Conscious What??

Some up and coming business people promote Conscious Entrepreneurialism; there’s conscious living, conscious business, conscious eating, conscious parenting.  But what does it all mean?  What’s at the heart of living a conscious life?

Believe it or not, conscious living is not the opposite of unconscious living – not exactly anyway.  In western culture we are conditioned to make decisions on just about everything based on how logical or smart something is.  We are celebrated for our ability to reason out a problem and come up with a logical solution.  And we are commonly “poo-pooed” for making a decision based on our feelings or intuition.

When we live consciously, we don’t abandon logic for intuition, but we do combine them.  That means, sometimes our decisions don’t appear to make sense.  For example, when my kids were little and everyone else was teaching their kids about stranger danger, I was encouraging my kids to say, “Hello” to the elderly man in the grocery line AS LONG AS it felt appropriate.  We would enter all kinds of situations where I would ask them how the person or the situation felt.  When it felt good, safe and nurturing I would encourage them to say, “Hello.”  If it felt yucky, threatening, hateful or scary – we left and they were told that that is the kind of energy to run from.  Some parents got very upset that I wasn’t teaching what made sense to them in a frightening world, but my heart and mind were in alignment and now I have two children who don’t even go near a friend’s home if it feels “yucky.”  They also have not missed out on opportunities for making new friends because they were allowed to talk to people they didn’t know.

The essence of living consciously is living with intentions and with an open heart.  Your mind may come up with some grand ideas, but those who live consciously run that feeling through their heart to see how it feels.  Most successful people will tell you their fortune came on the wings of a faithful leap.  They took a chance because it felt right, not necessarily because it made sense.  Yes, we can make mistakes, but we make mistakes every day trying to follow a linear thought based path.

If you live consciously then you don’t just eat veggies because you’re supposed to, but you eat beets because you feel you need them.  You don’t just take on a business partner because they have the cash, you bring them on board because your personality melds with theirs creating a powerful feeling.  You don’t just issue any punishment to your child for hurting someone, you teach them with an appropriate response how to deal with the fear that made them act that way and then how to apologize and make it right. 

It’s easier than you may think to live consciously; you’re probably already doing it.  Take a moment right now and assess how this article made you feel.  How does your chair make you feel?  How is the temperature in the room where you are sitting?  Be conscious of how you are feeling in every moment and make decisions about your life from that place.  You’ll find it not only feels good, but it makes sense too!

Advertisement

Read Full Post »

Setting Intentions

I don’t believe in making resolutions at the beginning of  the year for two reasons.  First, I feel like most resolutions come from a place of wanting to correct something I was doing wrong (eating too much, not working out enough, not making enough money, etc.) and I’d rather leave self-judgement out of the picture.  Second, I’m a new person everyday.  If I only make resolutions in January, I am assuming I will know who I am, what I will have accomplished and what I want for the next twelve months.  This is not possible. 

So at the start of every month I make a list of intentions.  These are things that I’d like to do, experience or accomplish.    My intentions are always positive and always lead me to a new phase in my journey instead of trying to correct an old behavior or pattern.  I encourage my children to do the same.  We talk about our intentions, sometimes on a daily basis.  We encourage and support one another in our intentions and we celebrate the successful completion of someone’s intentions.

Here are a few ways to help get the ball rolling in your home.  Set some positive intentions just for the next 2 weeks and see how profoundly your life changes.

1)  Get a notebook or journal for everyone in your family to write their intentions down.  Writing them out helps you remember what is important to you and it let’s you modify your intentions according to how you shift and change.  You can even get a great online journal from www.plumjournals.com if you prefer using a computer.

2) Talk about your intentions regularly.  At breakfast each morning go around the table asking each person what their intentions for the day are and be sure to share your own. Talking about the intention makes it real and you get the support of people who love you.  You are also modeling for your children how to live with intention.

3) Create a vision board with your children.  Take a piece of poster board and glue words, pictures and sayings on it that support your visions and intentions.  Vision boards can, and should, be updated regularly as you accomplish what is already on it and set new intentions.

4)  Participate in a community, either in person or online, that helps support your vision.  You and your children can get accounts on a website like www.intent.com and post your intentions daily, weekly or monthly.

Have fun, and my you experience all of your heart’s intentions this year!

Read Full Post »