If you had said to me 30 years ago, “Live with Spirit” I would have poured myself another scotch for breakfast and declared, “I am.”

But then I got to dance with First Nation People in Canada, sing with the Sherpa People of Nepal, drum with Yogi’s of India and chant with Monks in Korea. Bit by bit, through music and dance I got to understand what “live with spirit” really means.

For me, it means “enjoy” – feel the joy of doing it. Now, that’s a bit weak, but when we half enjoy doing it, we are sort of enjoying, sort of into what we do, not fully engaged, commonly called “over thinking it.” And that kills the spirit of it.

Learning the Hard Way

Sometimes people put a foot in two places. One foot in the thing they are doing and another foot wishing they were doing something else. That leads to half hearted investment, and is very much a formula for failure. It comes from a good place, trying to do justice to all the things in life people feel obligated to invest in.

This leads to the words “careful, cautious, considered” which are really important sometimes. But life evolves at the border of chaos and order, and careful, cautious and considered are way over on the far edge of order. Consequently they generate massive chaos in counterbalance. Hence, “there’s no such thing as a half hearted success story.”

Whole Hearted Living and Working

When I say “live with spirit” I mean enthusiastically, enjoyably, successfully and kindly.

There are no half hearted success stories. We all know that. And yet, there are many people, millions and millions, some in senior executive jobs, living half hearted.

Don’t blame them. Sometimes it’s hard to balance all seven areas of life. Sometimes the cultural background of the individual holds them back. Sometimes it’s even self sabotage.

But most often, half hearted situations come from uncertainty. That’s an inner conflict.

Inner conflict is a big issue for us all. It can be so extreme that it makes us ill. Inner conflict, even emotional conflict internally can lead to self sabotage, over compensating, poor leadership and not turning up in relationship.

On the opposite side, a sense of inner peace, or inner harmony, can be a great platform for an individual to arrive at any adventure in life, be it work, relationship, home building, investment and sport 100% ready to participate wholeheartedly.

Whole hearted living isn’t fluff. Whole hearted living is really putting yourself into what you do at every level. It’s the sort of stuff Olympic athletes know to be the difference between winning and losing.

The core variables of Human Potential at Work and at Home.

1. Fear of The Future… We all have dreams and goals. Even small ones are potential sources of fear. We can’t fear the past. We can only fear the future. The solution to fear of the future is to either resolve the fear by careful analysis (which is the primal function of fear) or to get so into what we’re doing that we turn up 110% and become totally present, in the moment and therefore oblivious to the future (this is what athletes must do – forget the outcome, focus on the process)
2. Guilt of the Past … if we are not thankful for the past we attract it. The universe is teaching us love all the time so anything we’re not thankful for, I mean really see the benefit of, we breed, attract or become.
3. Values … We each have fingerprint specific values. However, the more stressed and in panic we get, the more likely we are to compromise our values. At the same time, values means engagement, or enthusiasm. So linking our values to what we’re doing is a great science to staying young, vital and spirited. I think this is a major cultural advantage for any organisation or individual who knows how to do this. In fact I have worked with indigenous people on suicide prevention, corporate teams, sports identities and movie stars just on this skill alone and made a huge impact. It’s the big secret to putting your heart into it.

Resolving Inner Conflict

How can we expect world peace if we have no internal peace?

There are two sides to every person: their masculine principle and their feminine principle. One creates the other destroys. If one has a preference over the other it’s usual but if there’s a shooting match between them, then there’s a war going on inside.

If we personify these two sides of ourselves into steriotypes we can even start to say we are for or against “men who are like this” or “women who are like that” – in other words our inner conflict with ourselves becomes mirrored in our outer conflicts with others.

It’s hard to do good if you don’t feel good

We often infatuate the importance of physical health and its impact on how we feel, and to a certain extent that infatuation is justified. Exercise can produce chemicals that make us feel good. But that’s not sustainable if we have an internal war going on. An internal war is mental health and thinking badly can easily override all benefits of physical exercise as well as all the other terrible side effects thinking badly can cause (violence, addictions, depressions, suicides, corruption, deception, etc)

Right Thinking _ It’s not just what you think, but how you think that matters…

Mental health comes from how you think. If you think nice thoughts but your mind is not right thinking, you will become confused and in internal conflict with yourself.

So the first step in any human potential culture change programme is to make sure
individuals know, more than what to think, how to think.

This is the regime:

1. Listen for tell tale signals of wrong thinking process. (Got to, Should do, Need to)
2. Coach yourself up to right thinking or out of the situation (move to right thinking)
3. Know when you are acting on right thinking or reacting to wrong thinking
4. Value thinking process as much as exercise for health (most ill health comes from wrong thinking not so much lack of exercise etc)
5. A short pencil is better than a long memory .. think right means write it.

 

SEVEN STEPS TO PERSONAL AWARENESS

Goodness, enthusiasm, intent and inspired work.