Last night the full moon shone a slanting light
across my winter garden
where two deer lay sleeping
under the leafless apple tree
whose arthritic arms beamed wands of light
through the twitching caverns
of their dreams
while I, too restless to dream
climbed the vanilla mast of my bed
and sailed out to the curved elbow
of the far horizon whose There
hauled me home
without apology
“And the soul is up on the roof
in her nightdress, straddling the ridge,
singing a song about the wildness of the sea
until the first rip of pink appears in the sky.”
–Billy Collins, from The Night House
Please welcome my brilliant friend Jennifer Lee, bestselling author of The Right Brain Business Plan — a book I recommend regularly to my clients and students — who has written today’s guest post. She is also the creative force behind the 2nd annual Right Brainers in Business Video Summit, which began this week with a presentation by Mark Silver, and continues through March 9th with a host of wise and wonderful presenters. Her interview with me airs on the video summit tomorrow, March 2nd, as we riff on spirituality in business. I am honored to have her here on my blog.
I recently had the pleasure of interviewing the wise and wonderful Hiro Boga for my Right-Brainers in Business Video Summit that is going on now. You can catch Hiro on Friday, March 2nd as she talks with us about Spirituality in Business and how to bring all of you into your work. (Spoiler alert: I had to break out the tissues because I was so moved by what she shared!)
In my discussion with Hiro and my experience of her presence, I was reminded how important it is to come from a place of wholeness and integration in life and in business.
I’m guessing as a creative and spiritual entrepreneur, you may lean more to your right-brain tendencies – emotion, creativity, visuals, color, meaning, and intuition. You may not feel as comfortable with the more “left-brain” details like structure, data, logic, analysis, and numbers.
And yet to be a successful entrepreneur and to live a full, rich life, we aim for wholeness. It’s helpful to have both sides of our brain get along together and to know how to seamless integrate the two.
Below is a right-brain / left-brain assessment that can help you determine your natural tendencies in your business and where you might want to put some additional focus.
Rate each of the following statements on a scale of 1-5. Five means you completely agree and one means you completely disagree.
Left-Brain mind and matter meter:
· I have a plan of action.
· I know my numbers.
· I have information and data to help me track my progress.
· I’ve asked myself the tough questions.
· I’m taking action in the real work, not just living in my imagination.
Right-Brain heart and soul meter:
· I find meaning in my work.
· I’m emotionally connected to my work and I’m excited about what I do.
· My business is aligned with my values.
· My business allows me to express my creative vision.
· I’m connecting with other people in a meaningful way.
Once you finish rating the statements do some reflection. Are you surprised by your responses? Where might you choose to put your attention now?
Check in with yourself and see which of the lower scoring statements intuitively calls to you. Maybe it’s an area you’ve continually struggled with. Or perhaps it’s a place you want to dig deeper. Ask yourself, what would a 5 look like? Imagine what it would feel like to completely and utterly agree with the statement. How would your business be different? How would you be showing up differently in your business (and life)? What would need to happen to move from your current rating to a 5 or even just one score higher than you are now? Is there someone you can ask for support or guidance? Identify one small step you can take today to move the needle up.
If you’re not where you want to be yet, please show yourself plenty of compassion. Being a creative entrepreneur is very much a personal growth journey and every twist and turn along your path is full of valuable learning.
Next see which of the higher scoring statements intuitively calls to you. What does it feel like to be in agreement with that statement? What does it say about you and the work you’ve been doing? My guess is that there’s probably something – whether big or small – to celebrate here, so make sure to acknowledge your gifts and progress. Give yourself a big pat on the back! And ask yourself what can you continue doing and how can you build on those strengths?
Now, if you were to invite in even more abundance, imagine what would be possible if you agreed with that statement at a 10? What would be different for you and your business? Allow yourself to really dream big here and see what that opens up for you. Identify one small step you can take today to move toward that vision.
I invite you to check in with these left and right brain assessments periodically to see where you want to focus your time and energy to be most effective and fulfilled in your creative and spiritual business. And feel free to add your own statements that work for you on your entrepreneurial journey.
For a colorful and fun illustrated version of these assessments, you can download free play sheets from my book The Right-Brain Business Plan. And please come to our virtual meeting of the minds (both left and right sides) at the Right-Brainers in Business Video Summit.
Jennifer Lee is the founder of Artizen Coaching and the award-winning author of The Right-Brain Business Plan. Her bestselling book has helped thousands of entrepreneurs around the world grow their businesses authentically and creatively. Join her live for free at her 2nd annual Right-Brainers in Business Video Summit now through March 9th. You can find her on Twitter at @artizencoaching.
My friend Melanie celebrated her 19th birthday, this month. Melanie has cerebral palsy. For much of her life, her mother has cared for her at home with the help of a series of caregivers who feed her, bathe her, change her, carry her from bed to wheelchair to bath and back.
In 19 years, Melanie hasn’t spoken a single word. She cannot hold up her head, or hold a spoon with her hands. She is petite, with bird-bone wrists and slender fingers. When she smiles, I see her grandmother and mother in the twist of her mouth, in the tiny wrinkles in her forehead.
Melanie doesn’t speak. Yet her ability to create through the power of relationship is astonishing. And her communication skills are exquisitely sophisticated. She communicates in images and feeling states. Much the way Devas communicate, she shares a portion of her vibrational field with me so that, for the duration of our “conversation”, I experience the world as she does.
“Slow down!” I’ve said to her, more than once. “You’re going too fast – I’m missing half of what you show me.” Listening to her is, in some ways, like listening to someone speak a foreign language; one which I understand but in which I am not fluent. It takes effort. It can be exhausting. And exhilarating.
She uses capacities that all of us have as seeds or potentials within us, because they are capacities of our soul. Yet most of us haven’t developed the kind of skill and sophistication that Melanie has. Her skill with energy technologies offers a glimpse of our species’ future – she embodies potentials that the rest of us are still blundering toward with the clumsiness of toddlers.
Since she doesn’t use language in the ways we do – either to obscure or to illuminate – her presence is her message. The qualities of her being are highly refined, distilled, intensified by her lack of speech. In her presence, you feel what she’s feeling; you experience her inner state without veils, projections or hidden agendas.
The flipside of Melanie’s sophistication with subtle energies is her sensitivity to her environment. Her energy field is diffuse, her boundaries transparent. She feels whatever the people around her are feeling, and any incoherency, turbulence or lack of integration in her environment can be intensely painful for her.
Being highly sensitive myself, I understand something of what this means for her on a day to day basis. Engaging with other people can be exhausting or healing, depending on their inner state. Increasingly, she creates people and situations around her that support qualities of peace and comfort, love and delight. Her newest caregiver has a young family — small children who adore Melanie and play happily with and around her.
She is patient with the gap between her reality and theirs. She is patient with herself, with her always-painful body. Her perspective is both more immediate and more spacious than most of us can manage. She inhabits a different part of the continuum of being than many of us – without the intervening skins and masks that bind and protect us.
It’s a courageous way to live. The power of perfect vulnerability.
February has been a month of new construction. The house of my business is growing, and I’m adding rooms, creating spaces in which it can continue to flourish.
When my kids were young, their friends were small too. So a weekend sleepover would mean I’d stumble over a pile of eight or ten little boys in pajamas snoring happily on the floor of our family room on a Sunday morning.
Now, my boys are young men with wives and families of their own. When they come to visit, they require more than a floor in the family room. They need privacy, and room for suitcases, diaper bags and sippy cups. My house fills up with baby car-seats, stuffed toys, and cots that double as playpens.
The needs of my family have changed. And my home has changed to meet those needs. My new house is more spacious, differently configured than the one in which my boys grew up. Yet it serves and supports the qualities I have always cherished: Beauty, freedom, organic order. Inclusiveness, sovereignty, play. Belonging, hospitality, generosity. Humor, openness, curiosity, adventure.
Your business is a growing, evolving being. Its needs and its relationships change over time. And the house of your business will need renovation, expansion and renewal to support those changes.
The challenge is to shape a structure that is just the right size, shape and fit, so it meets the needs of your business now; is strong enough to hold those qualities that are essential to your business; and is flexible enough to grow with you.
If the house of your business is too big for your needs, you will stagger around burdened by the weight it. It will drain your energy and resources, instead of supporting the life that you want to live.
If the house of your business is too small, it won’t give you enough support and structure so you can flourish with ease. Without the right kind of support, you spend your time and energy on things that don’t serve you or the evolution of your business.
For me, finding the right fit has meant moving the administration of my business from an independent VA to a full-service agency. Reconfiguring my schedule so I have time to build infrastructure, nurture relationships and research, write and create new programs.
It has meant revisiting all aspects of my business to see if they continue to support those values that are essential to my work and my life – generosity, integrity, service, devotion, prosperity, beauty, and truth.
Each wing added to the house of my business also requires a stronger, deeper foundation to support it. And that foundation rests on daily practices of inner connection and attunement to wholeness.
To grow your business, you must also grow yourself — you must become the person whose life includes the evolving shape and form of your business.
Like all growth, this happens on both inner and outer levels: Through inner practices of meditation and reflection, energy alchemy, blessing, and communion with the Sacred. And in the crucible of those relationships, choices and actions that shape your daily life.
The work of growing a business takes place first in the realm of spirit, soul, and subtle energy. This inner work is then woven into the basket of relationships, energies and structures in the 3-dimensional world that support your business and make it a living reality.
Success in business is the result of skillfully weaving together soul and structure; inner and outer work; business and essence.
The technologies and skills of energy alchemy are ancient. The practice of business is newer, but also has a noble lineage. As a conscious, creative entrepreneur, mastering these skills can help you grow your business in alignment with your heart, your values and your vision — while bringing you the prosperity you need to support your life and that of your family and community.
Having taught energy alchemy practices and programs for over thirty years, I’m delighted to announce that registration for the fifth session of my evolutionary program, Become Your Own Business Adviser, will open next Monday, February 27th at 9 am.
If you would like to learn more about how energy alchemy can help you grow your business, please join me for a no-cost preview teleclass on Wednesday, March 7th. We’ll meet for an hour to talk about how to Become Your Own Business Adviser: an Introduction to Energy Alchemy. You’ll find program details and call registration here.
Here’s a question from one of the participants in last fall’s session of Become Your Own Business Adviser, which I respond to, in this post. It’s an issue that comes up often, in online business circles.
If you struggle with shiny object syndrome, you may find it useful to explore the soul roots of restlessness and longing, and give these sacred prompts a voice and a place in your life.
Q: I am recognizing and desiring to shift a pattern of mine that I’ve been aware of for quite a while. One in which I get “really excited about something”, think it is the absolute perfect next step for me, jump in, but instead of diving really deeply and staying there I’m in and out and off to the next thing.
A: The pattern you describe — of being called by your soul to a particular work, and then promptly getting distracted, looking for the next shiny thing out there — is painful, when you stop long enough to feel the hunger and anxiety that drives it.
And, if you go deeper still, you’ll find the flow of your incarnation, the pattern your soul came here to express and experience, moving underground, calling you to participate in its emergence.
Deep Desire is the call of the Sacred in you, the call of your soul to direct the power of your incarnation into the flow of a particular current or stream.
Structure creates banks for the flow of the river of your life — and it is those banks that lend it power and efficacy.
When you resist structure, you are really resisting your Divinely human power to create and manifest.
Since the focus of this program is conscious manifestation as a sacred process, it’s inevitable that your patterns and pictures around this will rise to the surface.
Transformation is not incremental change. It is radical, in the sense that it changes patterns at their roots.
So when you engage with a program such as this one, which brings you back to your own power and to your ability to transform your life and your business in radical ways, then everything within you that is invested in maintaining the status quo — your programming, pictures, beliefs, fears, agreements and so on — will rise up in whatever way it can, to keep you where it believes you will be safe.
Thank you for recognizing the pattern, being willing to explore it and work with it, and for re-committing yourself to the process.
Structure is the ground beneath your feet. It creates safety, stability, boundaries, and most importantly, forms that shape the raw, creative power of Flow into something that can contribute to your life and the life of the world.
Ultimately, this program and everything it offers is a response to your question. If you commit to a specific time each day – as little as 20 or 30 minutes – to do the work and to engage with the course materials, the exercises here will help you dissolve resistance, heal your relationship with your soul and with structure, and bring your dreams to fruition.
Use the class forums to ask for what you need — accountability partners, someone to check in with you — and share your discoveries and insights with us. This will help anchor your intention in concrete action, mobilize your allies, and we will celebrate each step with you, as you commit to the work and experience where it takes you.
If you have a question you would like me to answer on the blog, please send it to my assistant, amanda @ hiroboga . com.
Your questions can be about anything that’s on your mind right now. Some of the issues that recur for creative entrepreneurs are:
– among other things.
If you’d like to learn energy alchemy tools for growing your business in powerful, sustainable ways, please join me for a no-cost, preview teleclass for Become Your Own Business Adviser, on Wednesday, March 7th at 5 pm Pacific Time. Details and registration here.
On this foggy February morning, the sea and sky outside my window blend into layered swaths of gray. The horizon has disappeared, and the mountains that rim it hold their breath in the mist, blindly awaiting its return.
Some days, the world of my business feels this way too. I know the horizon is there, but I cannot see it.
Yet I know the familiar world will reappear in time — the clouds will lift, the sun will emerge. The sea will leap and embrace the rocky shore in fronds of foam. Gulls and eagles will ride the wind. The dance of sea and sky, the unflinching rim of the horizon, will be visible once more.
What keeps me — or you, or any of us — from panicking when fog blots out the known world?
Experience, of course. We know that these Northwest mists obscure without fundamentally altering the bones of the landscape.
But I remember waking up one morning when I was five years old, and walking out in my pyjamas into a world dissolved in fog. Oh, the magic of it! Its soft, cold whiteness. Its mysterious power to restore the world to its true, invisible majesty.
I ran out into the fog that morning, my whole body blazing with delight. Arms flung wide. Embracing cloud, tasting its sweetness on my tongue.
How did I know it was friendly? That we belonged together, fog and I, sisters sharing a delicious secret?
There is a knowing we are born with. Until it dissolves into the doubts and certainties, the hissing neon grids of belief and opinion that blind us to what we know, more surely than fog blankets the horizon.
That inner knowing keeps me sure-footed, walking the tideline of my business with confidence even when I can’t see the ground under my feet.
In April, I will teach the fifth session of my three-month program, Become Your Own Business Adviser.
A 12-week journey back to belonging, back to a world re-enchanted — its hidden meanings and inner connections revealed.
A pathway home to what you’ve known all along, and may have forgotten, lost or misplaced — your own inner genius, and the relationships that nurture and cradle its becoming.
Rediscover your intimate relationship with visible and invisible worlds.
Restore your unerring knowledge of wholeness, and the ways of wholeness.
Re-claim the relationships through which you shape your world and the world of your business, with the ease that emerges from wholeness.
It’s a journey of exploration and discovery. Of discovering who you are, beyond the stories spit out by the crackling neon grid.
Embrace the soul of your business, its beauty, joy and purpose. Touch that tender place of friendship and belonging, where you and the soul of your business are sisters — unique and individual, yet kin to each other.
Deepen your relationship.
Discover what the two of you are here to create together. Anchor your intimate desire in clear intention, alignment and action.
Want to know more? Join me for a free preview call on Wednesday, March 7th at 5 pm Pacific Time.
Read more about the program, and register for the preview call, here.
And read what folks who have taken the program say about it, here.
1.
Empty of sight you gave yourself away
to those
who were blind to your gift–
as you were. You.
They devoured your sweet juices,
spit out the pith and rind of you
as you did. You.
2.
Years went by. Watchful, rind-thick, rind-bitter,
you cradled the memory of your treasure—
buried it
in a mountain cave
guarded by the stench of dragon breath.
You did. You.
3.
Your sweet citrus selves, deprived
of light, of air
shriveled, curled their pithy threads
around your dwindling heart.
In your dank cave, you dreamed of orange groves—
the sun-drenched country of your becoming.
4.
Now, on this dappled mountainside
you’ve built your home.
Windows open wide to a curved horizon.
Skylights, for visiting stars and spilled constellations.
A floor and walls of hand-rubbed stone.
You made this. You.
5.
Strangers sometimes climb the rocky path
to your front door.
You welcome them with cool water,
oranges in a blue clay bowl.
You do not give yourself away.
You do not withhold.
6.
You know this, now. You were always
yours to give.
Yours, and more than yours—
to take, to bury
to hold, nourish, offer, radiate.
What are the ways in which you’ve given yourself away?
How do you hold yourself so you can offer your gifts without depleting yourself?
To learn how to be present, and creatively sovereign, please join me for How to Rule Your World from the Inside Out, starting February 6th. You can listen to a recording of the free preview call here.
This.
This log boom gliding silently
on pewter waves
tethered umbilically to a single
tug.
Squat, snub-nosed, face only a mother
could love–
This small bundle of muscle
and will
pulls a once-upon-a-time forest effortlessly–
a loggy wake.
O, the power of purposeful alignment!
The power of faithful service
hauling a forest
home.
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