Everyday Bliss For Women In Leadership

Flow is said to be inherently autotelic - and end unto itself. You remain within the Flow because it’s enjoyable to do so. People who have autotelic personalities enjoy life just because, as they find ways of being in Flow no matter what. Csikszentmihalyi cites a group of paraplegics studied who found they had a better life after their accidents. When the person is severely challenged and says "I will not let this effect me, I will make it out!" this mindset gives the person the skills to do what he or she needs to do to have an autotelic life.

I remember breaking my back and spending years in bed recovering and learning to walk again. The simple act of placing one foot ahead of the other became an intense joy. I had exhausted my housebound environment and found my mind turning the most mundane of tasks into a chain of bright baubles of intense consciousness that were addictive in themselves and in which I reveled, and came to look forward to. Now fully functional, I observe that this kind of intensity of consciousness takes more focused concentration to come by.

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I have been reading yet another wonderful book as further research into Energy Therapy, which neatly dovetails with Tolle, Dyer and Chodron’s beautiful wisdom for living: Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi’s Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience. Csikszentmihalyi says that life’s most important goal to shoot for is to find joy in any and every situation that comes up. To do this you must master your Consciousnes and harness your Attention to your goals through Intention. Everything we experience happens in consciousness – things that happen around and inside you are “real” only to the extent these events are reflected in consciousness. Attention however is prone to division which, following Wayne Dyer’s thoughts, indicates deviation from the Source. Consciousness is like a searchlight moving around, never staying one place a long time. Whatever it illuminates we can see, whatever it doesn’t illuminate, is for the moment at least, beyond us. To be maximally effective, we need our personal and collective Consciousness to reflect our Intention. And that Intention is basically to be awake and aware. Csikszentmihalyi says that those who are awake, aware and in the Flow are Complex Personalities. Contrast this to Eckhart Tolle’s warning that those experiencing continual awareness of the Now may be perceived as simple minded. They both appear to be saying the same thing in different ways. Below are states of being to aim for, to stay in Flow:
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And here are some of my cogitations on the importance of “The Power of Intention” from my personal journal:

After watching Wayne Dyer’s three hour PBS special “The Power of Intention” I am absolutely gobsmacked. This is a PBS presentation, book, CD series et. al. that consciousness-seekers truly need to see asap. I was pleasantly suprised to find Dr. Dyer’s statements on the Power of Intention are in complete accord with all of the spiritual ways I have studied: Islam, Christianity, Hinduism, Lakota, Cherokee and Scandinavian shamanism, Judiasm and the ethnic spiritual traditions of England, Ireland and Hawai’i. I suspect they are in accord with all traditions, everywhere, but don’t have the personal knowledge to make that statement. What I can say is that Dyer on Intention makes perfect sense. Here’s my take on what he said, be sure to read his, too:

Whether you revere Buddha, Allah, Krishna, Jesus Christ, Mohammad, Wakan-tanka, YVH, Quan Yin, Brighde, Great Spirit, or the Lord of the Fields and Forests, they all have messages that speak of humanity’s returning to the Source of all Things. They are all Avatars of Synchronicity and are imbued with Immanent, liminal qualities - all royal roads and good red roads that lead to the Center where we all are part of the greater Whole and remember and know that at all times. What we are seeing in the world now is much resistance to the connection to all things, the connection to the Source that feeds and created us all.

Divisiveness and choosing to live with shame and fear as motivating sources are nurturing the constant feed of lower energies into many people’s lives. Terrorists for example live and die violently, making sure they take as many people with them as they can. I wonder what would happen if, 60’s-like, daisies sprouted out of these folks’ howitzers? What if their plastic explosives suddenly turned into giant pieces of tropical fruit flavored bubble gum? And what if along with it they laughed, and extended a daisy to the person at the other end of the gun barrel? And practiced no more challenge than who could blow the most pleasing bubble? What if simultaneously, (I don’t know if this will happen anytime soon, but sometime when the critical mass is reached, sometime now…) people everywhere, all over the world, put down what they were doing and gave each other a hug? What if everybody who was starving, or abused or terminally ill or deprived in any way was suddenly fulfilled in their deepest, richest, highest-possible-self dreams? Because the liminal is within vision, and the ineffable is made Real to us the day we intend that it be so. Simply dream a good, strong dream, see it everywhere you go, in everyone and every thing, and it shall be made manifest to you.

But what if you get nowhere with this plan? What if you have resistance to the notion that you can have anything you want simply by intending it? There’s a solution! Dyer says that anything that attempts to divide the Source is resistance. Treat resistance then like ice, with love which will melt it. Focus a strong and intense beam of love upon the sources of resistance in your consciousness and allow them to melt away like snow in the sunshine.

This melting will allow other resistance to surface so it can be loved and freed as well. Wayne Dyer echos the Bodhichitta in saying to enjoy freeing yourself from resistance by intending to live in joy and deeply wanting joy to be within all you meet, even more than you want it for yourself. Allow what melts to trickle down into your roots and nourish you deeply. Allow the dark and silence at your core to renew your connection to Source. Remember this in the beat of your heart and rising and falling of your breath. As James Asher affirms: “Breath - connects us all.”

I am blessed with the ability to type as fast as most people speak, so when given permission by Dr. Wayne Dyer during his recent PBS presentation on The Power of Intention to take notes, I did. I wish you a WONDERFULLY empowered and Source-connected week, and leave you with this list on just exactly how to re-connect. I have added a few coaching and clarifying comments of my own. Enjoy!

The “Dyer Dozen” for Reconnecting to Source

1) Want more for others than you want for yourself. Whatever you perceive to be missing, want that MORE for others and it will automatically come to you as the first recipient. (Maryam’s Note: This is both one of the central tenets of coaching and is cognate to the Buddhist concept of Bodhichitta or generating the Compassionate Mind of Enlightenment. One facet of which is: “May all beings know joy and the roots of joy, may all beings know peace and the roots of peace, may all beings know an end to suffering and connection to the greater Source. May I know all these things…”)

2) Think from the end. Begin to see yourself surrounded by people and events and things that constitute your perfect life. “Act as if” it has already happened. Because all that you need, you already have.
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I am in an amazing vortex of creativity right now, sparked by watching Dr. Wayne Dyer’s The Power of Intention on PBS and reading Pema Chodron’s wonderful book: Comfortable with Uncertainty in the same day. Chodron’s book is a panacea for our troubled times and contains exercises and suggestions in short, three-page chunks for people of all faiths to quell fear and anxiety: practice of loving kindness towards others, reverence for all forms of life, constant prayer for the peace and happiness of all beings, etcetera. If you can at all catch Wayne Dyer’s presentation on PBS, please do so. It’s amazing and will change your life. And it fits right in with where I am going and what I coach on. (here’s a listing of the PBS stations showing this presentation)

My ideal client is someone who is searching for reconnection to Source and is actively helping others to do so. I coach the coaches, teachers and community leaders of Source-reconnection in whatever ways and methods they are using to do that. Dr. Dyer had a perfect quote: “We are all born geniuses, but the process of living de-geniuses us.” My purpose is to help people restore their inherent Genius and connection to Source that has been lost through the process of living this life. This purpose is summed up in a prayer that Dyer read during the PBS presentation. Though I am not Catholic nor yet Christian (in fact I don’t subscribe to any religious denomination) this prayer perfectly expresses, for me, my purpose in life. Perhaps for some of you too…
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Several of you have written me and asked to know more about The Biscuit and if we have other kitties in the house. Yes, there are two still at home and they and we are doing fine now though we all miss The Biscuit and things were tense for a few days as everyone settled into their new roles. All is fine now however. I wrote the following a year ago for another magazine, it might possibly be interestingly illustrative:

…The younger cats are collectively known as the Mitties and individually as Tashi-Claire (above) and Anoushka. They are metista littermates and became close after being shut up in the back bathroom together for a weekend when we first got them but hadn’t any litter boxes as yet. (plus which they were small enough to hide literally in plain sight!) Tashi-Claire is also called The Tosh. She’s a beautiful Russian Blue with short mithril-grey fur and a white bikini on her lean little tummy. The Tosh is all about the business, be it chasing a bug or sniffing the entire garden. Tosh has a difficult-to-care-for physical condition that requires expensive medications and regimen that requires a nightly squirt of liver-flavored antibiotic (which she hates) and a fish flavored prednisone chew (which she loves). Her favourite passtime is looking out the windows and angling to be let outside. She and Emmeline, the huge, beautiful white and tortie Maine Coon from Avocado House have formed an interesting alliance against Raunchy Randy, the narsty sealpoint Siamese bullycat. They will sit on opposite ends of the garden, making ladylike blinky-eye conversation until Randy heaves into view, then they go into invisibility mode. Once Randy is between them, they will launch themselves, miauwling at peak volume, hissing and spitting, Raunchy Randy tearing out for his home turf. Randy has never picked a fight in our garden since this strategy was launched.

Miss Kitty, whom we refer to as The Biscuit, is a beautiful Brown Classic Maine Coon with huge amber eyes, very affectionate and though she has arthritis, is on medication that is inexpensive and easy to deliver. When she allows us to, of course. The Biscuit is a sweet kitty who deserves the best home possible in her golden years, and had a lot of love and affection still yet to give. Her meds are working well for her, and she gets around just fine though she does limp a bit. She loves to be petted and have her ears skritched, and will kiss, nuzzle and rumble/purr nonstop to show her affection. Like most cats, the Biscuit is happy to be by herself most of the day, but prefers to be in the same room as other people in the house. She alternately sleeps or nature watches out the window quite contentedly all day. She sleeps through the night, does not spray or caterwaul and is mostly quiet, though she does have an endearing chirpy trill, common to the Maine Coon breed. She is getting on in years and is unable to cope with the physical teasing and interpersonal politics of the younger Mitties. They mean well, but are young enough to rough and tumble her to the point that it hurts, and we had to break up several corkers until the mitties understood they had to cool it.

The tribe of them have an easy but definitively heirarchical detente and are protective of one another, if often from afar. Anoushka is tiny charcoal fluffer with eyes like shiny black buttons, and is at times almost consumed by her extensive and fine downy chest ruff. She is a community-minded kitty and will vigorously defend the rights of other kitties she views as being placed under undue duress…such as toenail clipping, the monthly wash, the Bix’s curry combing and the poor Toshkit’s many and varied medications. She takes a Patrick Henry stance, with her tiny charcoal-fluffed forepaw up on a shoe, mounded towel or random scut of discarded newspaper. (we’ve often marvelled at her ability to stage a scene) She will, thus braced, stand in front of the imperiled kitty and its Tormentors (us) and make impassioned speeches entirely with her eyebrows. Occasionally, as if to underscore bullet points, she emits a wee, chirping, entirely charming trill.

Such is our Tribe, in which we two humans are privileged to be offered associate membership. We know our place as kitty butlers, maids and purveyors of the Sacred Skritch. And we are content…

Last night I had to euthanize my oldest and dearest friend, my 16 year old female brown classic Maine Coon kitty “The Biscuit”. I find it strange yet perfectly fitting that she should choose to exit on the last day of February in a leap year. She had been born in a leap year too - 1988. A beautiful, magickal, wonderful kitty. After a mercifully short illness that began on Friday afternoon and came to a close Sunday at 7pm, her kidneys went into terminal failure. I tried to make her comfortable at home with a heating pad and her favorite red blanket from my childhood home in the big armchair where she held court. It was no good though, she hadn’t eaten or eliminated in 24 hours - we had to take her to the vet. I made the carrier as cushy as I could with a double foam pad topped by the pink flannel blanket that comforted my mother in her last days. J-Bear held her inside the carrier, covered the sides with a thick towel to keep drafts off of her, and placed it gently inside the car. Driving up to Adobe Animal Hospital in Los Altos, the sun shone warm upon her face and her beautiful amber eyes closed with pleasure in a last, brief respite from her pain.

The Bix had a long and mostly good life. My ex and I rescued her from a bad situation with an abusive neighbor across the street from us thirteen years ago. From that period she retained a suspicion of strangers, but once she knew a person, would love and trust them unreservedly. When my ex and I parted ways and I remarried, The Biscuit came to live in a new house with two new kitties she was pleased as punch to queen over, and together they formed a loose but distantly affectionate little tribe. She was infected with FIV (the kitty version of HIV) but was never sick from it. A bite from the neighborhood bullycat that gave her the disease was deep in her right thigh though, and she never quite recovered good usage of that hip. It contributed to her having arthritis that increased with time until her entire hindquarters were a hotbed of sensitivity and pain in the last couple of years. Only Reiki and surrogate EFT were helpful, and not that much in the end.

Dr. Peter Hill was the kindest, sweetest person to have oversee this difficult time. His eyes were nearly as red as ours and he was having equal difficulty speaking as we were. He and other doctors at Adobe had treated The Biscuit since she lived across the way from my ex and I. Dr. Hill in particular loved her and it grieved him to see her in pain as much it did us. He outlined the whole procedure for us every step of the way and gave us time to get adjusted to each step before he went ahead. He must have apologised for how difficult this was being on us at least three times. Like it was his fault. But he calmly and bravely administered The Biscuit’s deliverance from pain and this life. Little was said, except by me, to The Biscuit. She was alert though drowsy during the procedure, we had adequate time to say all there was to say, to pet and love her, and the euthanasia took only seconds, for which I am intensely grateful. She simply went to sleep for the very last time as I skritched the sweet spot behind her ears and told her what a good and sweet girl she was and how very much we loved her. Through tears. Mine and the Bear’s…who was every bit as cut up as I was…

:::more:::
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