Opportunities to Realize Your Dreams are Evolving and Popping up All the Time

Opportunities to realize your dreams are evolving and popping up all the time, all around you.  The challenge is to not be so hampered by your mental models that you fail to identify these opportunities when they bump up against you.

So what is a mental model?  A mental model is how you see the world (and your corresponding expectations relative to this view of the world).  It is premised on habit, preconditioned mind sets, and pattern knowledge, and pattern recognition.  Professor Srikumar S. Rao frames mental models best in his book, Are you Ready to Succeed.  He goes on to say about mental models, "these are our fixed ideas of how the world works and how things should or shouldn't be done.  We accept these models so completely that we live our lives according to them.  We have different models for different situations - for work, for love, for our families.  We have dozens of them that we use, and some of them may actually be in direct conflict with others and we may not even know it."

Mental models serve us by helping us to put order to our current circumstance without having to constantly reinvent the wheel.  Through pattern recognition and preconditioned response we can move through our current circumstances with a measure of understanding and certainty.  The problem with mental models is that they can, inadvertently, limit us to specific pathways, so much so that growth and learning can become inhibited or prevented altogether.  So what does this mean?  For one, no matter how set your circumstance may seem to you, it is in your best interest to make a commitment to flexing your capacity to adjust and/or change your mental model - equate it to working out regularly in the arena of the possible.

Secondly, nothing is cast in concrete, so experimentation is OK, as is backtracking.  The primary goal here isn't about success or failure, it's about learning and better identifying and moving towards your highest good: fully investing and reaping the benefits of your gifts and talents, while keeping your mental model current.

Mental models aren't a bad thing.  We need them to survive.  They are not cast in concrete and they can and should be updated or disposed of, if need be.  In today's world it is an imperative to surviving and thriving.

Sometimes Life Just Happens

Sometimes Life just happens. Call it the perfect storm, write it off to bad luck, blame it on others...we all have our ways of coping with it, but sometimes "shit happens". After 60 years of living, here's how I see it. Life is like a river and we are, each of us, some of the myriad of things that comprise that river. Life, like the river keeps on flowing, changing...predictable sometimes...unpredictable other times. That's Life. As we travel along, are moved by, are shaped by this river called Life, things can and will happen. We'll smack into unforeseen objects, we'll come up against barriers; we'll get shaped, worn, cradled, caressed, and carried. That's Life. The river that is Life is a given. OUR CHOICE is how we engage with this amazing river, this Life. We have the capacity to react, embrace, reject, swim against the current or with it, join with others on our journey, cling to, drag, down, lift up, help or not, enjoy, suffer, praise or rail against this river - this Life. We can choose to find a side eddy to spend our days away from the main flow, we can anchor ourselves to the bottom refusing to be pulled anywhere or do anything (until that unforeseen 100 year flood tears our anchor away).

As I have traveled this river I have seen more ways of dealing with the river of Life than you can imagine. That's Life. What I have learned about this river is that it consistently flows, changes, mutates from calm waters to turbulent rapids from shallow sandbars to profoundly deep channels; that each coping skill that I develop to navigate this amazing and wonderful world requires me to become skilled, and yet adaptable; capable of holding on, and knowing when to let go; accepting of the challenges, and welcoming of the blessings; and ultimately understanding that the river of Life is not about me, and, at the same time, is all about me. Someday, like all elements of this river, this Life, I will cease to exist as I am today. I will become something else in this river, this ceaseless flowing and shaping and changing world. Nothing is lost to this river of Life. What amazes me is that even as I am so small in the scheme of things, I can impact this world, often times in ways I will never know, and that is true of all of us. For myself, I choose love, a kind word, a thoughtful deed, a caring gesture, choosing forgiveness...my way of navigating this river, this Life.

Inspired Engagement

I don't know about you, but I love, Love, LOVE when I am all fired up and head-over-heels involved in a project.  Those are some of the times when I truly feel alive.  Those are the times when I am truly 150% in the game.  I have boundless energy, and I find it hard to sleep.  I am so excited about what I am doing every day.  Some real "tells" that I am in that sweet spot?  I am excited and eager.  I talk to everyone and anyone about what I am working on.  The project becomes a theme that is woven into my analogies and thoughts.  I find it hard to put this project that I am passionate about down, and I find myself drawn back to it again and again and again.

I also love, Love, LOVE when others are in this space as well.  I find that I can vicariously experience the exact same feelings and energy through sharing in someone else's immersion in what they are passionate about.  I ride the excitement of the wave they create through emoting and sharing.  I find myself anticipating spending time with them around what they are working on.  I am willing to help, encourage, and support as I thrill at their progress, and learnings.  It's like Dr Seuss said, "You know you're in love when you can't fall asleep because reality is finally better than your dreams."

I love, Love, LOVE when reality is better than my dreams!

Collaboration, learning, problem solving, creative solutions, out of the box thinking, contemplative time, investigating parallel worlds and comparative approaches; identifying patterns, trends and indicators - all come into play FULLY engaging my mind, body, and spirit.  Sometimes break-throughs come from logical progression; sometimes break-throughs come from making new connections between previously disassociated ideas; sometimes break-throughs seem to appear like manna from heaven.  It is a wonderfully dynamic and magical process - a melding and molding of givens and discoveries into hew patterns and understandings.  It is brilliantly transformational.

I am a Wave on the Ocean

I am a wave on the ocean. I am uniquely me, but at the same time connected and one with the ocean. I have a strong sense of knowingness in this connectedness. I feel father/mother ocean supporting, me, nurturing me - knowing itself through me. I celebrate my isness as a wave, knowing this to be a state of impermanence, one of many that emanate from father/mother ocean. I see the love and nurturing that father/mother ocean has for all creatures, all things as it breathes life, that like me, ebbs and flows - impermanent.

I feel my shape and form: the crest of my form - frothy and surging - advancing into the realm of air and sky, embracing it's yin to my yang, frothing bubbles of it into my isness at my leading edge. It is play, it is joy, it is a holy embrace of our oneness as framed in our differences. I feel that part of my waveness that lies just behind the froth: the leading edge. It is solidly me, the purest form of my impermanent self. It is all the unique qualities that I have chosen to be as an expression of father/mother ocean. This uniqueness that I have shaped through my connectedness with father/mother ocean is the self force that pulls my chosen attributes forward, from my wave based connection with the ocean, up through my wave form and even out to the ying/yang dance of foamy sea and sky. I feel the base of my wave form, anchored to the eternal father/mother ocean. It connects down, down, down, to the dark primordial depths, to the sea floor, to the earth, to the universe. Worlds within worlds within worlds, like a hall of mirrors; like the Buddhist endless knot that comes back to its beginning: the alpha - the omega. My wave base, my connection to father/mother ocean holds limitless possibilities that I am empowered to pick and choose from to create the art form of my waveness. Yet, even in this empowered, impermanent state I realize my love connection with father/mother ocean and, even though I have the power to self create, I invite father/mother ocean to play with me in this realm of base wave possibilities and to dance with me. Joining in movement and rhythm of form and formless, opening my awareness to realizations and connectedness that I, myself, am not capable of alone, but that in our oneness brings delight and recognition of new forms and ways of being that are co-created in this dance. The subtleties of the connectedness to all that is, becomes tactilely apparent through this co-creative dance of wave and ocean. I can connect with the trees, deep in the forests of the world where the essence of this water-based existence flows through the fibrous structures of these earth serving life forms. I can reach out, knowingly to the small desert lizzard that buries itself in the sand to escape the hot sun, finding sustenance even in this environment. All of these water based life forms are connected to father/mother ocean, whose transformational forms of cloud, rain, and ice; of gas, liquid and solid extend its reach across continents to embrace the heart of this earth: this life infused marble spinning in space. It is all so lovely, so connected, so changing and impermanent. And yet, lying at the base of all of this, the connectedness of my waveness senses eternity - peace - stillness so profound. My gift to this world and to all that it embraces is the gift of mirroring the truth of the connectedness - even as we appear to live in a divisive world, even as life ebbs and surges, even as our own impermanent existence seems to take precedence, we are each a part of something much bigger. This lovely ancient world; this dream space of life, born of the womb of matter and energy is yet one more dance - one more world, in the worlds within worlds within worlds. I am a wave on the ocean, and yet I am much more.

As a wave I serve father/mother ocean: as a surface conduit of life; spreading the sea based particulates; and aerating its mass. I am a part of the rippling skin of this giant microcosm. I am semi-permeable in nature: while some matter sinks to the deeper reaches, other matter is driven ashore, tossed up on land for air and sun and wind to deal with. I am a play thing for shimmering masses of fish, graceful whales, dolphins, and flying rays. These sea creatures momentarily become one with the joy of my leading edge, before falling back into their watery world. How bright and light this place is at the edge of sea and sky. How different and exciting, risky and thrilling, for they cannot live here long, and yet that foamy realm at the edge of their world invites that which knows itself to be greater than it is; to play and to momentarily experience the unfulfilled potential of self contained existence.

I am beauty and power and grace embodied. I am fierce and nurturing and driven. I am a flash of brilliance in a sea of sparkling waves, all unique, all the same. I am one step: a simple pirouette in the dance of matter to energy, energy to matter. I am a wave, uniquely one in a play of never ending self realization that is relational, father/mother ocean and wave...worlds within worlds within worlds.

Finding the "Sweet Spot" in Life

Humanities capacity for purposeful, mindful creation is embodied in the myriad of things that we use to enrich our lives like: our cars, our homes, our tools, our personal possessions - there is a great deal of thought and planning that has gone into our satisfaction and happiness with our "stuff".

As I create my life, day to day, do I give this process equal mindfulness and attention?  Probably not.

A good part of my life, up until now, has been in a "feed the need" mode, or, as I fondly refer to this way of being, in the mode of "immaculate consumption".  Every time I would need something, I'd save and buy it.  I've been doing this for over 40 years.  The result is a home, basement, and garage that shelters things I don't use, don't need, and can't find when I do need it.

Over the last 40 years, life has consistently demonstrated to me that, if I need something, and I am focused on the highest good and on truly serving others, I will get what I need when I need it - I will be served.  Yet I seem to doubt this truth and to stock pile things "just in case".

My advice to me?  STOP IT!!!!  What I'm finding is, when opportunity knocks and I need to move, I'm burdened by all this stuff.  As I am getting older it is dragging me down!  So I'm taking inventory, yard saling, gifting, donating, and getting myself to a place where I can move gracefully, as opportunities arise, and I can stay in balance and happy as I'm doing this.  I've learned that what worked then, might not work now, and staying in the present, load lightened, relaxed and ready, is the best way to move forward gracefully as I head into the last 20 years or so of my life.

Creating Pivotal Moments That Can Change Lives

The woman wreaked of ugly emotions as she forcefully dragged the screaming child towards her car...

 I had pulled into a gas station to fuel up and there was a car at the pump in front of me.  It was a cold, gray February late afternoon in Wisconsin.  As I had been fueling up myself, I had become an unwitting audience to this scene unfolding before me.  When the woman had gotten out of the car to wrestle with the stiff, cold fuel hose, I could hear the child, strapped into the car seat in the back of the car screaming and crying.  As a Mom I know the sound of a small child that has exceeded its capacity to cope.  My heart immediately went out to that small, tired, possibly hungry child...it's a mother's reaction to the sound of a child in distress.  I found my attention turning to the mother.  She was young, probably late teens, early twenties.  Even at twenty paces, it was easy to see that she was at the end of her rope, as well, as she wrestled the hose over to her car and put gas in her tank.  She hadn't swiped a card so she was going to have to go inside to pay for the gas.  Sure enough - once she had finished fueling the car, she leaned into the backseat of her car to free the child from the car seat and lift him to the ground.  Taking his hand, she led him, still sobbing, into the convenience store to pay for the fuel.  What I saw, in that time frame, was a mother and child who were both, pretty much in the same place emotionally.  My daughter, who was in the front seat of our car, also saw this scene play out.  I was just finishing up fueling my car as the mother and child emerged from the store in the same stressed condition.  The child was now fighting back, venting his anger at the only available person - his Mom.  She had simply given in to the misery and degenerating conditions of the relationship, and was pulling him by his upper arm towards the car, almost lifting him at times as he was prone to try to go weak at the knees in order to resist.  He was inflicting pain on her, and she was inflicting pain on him.  This was not good.  Just as she got to the car, the child dropped the stuffed toy he was holding and it fell, unseen by the Mom just under the car.  As the mother lifted the child back into the car seat, the child erupted into protesting sobs over the loss of the toy, which the mother, not realizing the toy had fallen, interpreted as even more resistance.

 Here is where the story changes. I moved to get out of my car, but my daughter put a hand on my arm, and with a worried look said, "Mom, don't."  As I slid out of my seat into the cold blustery winter evening, I smiled back at her and said, "I have to."  I walked over to the woman, who was just finishing buckling the child into the car seat, and I said in a kind a caring voice, "excuse me..."  she immediate took a defensive stance between me and her child, in an instant turning that emotion towards me.  "You dropped something..." and I immediately got down on my knees in front of her and smiled up at her, "Let me help" I said.  I took my time, probably more than I needed to, fishing under the car, allowing for the space and grace of the changed circumstances to start to take effect.  "I saw your little boy dropped a toy as you were putting him back in his car seat..."  I stood up with the toy, and handed it to the woman with a smile.  "I'm a Mom too, and I can tell that it's been a long day."  I smiled at her as she took the toy, her face now softened by our connection, "You have no idea," she responded.  As I handed her the toy I touched her in a comforting way on the arm, "Your son?"  "Yes," she sighed, as she handed the now more muted, hiccuping child, the stuffed toy.  As she prepared to close the door I smiled at the child and said, in parting, "hey buddy, you hold onto that guy now..." and I smiled at her and said, "you may not feel it right now, but Mom is just another word for Love."  I wished her well and returned to the car, to my daughters exhortations of potential bad endings and futile efforts.  I reminded her of the injured bird that she insisted that I stop and pick up, and take to the wildlife refuge.  That little boy and that Mom were just like that little bird and that fallen toy was an invitation to change the direction of things, just like you did that day with the bird - when the world calls to you, it is imperative that you be ready and willing to respond and that you have the highest good of all at heart.  It may not work out, or it may create a pivotal moment that changes lives for the better.

The True Nature and Destiny of Creative Transformation: Trash into Music

People realize that we shouldn't throw away trash carelessly...so why do we think that it's OK to throw away people carelessly?  Cateura, Paraguay is a slum that is built in, around, and on a garbage dump site.  These people live, survive, and aspire to thrive through salvaging what others found no value in.  When I look at the faces of Ada and Bebi, and I hear the music that is in their hearts I find myself celebrating the resilience of the human heart and the human spirit.  To hear the music of the Landfillharmonic is to hear the Heartsong of the people and children of Cateura, Paraguay, and to come to understand the resonance of the human heart as it transforms trash into music and elevates a subsistence lifestyle to something that speaks to us all and calls us to acknowledge the greatness of humanity even in the lowliest existences.  These lives do matter, and they can make a difference.  Please, share this with others, and celebrate the Landfillharmonic.