Change is a process. It only sometimes happens suddenly. Change is always happening in infinite small ways that escape the notice of attentions focused elsewhere…

We begin as always, centered in the truth that we are Living Expressions of the Conscious Intelligence that created everything seen and unseen in the Universe.  Our personal power is permanently and unconditionally sourced in this Living Intelligence. This is our starting point, always.

Pivot Point #3 ~ GET TO KNOW YOUR INNER STORYTELLER

We each have a story we’re holding and building that defines us and explains our ideas about who we are, and what we’re about.  It consists of our ideas, our experiences, our beliefs, our thought patterns, our desires and the meanings we assign. We can only tell our story from our own perspective. Our Inner Storyteller translates the world to us and us to the world. Making this aspect of us conscious and in alignment with Ownership and Honesty is a powerful and profound pivot.

Here, we are moving more deeply into the wisdom teaching that, The worst lies are the ones we tell ourSelves. We tell ourselves stories every time we have to wait for actual facts. We explain the behavior of others towards us in ways that comfort us, but don’t necessarily have anything to do with the truth of the other person. We imagine the situations and relationships we both desire and fear finding ourselves in… The importance of getting honest WITH your Inner Storyteller, and getting honest stories FROM your Inner Storyteller can not be over estimated!

Here, a little grammar reminder might help… When we say “I am _____” we are identifying (I AM) with what ever we filled that blank in with. At its best, an “I am” statement will never be more than a partial truth, describing a passing moment. This is because there is a huge difference between BEING and DOING, as Dr. Wayne Dyer pointed out once by saying, “If you are what you do, then when you don’t, you aren’t.”

“I am a potter”, and, “I am a person who makes pottery” are two very different statements about me. One is static and the other is dynamic. Life expresses a constant dynamic of change, as do we. Stories that don’t change and people that don’t change aren’t fully participating in Life.

Pivot Point #4 ~ KNOW YOUR HEART AND MIND ARE ONE TEAM

The wisdom teaching here is, A house divided against itself cannot stand. Lincoln was addressing the plight of a nation we see reflected in individuals today, as they senselessly and repeatedly choose against their own interests.

Change is the power of Life. Power begins inside of us, not outside of us, no matter what worldly “authorities” would have you believe. True power resides in Life and Life lies within us, in the natural unity of Heart and Mind. When our Heart and Mind are One, we experience ease and describe the experience as easy.

Too often we experience the dissonance of our Heart and Mind at odds with one another, or that we must choose one over the other – all the while knowing that we need both to survive. Both are necessary kinds of intelligence, both are keys to experiencing meaning and making sense of our complex human relationships.

As children, we looked to the adult authorities closest to us for instruction, guidance, and as role models. Growing naturally, we inevitably become our own authority over all the things that are best for us. We will not always agree with everyone around us. Still, we must choose and act, to participate in our own growth with those closest to us.

Slowing down and honoring the process of your Heart and Mind working together is an intentional power pivot that profoundly influences how we enact change in our lives. The only right way to do it is the one that feels most natural to you. Anyone who tries to prescribe “how this should be done properly”, is trying to control you and does not have your best interests in mind.

Pivot Point #5 ~ EMBRACE SILENCE

Here, Rumi offers us, “silence is the language of god, all else is poor translation.”  The modern world is filled with unnatural noises and constant distractions. Alternately, daylight and the sounds of Nature are radically different and an important counter balance to the lights and sounds of modern culture. It is imperative to get some intentional and/or natural light and silence each day, to tune-out your externals and tune-in to your self.

When we shift attention inwardly we experience the space and silence that exists within each of us. It can take a while to become quiet. As the inward rising and falling of words and pictures slows, the space and the silence remains. Immersed in it, we realize something: that an energetic intelligence is present within us – with us, a unifying force that permeates us thoroughly… each of us and all of existence too.

From the center, polarities are easily seen; hot and cold, dark and light, rich and poor. We are deeply indoctrinated into duality when it is Unity that underlies all things. Time spent in silence helps us to ever more deeply realize and accept that diversity arises from unity and that duality divides.

By moving within into our own silence, we come to recognize the unity that is Life’s starting point. Within that inner unity is an intelligence and peace that gives birth to the world of diversity and our human life.  The Pivot Power of Embracing Silence lies in the Peace and change of perspective it bestows the practitioner.

Pivot Point #6 ~ EMBRACE PARADOX

George Carlin asked, “If you try to fail, but succeed, which have you done?” and Jon Stewart opines, “Religion. It’s given people hope in a world torn apart by religion.” The choice of humorists to point at the wisdom of embracing paradox is also to make the point that honest humor helps when the paradoxical stretches us…

Committing to innocent, honest perception reveals the mysterious to be obvious – that Life in all it’s forms is paradoxical. Opposites, and every degree of them in between ALL coexist in truth. Life gives birth and destroys. The whole truth is always a part of a larger truth. Thing are and are not exactly what they appear. Life is in a constant dynamic of change, yet some things seem to never change, like the avocados on the tree in my yard, year after year.

Our culture equates stability with sameness and no change – a critically false concept that’s impossible to sustain for the living. We all know that rigidity breaks and flexibility bends, and because of this “strength” can not be reduced to a single quality, nor, can anything else.

So, Embracing Paradox is a companion practice to Embracing Silence – both of which support your growth and evolving changes by dissolving the cultural trances of oversimplification and conformity, and all the false beliefs rooted in them.

Working together Paradox, Silence and the team of Heart and Mind light the way for our Inner Storyteller, transforming the tales we tell, and why. And in the process, we make peace with “not knowing” and a periodically silent Inner Storyteller.

Making peace with “not knowing” increases our ability to recognize what some one or some thing actually is, or is not, in any given moment. Rather than making us less, this sort of free floating innocent perception makes us more – more flexible, more open in heart and mind, more accepting, more curious, more questioning and more sensitive to what is actually true in any given moment.

In such a state of greater openness creative magic has been known to erupt with the perfect solution without forethought or warning, changing everything.