The Everyday Mystic

Have you ever attended an all-day meeting or had back-to-back meetings from morning to night? Ever wonder how you can keep a sense of balance or a connection to the All-That-Is during a day in which there is no time for contemplation or even much of a break? The business world demands much of us, with schedules that tax the mind and soul at times  A psychologist friend once remarked to me, "I’m amazed at how little time executives and managers have for thinking and deliberation." We get used to thinking on our feet, making quick decisions while running from meeting to meeting.

So what can an Everyday Mystic do to reconnect with Source energy during a busy, stressful day?  There are several easy, quick methods that can help you feel centered, energized and focused.  Try these:

1. Breathe.  When we get stressed, we have a tendency to breathe shallowly and from our chest only. No one will notice if you consciously remember to take a deep, belly breath during a meeting. The deep breath will prevent tension from accumulating in your body, clear your mind and enhance your concentration.
2. Breathe through your heartspace. Imagine opening your heart and breathing through that part of your body. Your heart has neurons (brain cells) in it, just like your brain, and when you focus on your heart, you invoke the heart’s intelligence and intuition. Your decision-making abilities will be enhanced. You can do this exercise as you listen to someone speaking - it can be something you do in the background of your focus.  Thank goodness for our minds, that can process information at a rate 4 times faster than a human can talk!
3. Optimize your restroom breaks. Ah, a moment alone in the restroom stall! Take advantage of your private time and breathe consciously and fully. Observe your breath through 5 inhalations and exhalations. Be in the moment, be in your body. You will return to the meeting refreshed.
4. Wash your hands mindfully. Also in the restroom, ceremonially wash your hands. Wash off any negative energy, emotions or judgments you may have accumulated. Watch them swirl away down the drain, leaving your hands and your psyche clean and fresh, ready to return to your activities with a clear mind and an open heart. While drying your hands, appreciate your hands and all they do - type, write, shake other people’s hands, make gestures.
5. Conduct a body scan for emotions. To make sure you are aware of your emotions, and therefore can manage them effectively, periodically scan your body for emotions. Start at the top of your head and move down your entire body, looking for areas of tension, heat, tingles or stress. You can do this in a blink of an eye - during a lull in the conversation, for example. If you find an problem area, consciously relax it and try to determine what emotion it represents. Typically, nervousness or fear show up in your solar plexus or stomach, anger appears in your upper back and shoulders, tension and anxiety manifest in your head, and sadness and grief appear in your throat and neck area. Awareness of your feelings allows you to manage them. If you feel angry or threatened, you might breathe into your heartspace (see above) and be prepared to choose your behavior, rather than react without consideration.
6. Mentally bless the food before you eat. Even during the most insane day, most of us catch a moment to eat something. During all-day meetings, lunch is often catered in. Before taking a bite, lower your eyes for just a moment and give silent thanks for the meal you are about to eat. Silently recite your favorite meal-time grace. This will embed a moment of reverence in your day and ground you for the next segment.

It is possible to keep your sense of balance during an insane day. Other than the desire to stay centered, it only takes a moment here and there to reconnect to the deep calm that is always within you.

Do you have favorite ways to stay in-the-moment during a busy day? Please post a comment here and share them with us. Blessings to you on your journey.

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Can you think of a colleague, co-worker or acquaintance who really annoys you, but is probably a pretty agreeable person underneath their irritating qualities?  Stated another way, are there people who make you bristle because of a certain aspect of their personality, but if you consider them with an open heart, you could find quite a few redeeming qualities?  I can say yes to both of these questions, so I assume that you can, too.

Psychologists tell us that the qualities in others that most irritate us are the qualities that we fear in ourselves. If it weren’t so, then the other person’s behavior wouldn’t bother us and we wouldn’t even notice it. For example, I mentally label loud and talkative people as rude or braggadocio.  But, if I am really honest with myself, I have a tendency - or perhaps it is an internal wish - to be loud, talkative and braggy. However, if I weren’t somehow conflicted over that tendency, it probably wouldn’t annoy me so much when I encounter loud and talkative people.

What happens when we unmindfully hold onto judgmental thoughts about others? Those feelings can grow from a mere irritation to a huge iceberg of resentment, jeopardizing your working relationship with that person and sometimes poisoning the team’s spirit if the person is a co-worker. Because negative emotions create stress in our minds and bodies, holding onto a judgment or a resentment hurts us - it is a self-inflicted wound. To recognize and release a judgment allows us to lighten our load of destructive emotions.  We do it for ourselves.

There are some steps we can take to stop our judgments of other people:

1. Make an inventory of past triggers.The first thing we can do is take a mental inventory of the people and their qualities who have angered, annoyed or irritated us in the past. This prepares us with a list of traits that can trigger our reactions and helps us recognize them as we experience them in the future.
2. Notice when you label or judge someone. We need to train ourselves to become aware of our judgments, which fortunately becomes easier with practice. Mentally scanning your body for emotions occasionally during the day can help you identify a judgmental feeling, which usually lodges in our solar plexus or lower in the abdomen. As soon as possible, notice when you judge or label something or someone - before the judgment turns into a resentment.
3. Stop. Interrupt your run-away thoughts, emotions and judgments. Breathe, imagining that you are breathing through your heart space. Five breaths will open your heart space and neutralize your cascading judgmental thoughts. 
4. Gain perspective. View the person or event from a neutral or different point of view. You might attempt to perceive the situation from the viewpoint of an unconditionally loving mother, saying to yourself, "Surely this person’s mother loves her." Or you might perceive the situation from the perspective of a disinterested third party.  What might a person who has no emotional investment in the situation observe or think? Lastly, consider the situation from the soul perspective, opening your heart and your spirit to the essential goodness in the other person and the ultimate perfection of the situation. This is where miracles happen.
5. Thank the person at a soul level. There are no coincidences. This person or situation has appeared in your life for a reason, perhaps as an opportunity to learn a life lesson. The other person’s soul may have agreed to engage in this encounter for your benefit, or for the benefit of both souls. On some unseen level, there is perfection in the situation. Gratitude is an appropriate response. Thank the other person. Or you can use a phrase common in the southern region of the US, and mentally say with deepest sincerity, "Bless your heart."

Recently, I noticed myself judging someone in a business meeting. Fortunately, I caught myself before I got too deep in my judgmental interpretation of her irritating behavior. Taking a deep breath, I found myself thinking of how her mother must love her. In my spirit, I went to a soul level and miraculously caught a glimpse of her soul. That sudden shift in perspective surprised me and I smiled to myself. All of this happened in a split second, so rest assured that I didn’t zone out of the meeting for more than a couple of words! Only later did I remember to thank her soul, but when I did, I immediately felt a shift in energy between us.

I am grateful for the opportunity to develop my awareness and learn from my experiences. As always, my hope is that, by sharing my journey, your journey will be enhanced.

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Limiting beliefs are those mental blocks that keep us from living happy lives and fulfilling our potential. They tell us things like, "I am not good enough" or "I will never have enough money". Limiting beliefs are created in reaction to life experiences.  The most powerful limiting beliefs are formed when we are children and adolescents, when our brains are not yet fully developed. When we are young, we react to events the best we can, forming beliefs that protect us from further psychological harm. Not all limiting beliefs are formed during our young years, however.  Adult experiences can cause us to form limiting beliefs, too, but they generally don’t exert as strong a hold on us as ones created when we are young.

Becoming aware of our limiting beliefs is a large contributor to overcoming them.  I know about this from first-hand experience.  I recently became aware of a limiting belief formed during adulthood, and the simple awareness of it has made a huge change in my life. I’ll share how it was formed in hopes that others can relate to the story and begin to identify some of their own limiting beliefs.

The limiting belief that I was operating under was "I shouldn’t travel for work because bad things happen to my family when I’m gone."  This belief has caused me extreme internal conflict every time I travel for business - I love my work, but I hate to leave my family.  Here’s how it was formed.

When my son was an infant, he was chronically ill with asthma, extreme food and environmental allergies, ear infections and constant colds.  Every time he caught a cold, he would have a severe asthma attack. Asthma in an infant or small child is extremely dangerous - their small airways get so closed down that they cannot breathe. We called him the canary in the mineshaft, because he was so sensitive to almost everything.  He was hospitalized numerous times during the first three years of his life, and my husband and I nursed him through many anxious nights.

When he was three years old, I planned to extend a business trip to New York City to spend the weekend in Maine with an old friend. This was the first time that I had planned a solo pleasure trip in the three years since my son’s birth. The night before I was supposed to go to Maine, my husband called and told me that our son was getting a cold. My husband and I kept in close touch by telephone.  By noon on my last day in New York, it was clear that my son was in the middle of a severe asthma attack. I needed to go home to take care of my family. I changed my plans to go to Maine and re-scheduled my flight so I could return home that night.  My husband said he would meet my plane and drive me home from the airport.

I arrived at my hometown airport at 1:30 am that night, exhausted.  When I got out to the curb, I realized that my husband wasn’t there to meet me - a bad sign. I called home, and, to my horror, my minister sleepily answered the phone.  My heart sank, fearing the worst. He told me that he was staying at our house for the night to care for my daughter while my husband took my son to the hospital.

I took a cab home and then drove to the hospital, where I exchanged places with my husband, who went home to be with our daughter and send our minister home.  I joined my son in the Emergency Room, where several doctors were working on him.  They needed to put an IV in his arm, but my son couldn’t lay still due to the asthma drugs that made him jumpy. He was wheezing, crying and thrashing his arms and legs. They had to put my baby in a straight jacket to restrain him.  At that point, the doctors suggested that I leave the room, perceiving that I was about to lose it. I sat down on the floor in the hallway, put my head in my hands and wept as I listened to my son scream in the adjacent room.  I never felt so desperate and hopeless as that night.

Although my son and I survived that night, I internalized that traumatic experience into extreme guilt and worry during every business trip I’ve taken since then.  It’s been a limiting belief for me - robbing me of internal ease and confidence when I traveled.  Now that my children are almost out of the nest, it seems time to give that up.

At my prayer group meeting recently, I had a revelation. During our sharing time, somehow this story came up. I told it and wept. Then I realized that this event had caused me to develop a limiting belief around travel. I had told myself that I hate to travel for business, which is not entirely true. I felt compassion for myself, understanding how and why I had built up this belief.  It had served me well during the years my children were young, influencing me to make decisions that kept me closer to home.  But now, girded with the knowledge of this limiting belief and that my family is OK without me, I can start believing that business travel is OK and maybe even fun!

I’m off to both Finland and Nashville tomorrow for a week-long business trip.  I look forward to testing my revised belief that business travel can be fun!

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An Everyday Mystic understands that she must build her life like a Greek temple.  The foundation of the temple represents her personal values, those things she holds most dear and important.  The values support the temple columns, which represent different parts of us that we must nourish in order to be whole people: our hearts, our minds and our bodies.  The ceiling of the temple is our spirit, which depends on support from our values, our hearts, our minds and our bodies.  The roof of this temple is our Holistic Well-being, the pinnacle of a life well-lived.  In order to reach the pinnacle of well-being, an Everyday Mystic makes a commitment to honor and develop each of these aspects of herself, knowing that ignoring even one of them will contribute to an unstable temple.  What is true for the individual is true for the organization or team as well - each of these aspects of well-being must be nurtured in order to build a highly functional and productive team.  Let’s examine each of these elements that contribute to building the temple of well-being.

• Foundation: Values - Values represent the foundation of your character, and include the beliefs you hold most dear about living a good life.  This building block can encompass mission, vision and purpose statements as well as the values which govern your behavior.  Most corporate entities have created mission, vision and/or purpose statements that get shelved or filed in a drawer, never to have life breathed into them.  An Everyday Mystic might wish to create his own mission and purpose statements and discern his personal values.  Values include statements of how important things are to you, like money, achievement and the relative importance of family and friends vs. career.  I am creating some assessments for my coaching clients to help them identify their values, purpose and life mission.  My own personal purpose statement is to be a teacher of spiritual intelligence to others, and help them evolve their souls.  Whatever your values are, the real questions for both individuals and organizations are - are you living them, and how do you keep them alive?
• Column One: Body - The body represents our physical manifestation in this world.  There is great wisdom in the body, and it is intimately connected with mind and heart - indeed, body, mind and heart come together to support and build your spirit.  Some say the body cannot lie.  This is the basis of Applied Kinesiology, an alternative medicine practice that uses muscle testing to diagnose illness.  The fact that the body registers emotions is being proven by researchers, but we intuitively understand that through our own experiences: embarrassment causes our cheeks to flush, nervousness produces butterflies in the stomach, sadness makes us cry. We need to take good care of our bodies by feeding them well, exercising them appropriately and getting adequate rest and relaxation, all of which support the spirit. Column Two: Heart - The heart represents our emotional balance and social abilities.  In building spiritual intelligence, we strive to achieve mastery over our emotions. Mastery of emotions does not mean walling off your feelings and denying your emotions or moods. Rather, it is to feel emotions intensely but to let them wash through you without sticking, as it were - to let them roll off you.  One does that by noticing and deeply feeling the emotions, but gaining perspective on them so they don’t become your self-image.  The heart also represents the health of our closest relationships - are we in right relationship with our families and our close friends?  Are we being a best friend to ourselves?
• Column Three: Mind - The mind represents our intellectual capacities and our innate talents.  An Everyday Mystic is constantly on the look-out for new learning opportunities, whether it be through formal means (such as reading and attending classes) or experiential means (like traveling or trying new things).  The mind also represents self-awareness of our strengths and God-given talents, and the wisdom to know how best to develop them.  The mind, though full of wisdom, also holds wisdom’s opposite - the ego or false self, which is the negative inner voice that says you are separate from Source energy, that evil abounds, and that you are not good enough.  Our job is to feed the true self’s voice so the false self dies of starvation.  Then do we feed our spiritual intelligence.
• Spirit - Our spiritual intelligence is our awareness of our connection to Source/God and to all that is. It is our awareness of the meaning of our life, our conscience, our ability to forgive and let go and our ability to evolve our souls to higher levels of consciousness.  It is spiritual intelligence that encourages us to change perspectives, to see things from another person’s eyes, to keep things in perspective and to honor the inter-connectedness of all living beings.  Developing all the other aspects of ourselves allows our spirit to soar, but an Everyday Mystic spends as much time developing and honoring his spirit as he does taking care of the other aspects of himself.

It is the aim of The Everyday Mystic to provide avenues to develop each of the elements of holistic well-being.  Stay tuned for future blog posts that will explore the building blocks of well-being.  Be sure to check out our coaching services as well.

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If your work is calling you, answer the phone! Although the word is not often used in business settings, a "calling" is a deep inner assuredness that the work you do - or will do - is your right livelihood.  A calling is the work you MUST do because you enjoy it, because it uses your strengths, because it serves a need in the world and because the timing is right. If your work is calling you, you are the most fortunate of human beings.

I have been thinking about work that calls people this week. I was catching up with a professional colleague (a help desk manager) who was describing her plans to go back to school to get a theological degree so she could work in hospice situations. I sensed her passion and told her that she was being called to do this work.  My friend was delighted that I recognized the deep knowing and the magnetic pull she felt to do something completely new.  I told her that she was doing the right thing, even though she would be giving up a handsome salary to do what she loved.

How do you know if you are being called to some line of work?  I see four elements that must align to direct you to work that is a calling:

Talent -

You must demonstrate an innate talent or strength for the work you are considering. How can you play to your strengths? You must consider the demands of the work that you are considering and ruthlessly evaluate your talent in that area.  For example, if the job demands that you show strong organizational leadership and you observe that your talents lie in an individual contributor role - well, that’s an obvious mismatch. There is no calling in that work for you. 

Serve a Need -

Is there a sufficient need or a demand for the level of talent that you have in your desired field? Unfortunately in a capitalistic market, demand for your talent is a necessity.  My husband is a classical musician, and he knows that the current demand for orchestral musicians is low (there aren’t many openings in US orchestras that pay a living wage) and the supply is high.  Just before he won the audition for a full-time orchestra position, he recognized that he might need to find another vocation.  He was prepared to go back to school to study accounting if he didn’t win a seat in the orchestra.

Passion -

What makes your heart sing?  What activities allow you to sink into a blissful state of flow, in which you lose track of time because you are completely absorbed in what you are doing?  What would you do even if you didn’t need the money? The answer to these questions direct you to your passion.

Timing -

Many years ago, a colleague refused a job offer I made her, explaining that "Timing is everything, and the timing is just not right for me to take this job." Timing has to be right for you to find your calling.  It’s not enough to have talent, serve a need and have passion, I’m sorry to say.  For example, if you are 40 years old, you cannot decide to become a concert pianist - even if you have the innate musical talent, you will never be able to develop the technical facility that a concert pianist needs.  Your brain discarded the possibility of creating the neural pathways needed for performing piano concertos when you were very young, and there is no way to make up for it.   I started to play the viola at age 16, and it was already too late for me to develop the technique I needed on that instrument to become a successful professional musician.  And believe me, I worked diligently for 9 years in trying. The same can be said for learning new languages or learning an athletic game (like golf) - as an adult learner, you will not be able to attain mastery of that skill because your brain was not trained when it was young and malleable.

I believe that the universe will reward you when you align these four elements - you will know that you are on the right path because opportunities will start to appear, helpful people will come into your life at just the right time and affirming events will happen.  Patience helps when you are making a big change, but the lack of this affirmation could be a warning sign.

What work is calling you?

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