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

Your Mark

When I read Seth Godin’s comments on making your mark (his “Soles” post) from last week, something clicked. How about for you? Here’s an excerpt:

“The concrete impact of our lives and our work is the mark you make on other people. It might be a product you make or the way you look someone in the eye. It might be a powerful experience you have on a trip with your dad, or the way you keep a promise.

The experiences you create are the moments that define you. We’ll miss you when you’re gone, because we will always remember the mark you made on us.”

–Seth Godin  (see the full post here)

The particular magic that each of us brings to our interactions with people — these are the gifts that make the difference. And it’s the giving of these particular gifts that is the true purpose of our coming into this world. It is in the giving of the gifts of ourselves, our uniqueness, the sacred center and essence of who we are — these are the signs that we are in the space where we can “make our mark.”

It’s what I call “owning your greatness.” It’s encompassed in the phrase “Living your Legacy.”  The potentiality to make a mark is always there. Our responsibility is to come at it mindfully and for positive, life-enhancing purposes.

Epiphanies

Just like Christmas is always on December 25, so Epiphany is always on January 6. We’ve finished the twelfth night of the Christmas season and move on to the season of Epiphany.

I always loved the idea of epiphanies — those great ah-ha-s. Epiphanies were a big deal for Stephen Daedalus in James Joyce’s Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, one of my favorites of the “great books.”

Epiphany, beyond the capitalized version of the religious holiday, according to Merriam Webster (at http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/epiphany :

2   an appearance or manifestation especially of a divine being

3  a (1) : a usually sudden manifestation or perception of the essential nature or meaning of something (2) : an intuitive grasp of reality through something (as an event) usually simple and striking (3) : an illuminating discovery, realization, or disclosure b : a revealing scene or moment

Such illuminations are indeed possible — especially using the writer’s toolkit. It’s a matter of paying attention to what is there, as one friend says, “Notice what you notice.”

Together throughout 2011, we will explore the many possibilities for synergies, legacies, epiphanies.

Here’s to Love, Peace, Joy …
and Epiphanies filling your 2011 to the brim!

5Cs to Live Your Legacy in Words

More than What You Leave Behind, Live Your Legacy in Words

I’ve written about living your legacy before.  It’s that important.  The following action points are part of an upcoming booklet of experts sharing insights on “defining your destiny,” a project coordinated by Paulette Ensign, the  undisputed queen of the tips booklet.

My suggestion: Test out these 5 Cs to bring your legacy alive. Use words. Write it all down. Document your process for yourself and others.

1 Center —

Begin by taking a deep belly-expanding breath or several.  Focus on your heart-center.  Listen for your internal wisdom and directions from inside.  Write them down!

2 Contribute —

From that breath-centered mindfulness, focus on the deepest gifts you are here to share.  Who are the most perfect recipients of your gifts?  Write down who you are here to serve and the gifts you yearn to offer.

3 Create —

Hold in your heart both what you are here to offer and who you are meant to do it for.  Envision what it looks like when those two come together, with results for the highest good.  Write that down.

4 Connect —

Bring your inner connections and ideas into conversation.  Invite your most perfect people into your sacred circle with powerful words and intent.  Connect and LISTEN.  Write down their words, what they want.

5 Commit —

Write down the specifics of your intent and commitment to create, connect, and contribute.  It’s your map for living your legacy.  Build it day by day with conscious actions — to make the difference you came here to make.

World-changers, writers, authors, visionaries, and conscious creators partner with Bobbye Middendorf, The Write Synergies Guru, to clarify their healing messages. If you’re ready for results greater than the sum of the parts, if you need the right words so people “get it,” if you want to make the difference you came here to make, then connect with Bobbye to live your legacy in words and “Write to Sell Without Selling Your Soul.”

Live Your Business Legacy

August’s “What Will Be Your Legacy Month” is a great reminder. Mostly when you hear people talk about “legacies,” it’s all about what’s left behind.  Certainly that’s worth pondering.

But I challenge you to take it up a notch. Realize that what you leave behind starts with your decisions right now, in the present moment. How about living your legacy?  With every word you write and speak, every choice you make, you can connect the decisions to the heart and soul of your deepest commitment and connection to the whole. Make the present moment your moment to, as Gandhi reminded us, “BE the change you wish to see in the world.”

As someone leading a business, you can make a conscious decision right now to make all your choices for the highest good of all concerned. You can even take it the next step to make your decisions that will benefit “all the children of all the species,” (a phrase I’ve embraced from architect and polymath William McDonogh) and for the greater good of Mother Earth herself.

Unfortunately too often what I see in business is a disconnect between what you want to leave behind and the in-your-face necessities of business. How many cut corners does it take for disaster to follow  — especially when the focus is purely on bottom line results?

You are sowing the seeds — right here and right now — of what you leave behind at some future date.  Every decision in the present moment has consequences through time. Is your business living the legacy that you intend? If it is, are you documenting the positive moves?

Maybe this month’s reminder to consider your legacy is a perfect opportunity to look at your personal purpose, why you are here on this planet at this tumultuous time.
*Is your deeply personal, greater soul purpose informing your business actions?
*Are you aligning your business and personal purpose so that you are making the difference in the world that you came here to make?
*Is your business fully reflecting the highest purpose of you, as the leader of your business?

Live your legacy every day in your business by making decisions based on your most heart-felt values!

Write to Live Your Legacy-Blog Challenge Day 6

Legacy, “something transmitted by or received from an ancestor or predecessor or from the past,” says Merriam-Webster online: It is most commonly considered something you leave behind. It is how you are remembered. Will your words paint the stories of your purpose fulfilled, your passions pursued, your life lived fully in the moment with a presence of love?

Forget the tired old definition, and don’t LEAVE a Legacy. LIVE Your Legacy instead. Live your legacy with your words and writings as well as your actions. Writing to live your legacy: it’s a stunningly powerful way to leave something of value behind.

In reality how you are remembered is created one day and one moment at a time, through interactions, conversations, and yes, the slipstream of your written words. Those synergies make up the raw materials of your legacy. If you are writing, it’s your presence embracing the moment of the writing that creates the memorable and remarkable.

  • Have you considered, rather than “leaving a legacy” behind you, instead to live each day as you wish to be remembered?
  • Have you considered, as you write, to bring to the page the conscious presence of your deepest truest self in the moment?
  • Have you thought it just isn’t possible or it’s too hard to express your gifts as a legacy?

You create what is memorable by how you passed through this world one moment at a time. Doing it with words makes your presence all the more powerful.

Your legacy is constructed of the bricks of consciousness, of the moments of your days stacked one atop and next to the other. It’s much like a dry stone wall–one rock fitted inevitably and perfectly next to the neighboring rock. No filler. No mortar. Just rock by rock. (Similarly Anne Lamott’s famous anecdote in Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life
gets at this too. Bird by bird, her brother got the report done.)

Whether it’s rock by rock or bird by bird or word by word or tweet by tweet,  your legacy is created like that–day by day, word by word, moment by moment. You construct your legacy a day at a time, one moment and one interaction at a time, just as you live it. How you will be remembered? Will your legacy stand like some of Ireland’s dry rock fences, for centuries?

Follow the 30 Day Blogging Challenge on twitter at #blog30.