rainbowsoverruins

The Recipe for Serendipity

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Have you ever had the feeling of serendipity? By definition, it is a gift of finding valuable or agreeable things not sought for. I’m wondering if the definition is missing something. I think we experience serendipity when we want something and find it in unexpected places.

I started thinking about this when Noah St. John sent out a recent email in which he outlined the positive benefits that people experience as soon as they start working with his book Afformations: The Miracle of Positive Self-Talk. And I agreed with him. I had experienced exactly what he described – a brighter outlook, a fabulous job promotion, more joy in my daily life, and new opportunities opening up before me. What was most fabulous was that his technique was so simple that it did not feel as if I had to work harder to get the results I wanted.

All of that equates to the feeling of serendipity. In my case, it felt like I was in a rags to riches movie. I talk about it in my book Rainbows Over Ruins – how we went from the landslide that destroyed our home to a lovely ranch, how our business opportunities grew, and how we discovered that the switch from our default mindset of negativity to one of positive self-talk opened up the creative thought process for both of us in an amazingly short period of time. On many occasions, I felt as if someone was holding my hand and moving puzzle pieces into place at just the right time. Call it faith, call them miracles, or call them God-winks or God-shots.

What I have found is that people resonate with such stories. To others, I became an example of someone who has not only survived a catastrophe but thrived using a positive thought process. Somewhere in my story, my readers found the hope and promise that if they do what I did, they will experience release from pain, fear and anxiety as they transform their lives. When you are feeling unhappy, are struggling, leading a life of quiet desperation or just stuck where you are without any idea of how you will get out of a situation, it really helps to hear that other people have gotten through it all, and to see that the curious chain of events that led someone else to overcome crisis, obstacles and challenges can also apply in your own life. It’s inspirational. Their response is, of course, what inspires me. There is something magical in seeing other people find hope that they can learn how their Inner Self can lead them from where they are to where to where they want to be.

This is not meant sound other worldly as such even though it feels like it. Rather, this is said with an awareness that scientific research now shows that the brain can be re-trained. If you catch one of John Assaraf’s Brain-a-thons, you’ll see that there are now studies that demonstrate that we do not have to controlled by survival oriented, primitive brain reactions any longer. We can take a more proactive stance by learning how to coordinate what we call the Inner and Outer aspects of mind.

Mine is but one story. There are so many others. I like to hear about other people who are using their similar experiences in ways that bring them serendipity. It helps me work with creative people who desire more out of life, helping them let go of the negative thought habits that stop them so they can see unimagined opportunities unfold before them. I’m looking for stories now that I can share with you, and if you have any suggestions, I’d love to hear them. We’re all on the road to bigger and better experiences coming from unexpected places.

To Your Success,

Susan

Going Viral with Appreciation

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Did you feel it? My inbox and social media sites have been filled with expressions of gratitude as we celebrate Thanksgiving here in the States.

Since the publication of Rainbows Over Ruins, I often hear from people who have been inspired by my story. After all, if I can survive the after effects of a landslide, and go on to thrive, others can hold onto the possibility that they can too – in all areas of life. They can use the road map I have shared in order to come to understand the power of their minds and retrain their thinking. They can start to grasp the creative process.

Still, when you are in the midst of a crisis, where do you begin? I used to ask myself, how do people pull themselves up by the bootstraps when they have no boots? And the answer was to imagine the boots. It may be a little too simplistic, but imagination is one of the great powers of the mind. Over time, I’ve found that our imagination yields richer results when we open its treasures with an attitude of gratitude and appreciation.

So how do we start? How do we express a sense of appreciation when we are at a low ebb in our emotional life? Here it is. Take the time to appreciate one thing in your life that makes you feel better, brings joy or a hint of well-being every day.

There is an immediate shift in the energy you are putting out. The new energies are closer to what you want to be feeling. The magnetism of that improved frequency draws more of the same. The more you do it, the more you attract.

One of the cornerstones of my meditative work is to express gratitude. I have been following someone’s suggestion that I look for 10 things every day for which I am thankful. Sometimes I have to stretch to think of so many things, but I focus on this feeling as it opens me to new and wonderful ideas during the rest of the day. It does not matter what it may be – a moment of rest and relaxation, sunshine, rain, food, shelter, loved ones, being greeted by a happy pet, solitude, friendship, a new inspired thought, a surprise gift, the opportunity to give to others, goals achieved, the ability to work toward my goals, the connection to consciousness and on and on. The key is to express your appreciation every day.

So what are you happy for today? What are you grateful for? What do you appreciate? If you are looking for an action step to improve your life, grab a pen, pencil or crayon and memorialize it in your journal or drawing pad – even on the back of a napkin. And keep doing it. If you’d like to spread the sense of appreciation to others, send me a comment, make a You-tube video, let the people who serve you know that they are appreciated. Let’s keep the feeling of Thanksgiving going. Let’s go viral with the feeling of appreciation.

May you share your love in the form of appreciation to all around you today.

To Your Success,

Susan

The Joy of a 3 Day Weekend

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I really needed this fabulous weekend. The past couple weeks have been stressful as we strive to create great shows, while facing the challenge to bring the season in “on time and on budget.” So, it has felt great to kick back, curled up to finish a novel I’ve been slowly reading. I had planned to do things around the house and to promote Rainbows Over Ruins.

If you haven’t read my book yet, the story focuses on my growing awareness that there is a creative thought process that makes it possible to identify what you truly desire, choose actions that support it and get the results you want. Since my entire career has centered on producing, facilitating, and supporting the unfettered creative spirit, coaching this process in order to achieve our creative potential is a natural outgrowth. The book has been a first step in that direction.

Anyway, a funny thing happened on the way to making progress on my To-Do list. One of those items was to focus on the needs and desires of my target audience. Because the book is about our recovery after a landslide destroyed our home, I was looking for people who have to change for any number of reasons or survive difficult situations as I have done. They will have to prepare to transition to new opportunities, develop their outer game by setting goals and taking positive actions as they rethink, redefine and reignite their purpose. If they are developing businesses (and a significant number are), they will engage in strategic planning, team building, and deal with conflict resolution. It will be easier if they ask for help.

As I meandered through the Internet doing a Google search, the keyword I liked most was the word “creativity.” When you are in recovery mode, you benefit from the ability to access your creative potential. This involves the inner game, connected to limitless possibilities. As new creative techniques are learned and applied to common life and workplace challenges, an entirely different energy emerges. It yields a positive outlook and forward looking capacity, even in the face of adversity. It energizes the creative spirit and makes all things possible. If you learn how to flip your thinking, pop paradigms, ask better questions and use power habits, you find your creative self and reap the full benefit of the creative process for personal development and business projects.

With thoughts about creativity tumbling around my mind, I felt a call to look over the draft of my business plan. If you’ve read the book, you know that I have a dream to create a center where people can learn these skills, as well as writing an additional book about the creative workplace. Turning again to the draft proposal, I was reminded of one of my Dad’s stories. It was a bit of a horror story, really, about the tragic ends to doctoral students who could not answer one key question when they went before the panel for their doctoral review: What is the benefit of this work for individuals and businesses? What is the value? In the case of the business plan, the questions would be: Why do we need a Center? Why do we need to improve our creativity?

So my last day off is being spent answering those questions. It has been very helpful to turn to the work of Bruce Nussbaum, author of Creative Intelligence. (I had picked up a copy of his book several months ago in one of those serendipitous moments – a Godwink – when an entire table at Barnes and Noble was dedicated to books on creativity.)

It feels good to hear my own words validated on his pages. We are all creative, even when we are just doing our jobs, even if we don’t think of ourselves that way. But Nussbaum also makes two points that address the question if this work has value to others. Of course, he believes it does.

From a needs perspective, everyone feels the effects of a rapidly changing world. We live in what the military calls VUCA, a time that is “volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous.” Nussbaum observes his students coping with this by an awareness that they need to create their own opportunities “in order to survive, and they [want] to learn how.” (Creative Intelligence, p. 16). Of course, it isn’t just the students who face this. All of us do. “We need to prepare ourselves for jobs that don’t yet exist, using technologies that haven’t been invented, to solve problems that we haven’t recognized” (CI, p. 33).

This affects anyone in transition or any form of life crisis. Just as the rug is pulled out from under them, they face the need to redefine and recreate themselves in a new world they barely understand. They need a way to raise their awareness that there are creative skills they can learn so that they have the means to face these issues in a proactive way.

But the joy of this work – and I’m all about joy and well-being – does not center on the needs aspect. Bruce Nussbaum also mentions Sonia Manchanda, of IDIOM (India), who asks: “Why not focus on aspirations – dreams that we may not believe are even possible?” (CI, p. 29)

Remember, within each crisis is opportunity. Each of us has the chance to learn to focus our ideas into creations that have value and bring us joy, a sense of accomplishment, and the chance to help others. Great potential comes from strong aspirations coupled with the willingness to flip one’s counterproductive thoughts, develop power habits and direct them toward successful results.

I may not have a center yet, however, thanks to a strange meandering 3 day weekend, I am centered on its value. May you find similar times to discover your aspirations and begin to see them unfold.

To Your Success,

Susan

What Supports Us as We Rebuild A Life?

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Crisis. It comes in so many shapes and sizes, yet in most instances, it is a sharp, sudden jolt from one reality that throws us into another. We cannot begin to comprehend what has happened in the immediate moment. I’m writing this as Newtown, Connecticut is reeling in the aftermath of the shooting tragedy there. My loss pales in comparison to the loss they are experiencing now.
How do we survive such pain? What is it that we bring close to us in times like these? What do we rescue if forced to leave in a hurry? What do we wish for if we lose everything or the most precious parts of our lives?
We pull those we love close to us. We hold onto physical reminders. We strive to create structure again in a world that is suddenly unfamiliar. My own experience is that we never know just how we handle it until we are in the moment itself.
In those first few hours (extending into days) after I discovered the landslide, I was never quite sure if the house would collapse. So every time I entered it, I would take something else I needed to rescue before it was destroyed. In retrospect, I think there is something important in the items we decide to take with us in that moment. They reveal what we choose to have with us to begin the rebuilding process. For me, I took a couple boxes of Peter’s just released book, my computer with family photos, a Remington bronze, a small overnight bag, some valuable papers and, perhaps most critically, a couple of books that I would find useful over the next months: including Wayne Dyer’s “There is a Spiritual Solution to Every Problem.”
As refugees staying with fellow Deacon Deirdre and her husband Jim, it became my habit to read a few paragraphs over coffee before I began my daily activities to rescue our belongings, monitor the care of our animals that soon were spread all over the city, and search for solutions for what we had to do next. I would need quiet support to get through this experience starting with the first quote in the book: “You have no problems…though you think you have” from the Course in Miracles.
Funny, that’s just the kind of statement that I didn’t truly understand as I entered this phase of my life. But it was also the kind of statement that began to stretch my mind beyond the limits of our crisis to embrace the possibility of creating a new home and even more over time. “Every meeting in our lives is in some way orchestrated by a divine force…and the strangers to whom we are drawn have something to teach us,” Dyer wrote. Ask and it is given. Be open to receive – even from strangers and unexpected sets of circumstances.
What happened in the weeks after the landslide was surreal. There was no readily accessible manual for assistance, nor did I have the time or ability to research the subject. Each person who came to help or see the damage had to come to terms with what they found. Peter arrived home at 2:00am and would not leave the house, feeling the need to protect its belongings. I, on the other hand, was too frightened to even sit down in the house.
All the utilities still worked so Peter made sure the wires to the TV were high and dry and immediately turned on the television set. The entire floor was covered in mud, but people would wipe their feet on the mat outside and step into the muddy room. Peter’s friend Larry observed the leak overhead in the living room ceiling and asked me to get a pot to catch the water that was dripping onto the already muddy floor. For me, it had a touch of black humor that made no sense, but found we all fall back upon our habits, even when strangely absurd, in the face of such destruction. The fire department arrived to ‘red tag’ the house (in California, that means to condemn the house) and help Peter move the items he would not leave unlocked inside. The insurance adjustor came by to inform us that there was no insurance on the house as landslides and mudslides had proven too expensive so all insurers had stopped covering them. Those were the negatives.
But there were bright spots too. The phone rang in the house a couple days after the slide. It was a producer looking for Peter’s services. We made a decision in that moment that I have always felt made the biggest difference in getting us on track quickly. We consciously chose, then and there, to accept the work in spite of the catastrophe around us. We had a long road ahead with no time like the present to start the process. Crying about the past and what had occurred was not going to help. We had to get through what had happened somehow. It was right in front of us and working would put us in the right frame of mind.
As I think about crisis this morning, this is the immediate lesson I learned. We cannot see purpose while we are in the middle of a situation. We cannot see or feel the future right after an event, however, the sooner we can reach deep within to be inspired by something greater than ourselves, the sooner we move forward, finding meaning where we previously found only despair.
In the face of enormous tragedy, we feel powerless, powerless over events and circumstances and every other element of our lives. But we do have one power – that is the power to turn our thinking to a power greater than ourselves. May you center in this power if crisis surrounds you.

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