very little paying attention to have the realization of loss and unfairness of tragedies like these to be known.
We see people hurting and we want to help. Especially people right here in our community, our own country. They are like us. We relate. We feel a sameness that spurs us into seeing them as real and the connection made through that relatability makes it easier for us to feel their pain and reach out to help.
We are connected. We care. We are also misguided and falling short when it takes a tragedy close to home, a big news story pushed into our narrow focus of the pain of people who look like us, who speak our language, or who live within our borders to wake us up and make human suffering real.
Tragedy on our own land is terrible; but it is not more terrible than any other. There is no contest on whose suffering is the greatest; or the most important. One person’s suffering is not made less important by location or nationality or lack of media attention.
I dream of a world without empathy borders. A dream of a world where we not only care, but we reach out to help others regardless of their location on our planet. I dream of a world where all humans are actually regarded as valuable, regardless of the color of their skin, the language they speak, or the government that rules the land they were born on. I dream of a world where we don’t go back to sleep refusing to see or care about people we can not see, or sit back and wait for someone else to do something worthwhile to care for the people who don’t look, talk, or live like us.
If it takes a local tragedy to make us see we are connected to people we don’t personally know, then can we take that and expand it to all humans? All geographic areas? All ages, genders, nationalities? Can we not see all humans as valuable and worthy of our care, compassion, and our courage to help? While we are sending love, prayers, resources and encouragement to those that are easier to relate to, can we also include those that we have (up until now) not spent much time thinking about? I know we can’t be everywhere at once physically. but what about energetically? What if just including all of human suffering in our good will would be enough to start to open the gate to healing everywhere and breaking down empathy borders?
I am an American, but more than that I am a Global Citizen. I am a woman. I am a mother, wife, daughter, friend, aunt, business owner, volunteer, leader… but who I am is deeper than that. Who I am is an incredible miracle of matter come to life housing a loving soul and a connection to others, to nature, to life; all of it; everywhere. That miracle of matter come to life is temporary, so while I am here, I will use this physical state to express my loving soul and connection to all that is without borders. All human suffering matters and is connected to us that are human.
Who are you? Are you truly being who YOU are? Are you a global citizen who simply doesn’t know how to reach out to those you can’t see? Would you like some help?
A Common Thread
Finding your purpose and passion seems to be something that many people seem to be looking for (well, those who haven’t found it yet, of course).
I often get asked by clients to help me find theirs. This is a harder task than helping someone find their lost keys, or a new dress, or the answer to an algebra problem. Here is the reason: Your passion and purpose can only be discovered, found, seen, and so-by-named by you. I can have duplicate keys made, I can have a new dress designed, and I can find a math whiz to work the algebra formula…but to find what lights the eternal fire of another human being is truly only possible in that one and only human being who searches for it.
Nothing like taking on an impossible job, right? I do love a challenge…
So, while I can not look into your eyes and clearly see your answers there, I do have some hints to help you on your search – and I know they can work because I have even used them myself.
First, I look for common threads among the things that I am naturally drawn to. What causes get me excited? What do I feel strongly about? What kind of story makes me cry, or laugh?
Then, I think back to times where I felt completely at home within myself and find what was going on around me then. Who was with me? What was I doing? Where was I? What was special about that memory?
I imagine what changes might create a better world, a better experience, a happier existence for me or someone or something else. I let myself feel what it would be like if that change had already taken place.
I catch myself from the voices of self doubt that tell me what is not possible and instead sit without judgment. I let my curiosity take over and see how I fit into this picture and new scene developing in my mind.
Finally, I gather all of these different things which at first glance look pretty scattered, and then I look for common threads.
Given enough examples and time to let them link together, I start to unravel the sense of purpose and passion that surrounds these possibilities.
Here is what I learned about myself through this exercise:
Service. I am happiest when in service for the greater good of others. I enjoy being part of a solution that creates happiness and success for someone else.
Freedom. I like being the decision maker. I do not shy away from personal responsibility. I like having a cause that I am willing to stand up for.
Creativity. I like to solve problems and create new solutions. I like trying new things, having new experiences, seeing progress.
So, while my bio (have you been to the about me page? Hey – no laughing!) may appear to some to be overly busy, spread too thin, having too many balls in the air to juggle, I have a different view. There is a common thread through everything I do. My life is centered on my expression of my purpose and passion which is to be of service, to find new solutions and lead the charge for a better tomorrow. Many expressions of the same passion and purpose in a few very important places where I can make a significant and sustainable difference.
What are your common threads that can lead you to your own passion and purpose?
Running Towards the Explosion
Something horrible and unthinkable happened to the people in the world this week. Evil struck at the finish line of the Boston Marathon – bombs went off and innocent people were killed and injured; many critically. Shock and horror hit in an instant. Fear, anger and disbelief quickly followed. Love was hot on their heels. This atrocity happened just yesterday, but love is on the lips of everyone I spoke to today. I don’t kid myself into thinking we are responding today with love because we are Americans (that is a nice patriotic thought, but why limit love to a citizenship?). We are loving human beings. Loving human beings exist ALL OVER THE PLANET. The hateful hearted who set off bombs and injure others in other countries have not dampened the love of the people there who run towards the explosions – even when explosions aren’t as rare as they are here. Hateful actions happen all over the world – but Love is always there and is so much stronger.
Love was in the hearts of the amazing people we saw in the Boston videos yesterday. It was in the video of the tragedy that happened on 9-11. It is in every video we have ever seen of a terrible incident (plane crashes, earthquakes, tsunami’s and more); there are always people who run towards the explosions seconds after they happened to help the wounded and lessen the danger for others. Love was in the hearts and blood of the people who ran to the hospitals to donate immediately for transfusion to people they didn’t even know who had been injured. Love is in the hearts, muscles and lungs of the hundreds of thousands of people who took to the streets in their own hometowns yesterday and today to go running in their own neighborhoods, their own communities, as a show of support and solidarity with the good people and their families who were senselessly hurt at the finish line yesterday.
Love is 100 times more powerful than hate.
There are many more good people in the world than bad people and the good people ALWAYS persevere.
Hate showed itself at an annual iconic celebratory event – but the love of people who run towards an explosion to help others was greater, stronger, and everlasting.
Love is, after all, the most effective and most powerful way to combat hate and it always wins.
Keep sending love. Don’t let hate get a second of your time, your energy, your thoughts, your heart.
Hate lives in the hearts of a few in the world (a very small percentage when held up to people with good will in their hearts). This is not new – it has existed throughout history. Don’t let them have anymore of you and don’t let them gain even an inch with creating hatred in you.
Sending love now and always to those amazing people who run towards the explosion to help others! (Ain’t nobody got no time for the others!)
April is YOUR Time to GROW!
What if you could spend one short weekend and completely expand the way you see yourself in the world?
What if you spent just two days immersed in the bigger picture of humanity and actually could see where you fit in the entire big puzzle?
What if in just 16 hours of time you could shift your view from local to global and back again and feel your connection to the entire world; taking that with you forward into the future?
What if I could offer you a safe and encouraging place to explore your greatness; allowing yourself to see yourself bigger than ever before and truly play full out into the amazing possibility that is you?
What if you took this new expanded version of you and used it to make the world a better place?
What if you could change the world just by being your best, bigger self?
Come with me. April 12 – 14, 2013 in North Phoenix. The next training weekend for the World Academy For the Future of Women is upon us. You are invited.
There is no better time than right now to allow your greatness to expand.
Email me. You are invited. lkbishop@cox.net
https://wafw.org/blog/2013/03/20/facilitator-training-phoenix-az/
https://wafw.org/blog/events/facilitator-training/
Women Change the World by embracing their strengths, compassion, and leadership without hesitation, reservation or apology.
Your EXPANSION Awaits You
What do you think stops you first and most when you contemplate the possibility of being bigger and doing something to actually make a difference in the world?
I was asked this question a few years ago as I sat in San Juan Capistrano at a facilitator training for the World Academy For the Future of Women. I went there out of curiosity; and quite simply because I had been invited to go. Someone had told me that they saw great potential in me and what I could do in the world and I was curious about what they saw. Did they really see it or was it a slick sales line to get me to show up? I figured a weekend in a meeting room overlooking the ocean was a good place to find out.
By the end of the weekend I was still wasn’t sure. They seemed sincere and the excitement of the amazing effort they were putting into the world to make it possible for women to rise out of both poverty of living and poverty in thinking was enough to get me to sheepishly say “this might be possible for me to get involved with.”
Embracing that possibility is all that is needed to get started.
Four months later I was on a plane headed for China for a five week adventure in facilitating women’s leadership to 125 Chinese women college students who were sacrificing sleep, time, social activities and family to expand themselves and improve the lives of others.
My sacrifice seemed small in many ways. I raised the money to pay my way over and back. My food and housing was provided to me at no extra cost. I lived in the foreign faculty dorm and had three meals a day, a bed to sleep in and a private shower in my room. I planned my classes, facilitated the material and still had time to wander in the city, get to know my way around campus, make friends with other faculty and meet with the students one on one. My life was simple but the impact of my presence was profound. I was focused, attentive and there to support the expansion of these young women and their dreams. I changed lives.
My life changed too. I lived without the distractions that I am used to; Television, Radio, Driving, Shopping for things I don’t really need, Internet surfing. I lived without the comforts I enjoy so much; Family, Pets, cooking, my circle of friends to hang out with, knowing the language being spoken around me, being able to read signs and menus, understanding how much money I still have, breathing clean air, having clean water, feeling secure that the hot water will work next time I shower, and more. I planned, I taught, I slowed down. There was time to ponder. There was time to be homesick. There was time hear myself thinking and feel myself feeling…and as I returned to my homeland, I discovered something about myself that had changed during this adventure.
I had expanded beyond what I thought was possible that weekend in San Juan Capistrano. I was clear. I was aware. I was MORE.
For all of the “reasons” I originally thought going to China for 5 weeks was not possible for me, I had overcome them all and realized how small they were in the bigger picture of life. They were based in fear, not love. My expansion was born of love.
So, what “reasons” are you telling yourself right now about why you “can’t” do something that has great potential to expand you? For me it was mostly money and time and not wanting to be far from home…and what I found is this kind of personal expansion and potential put purposefully into the world is worth more than time or money and my relationships were stronger upon my return.
The expansion has changed my language from “I can’t do that” to “how can I do that” to “I can do that”…and I can. We can. You can.
The next facilitator training is set for March 8, 9, 10th in Phoenix. Email me for more info or to join in! lkbishop@cox.net
Women Change The World When They Embrace Who and What They Are and REFUSE to Be Anything LESS.
