Listening to the heart: What does it even mean? I think, it means to integrate the heart's intelligence with the intelligence of the brain. Listening to our wholeness. How many beats in a lifetime to live my dream, to have known love, loved and love-able. That matters.
Read MoreWe invest vast amounts of resources in maintaining our defenses. We isolate ourselves in the false belief that this will keep us safe. Only belonging gives us safety. Nothing less will do.
Read MoreGratitude as a mindset offers sustainable happiness. It’s not reliant on externals, nor complacent. The happiness it generates is the joy we feel when we move toward our potential. And the joy streaming forth from gratitude cares deeply about the world.
Read MoreWe are not alone in muddling our way through life. We are all important and not important. None of us are flawed nor perfect. All our lives are messy and beautiful at once. We all feel like frauds at times. To know this is a relief. It lifts loneliness. We don't have to take everything so personal. We can be, sigh, just ourselves. We can give ourselves permission to feel good. We can wake up and live radically alive.
Read MoreTo know our home ever more deeply so we can go out in the world ever more effectively. To open our hearts without breaking, trusting that we are far more capable than we think we are. To show up, again and again. It takes tremendous courage and wisdom. It is real impact.
Read MoreComing home and giving myself permission to drop into authenticity, a natural way of being that is whole, is something I am learning over and over again. Receiving the energies that are around me and trust that they give me meaning, for deep impact for good, a voice. A relentless journey, and beautiful. Just some thoughts… This post can also be viewed on https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/receiving-my-life-choice-sophia-v-schweitzer/
Read MoreIt doesn't seem easy to stay right where we are in the purity and togetherness of who we are. It doesn't seem easy to listen with presence when job demands and targets stare at us, when performance is at stake, when we spent our days running from crisis to crisis. To develop deep empathy. And what if it were easy, anyways? What if we gave ourselves permission to listen to each other just a bit longer. What if we could slow down just long enough to connect? What if we get to be real?
Read MoreNeed is about survival. Want comes from the head. Desire comes from the heart. We can see what happens when we experiment with choice and precision in language. We can give these three simple words their truth when we speak. Desire can become a force for good. Want a privilege. And need a basic that we as humans all share and are worthy of.
Read MoreWhen we as leaders burn out, we become less luminous, misaligned. Disconnected. Isolated. Separated, within and without. The flip-side? The natural rhythms of our energy know how to dance with the fire. We can learn to reconnect, reunite, and create a map into renewal. We can learn to manage our energy fully and completely, like top athletes. We can practice the art of receiving. We can open our hearts to self compassion. The world has a harsh need to shape us to its liking. But this is your life, your energy, your unique rhythm in the world. You can reconnect over and over to the center of your fire so that you be, in Rilke’s words, “ever again the wave sweeping through all things.”
Read MoreWhat exactly is networking, what do we do, how do we behave? Something at the core of real networking connects us to our shared humanity. Networking is perhaps nothing more but the quiet, contemplative art of crafting with others a web that holds the luminescence of empty space and nurtures the health of relationship. Networking in spaciousness is never about me and always about we. We belong. I don’t need anything in the circle of this net. We help each other.
Read MoreOur loneliness has long served as a message that we need community to thrive. Belonging is who we have become. To feel the warmth of bonding and the rhythm of our heart is to be human. We cannot ever solve loneliness by turning to external validation, though. We cannot belong from a place of lack. We cannot belong without true kindness. The big paradox then: To feel less lonely, we actually, first of all, need to hang out a little more with ourselves: Alone. And from the space of all-oneness, kind with ourselves, we can create community.
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