Are You Creating a Life that’s a Work of Art?

What happened to August? (And July, for that matter…) Suddenly it’s back-to-school and the Jewish New Year. I love the timing for that and often celebrate it — just because.

In July, I conducted my live sacred circle event for “Creating What Matters Most.” The afternoon’s energetic shifts were palpable, and the follow up call invited everyone to continue on the path they’d started just a short week or so before.

 

Welcome Philip!

 

August was a whirl of change and very much a family focus.  We adopted Philip, a natty fellow who wears a tuxedo all the time. He’s a burly Cocker spaniel adopted from PAWS (Pets Are Worth Saving) in Chicago. We all went to the adoption center, met him and brought him home. This was following on the heels of  a good-bye lunch at the vegetarian Annapurna snack shop in the Indian neighborhood on Devon Ave. Isabel departed the next day for a year in Delhi on her Fulbright and Critical Language Fellowship; Gabriel left on Monday for Los Angeles and his last year in college at USC.

On the third Sunday in August, I co-facilitated a sacred circle for Chicago IONS on Forgiveness with my friend, June Keszeg. Following that was nearly a week away, visiting family in West Virginia and giving Philip his first taste (with us) of country life. He loved it! Walks and foreign scents, rolling in wet grass, scrambling over rocks to the river, chasing tennis balls, and long car rides: he was soooo happy.

We had an intimate birthday celebration early (for me) in West Virginia as the wheel of the year turned into Virgo. We invited a local artist friend, plus Jonn, his mom, Philip and me.  We gathered for a fabulous picnic, tapas-like small dishes of my very favorite things, on the the porch.

Another guest joined us — the goat that got away from the neighbors. With Joan, the artist’s, help, the poor lost soul was collected and led into the fenced area. Then we called the neighbors to come get her as the downpour started. The distress in that voice, the goat separated from her herd, was palpable and echoed through the valley. Baaaaaaaaaaa.

I met a couple of online friends in person, spending a lazy afternoon walking along the river downtown with Shweta Parmar when she came through Chicago. Jonn and I celebrated with Isabel Faith Abbott at her one-year-cancer-free party perched in a River North penthouse party room with stunning views of the skyline.

I practiced my new learning of Healing Touch (energized with Qi)  [with a shout-out to Margaret Leslie and Deb Lipetz Weisenberger, my awesome teachers] on several situations, both for physical issues like pain relief for a dear friend post-surgery, as well as draining away some situational pain, stress and anxiety and filling the space with healing Light.

There’s magic tucked away in every life. If you would love to have a partner committed to helping you bring that magic into focus to become conscious of your life as the work of art that it is, then we should talk. You see, collaboration is the new black and the mantra for our time is, “Do NOT do it alone!”

I continue sharing purposeful messages in collaboration The True Purpose Instituteâ„¢ and am collaborating with Cassandra Washington’s One Degree Shift group on an inspiring new book. (For my section, I’m exploring curiosity as an attitude for Difference-Makers to cultivate. More on that project soon!)

After this spring and summer’s beta-testing of my new upgraded blessing, guiding people to “Go Deep First,” I am now inviting you to explore if now is the time to “Create What Matters Most” at ever-deepening levels. It’s a call to you if you resonate with phrases like courageous evolutionary, intrepid explorer in right livelihood, creator of your highest work, transformational leader, vanguard visionary, sage-hearted change-maker,  or if you have the soul of a difference-maker or are in a transition and at a crossroad between what came before (that’s coming to an end) and what is ready to emerge.  What will be your legacy? If this is up for you, let’s talk!

Reply here or message me, and we can set up a Taste of Deep Listening readiness conversation, to see if now is YOUR time and what you need to move forward.

With love and appreciation,
Bobbye

Solstice Wishes to Open to Your Healing and Flow

Wolf Road Prairie

Celebratory greetings on the longest day in the North!
Happy Solstice to you.

I’ve just learned what a powerful portal day it is for opening to our own healing and flow. Both self-reflection and gathering in a circle magnify those energies. This message invites you to do both!

Today’s series of questions for reflection:

* How is it that listening more acutely to yourself can be so healing?

* What practices do you have in your collection?

* How are you doing with actually using the positive practices that you know?

The Backstory

My whole lifetime living in the default position of, “Go Deep First,” combined with a commitment to bringing forth in each moment my best self and highest expression … Ah, this calling to shape and share a life of wholeness while creating what matters most, THIS is the heart of the sacred journey for making life into a work of art, a process-based art of living into wholeness and co-creation. All this keeps things moving forward and deeper.

Yet while continuing to plumb the depths and live life beyond the frontier’s leading edge, I landed in a quandary, thinking, “It’s incomplete.” My challenge has always felt like, “I can’t begin to share this. It’s not whole yet. I’m not cooked, and there’s more to be revealed!”

The Shift

Then something shifted. I was not exactly ready, but the willingness to experiment had shifted inside. The world’s energies were shifting too, inviting these new transformational depth-soundings out into the public sphere. After a three-week trip to India, I found myself dangling over the void one more time. From this deep sweet center of sacred emergence, (AKA chaos) I knew it was time. (Even if I wasn’t really ready.)

Go Deep First

I used the 7 steps of what I call the “Go Deep First” process on myself, to create this process as “what matters most” right now for me. It’s allowed me to get clear on how I’ve been a catalyst for transformation– even when I wasn’t quite sure what I’d “done” for?…to?… with?... my people and clients to support their transforming. Now I’ve turned this implicit and invisible magic into an explicit, clarified process and a sacred circle mini-retreat.

Create What Matters Most

“Go Deep First to Create What Matters Most” taps into people’s essential wholeness. It is a continuing and iterative process, so that those who really use it, including me, the facilitator, can continually take the work — writing, healing, learning, co-creation, collaboration, insights, art of every kind — deeper, following an ongoing learning journey.

Tap Into Your Deep Why — To Get To Your “What”

It’s an inner workout for strengthening your innards for what it takes to give birth to a new vision, whether it’s a personal healing journey that matters right now, or it’s the content and message for a book, talk, workshop, a whole new body of work, web site. Or maybe you find yourself at a crossroads where making a conscious choice about the next path is crucial. The process works in service to deepening anyone’s journey. It meets you wherever you are on your journey’s path to inspire and infuse confidence in creating what matters most to you. Now.

An Invitation

I am so excited to be facilitating a live sacred circle. It’s for co-creating what matters most to you right now. This afternoon mini retreat is in the Chicago area on Sunday July 20, 2:30-5:30. For full details and to register online: http://bit.ly/1iWJmbL

What you get is an inner-power-tool for creating what matters most. It’s a renewable resource for tapping into the well of gifts that all of us are here to bring forth. Use this process to bring them forth with quality and confidence. How you get there is by going deep first. I have done the process with groups, in one-on-one sessions, and for myself. It is a malleable and flexible tool that people can use on their own, repeatedly, with new insights gleaned each time.

If you’re feeling curious and hopeful, longing to bring forth the gifts you are here to give, then please take a look. It’s a potent first step! Details and to pre-register: http://bit.ly/1iWJmbL

Sending you blessings on your path as you magnify your presence and transform your people —- starting with yourself.

Warm solstice blessings,

Bobbye Middendorf

P.S. Remember to use the positive practices that you already know! And if you sense the camaraderie of a sacred circle can help you amplify your process to get the creation juices flowing, then take a look at the description of what we’ll be doing on July 20.

Here’s the EventBrite link with details and to pre-register. http://bit.ly/1iWJmbL And be sure to mark your calendar for July 20!

P.P.S. If you are feeling called to this journey, and getting to Chicago in July isn’t going to work for you, then shoot me an email. We can schedule a brief conversation to see if doing this visioning journey work one-on-one is a good move for you right now.