my wish for you:
to express your self
wholly, fluently, powerfully
your spirit in concert with your knowing
echoing through your business
reverberating in every line
in every word
a humming thrumming beat
that calls your own heart
and the hearts of your people
to dare
to open
to connect

I was pulling together some pages about my new mentoring offer, and I wanted to open with a few lines that captured the power of having a  juicy, nourishing relationship with your business writing.

But, what I wanted to say felt too… something. Too layered, too big.

I kept gently tugging at the thread of the thought during the day, putting down a line here and a line there, until something softened inside, and I decided to allow it to be too layered, too big, just for now.

I opened. And this poem unravelled. (I’m going to use it precisely as is, in my mentoring invitation.)

What could unravel through you, if you allowed and opened—if you let your soul speak?

When we look to someone remarkable (and remarkable comes in a million different colours), why do we spend so much time studying where they put their feet instead of following their gaze to the wide-open sky?

…inspiration only dies down because the theoreticians… begin to dissect, analyze and then codify into rules what yesterday’s great artists did freely from their true selves.

~ Brenda Ueland, If You Want to Write:
A Book About Art, Independence & Spirit

]]> http://rebecca-leigh.com/chase-inspiration/feed/ 0 http://rebecca-leigh.com/problem-with-systems/ http://rebecca-leigh.com/problem-with-systems/#comments Tue, 06 Dec 2011 10:07:43 +0000 Rebecca Leigh http://rebecca-leigh.com/?p=1205

I’m realising that when I’m feeling completely mired in a system problem—thinking I need a new or better system to make something work—what I really need is to interact with the assumptions and feelings beneath the surface of the ‘problem’.

When underlying assumptions and feelings are cleared, a simple, sufficient system often becomes apparent. (Many times, once I’ve stopped thrashing, I realise I don’t actually need a new or different system at all.)

Bonus questions: Am I struggling because I’m attempting to enforce a fixed system that requires me, or the conditions, to be ‘perfect’? If a system could arise from exactly the way I am, in the current conditions, what would that look like?

A reminder to myself from my notebook:

Who Says

you have to do it that way?
you’re not good enough?
you can’t say what you believe?
your feelings are wrong?

Who is saying that?
Who has the power to say that?

Nobody.
(But you.)

Now, pause for a moment, and notice any difference.

My yoga teacher says this frequently. As we shift our pose from left to right. Or at the end of a sequence.

In the beginning, my mind would rush over this, impatient to get to the next position. Or I would be irritated, unsure of what I was supposed to be noticing and suspecting I wasn’t doing it right.

But slowly, slowly, this gentle invitation has softened into me. I carry it with me out of class and into the world—when I walk up the stairs, when I lie down on the bed, when I sit in the grass.

Pause for a moment, and notice any difference.

Nearly two years later, I receive it as a gift—a breath to come back to my body, my self. Sometimes I notice a difference, other times not so much.

The difference is not the point, the noticing is. And in the noticing, I am different.

Look at strong emotions as a kind of storm… When trees get hit by a storm, the treetops are thrashed around and run the highest risk of being damaged…

The treetops are like your own head, your thinking mind. When a storm comes up in you, get out of the treetop and go down to the trunk for safety. Your roots start at your abdomen, slightly below the navel… Put all your attention on that part of the belly, and breathe deeply.

Don’t think about anything, and you’ll be safe while the storm of emotions is blowing.

~ Thich Nhat Hanh, Peace Is Every Breath