Deprecated: Assigning the return value of new by reference is deprecated in /home/annapara/public_html/creatingspace/wp-settings.php on line 472

Deprecated: Assigning the return value of new by reference is deprecated in /home/annapara/public_html/creatingspace/wp-settings.php on line 487

Deprecated: Assigning the return value of new by reference is deprecated in /home/annapara/public_html/creatingspace/wp-settings.php on line 494

Deprecated: Assigning the return value of new by reference is deprecated in /home/annapara/public_html/creatingspace/wp-settings.php on line 530

Deprecated: Assigning the return value of new by reference is deprecated in /home/annapara/public_html/creatingspace/wp-includes/cache.php on line 103

Deprecated: Assigning the return value of new by reference is deprecated in /home/annapara/public_html/creatingspace/wp-includes/query.php on line 21

Deprecated: Assigning the return value of new by reference is deprecated in /home/annapara/public_html/creatingspace/wp-includes/theme.php on line 623

What Does it Mean to Thrive?

Published
by
admin
on June 28, 2011
in Newsletters
. 0 Comments
I’ve long known that thriving was more than surviving. It’s easy to tell when you survive - you go on living. As I thought about thriving, I found it more slippery to recognize. I had a feeling, and not the words. There was something about expansion, about lushness, about feeling at peace with one’s self, about doing good and doing well. It took me a while to gather up the ingredients and simmer them down, and now I have this:
To thrive is to live well, with integrity and generosity.
Let’s look at that piece by piece.
To live well: when thriving, life is enjoyable. Everything you need is there, and the moments and days feel good. Sure, there are unpleasant tasks, unavoidable losses, and moments of conflict - yet they all fit within a structure that you have chosen and that holds meaning for you. Much of your time is spent in activities that are enjoyable in themselves and that bring enjoyable results. Or, as Peter Carroll first taught me, wealth is the quality of your experiences. Thriving means having good experiences.
With integrity: when thriving, the still small voice inside each of us is at peace. No amount of money or fame can compensate for feeling that you are out of balance and doing wrong. I believe that we will fall short of thriving whenever we are failing to live according to our own principles. Lack of integrity is a worm gnawing at the heart which can turn any life, no matter how outwardly successful, into quiet desperation. So to thrive, we need to live in integrity.
And generosity: when truly thriving, we have more than enough. We are glad to share our abundance, and we create benefits for the people around us. When we thrive, we improve our community and our world.
That’s it. That’s what it means to thrive. That’s what I want the next economy to bring to everyone.
Agree? Disagree? I’ll be glad to hear your thoughts - simply write to me or comment on the blog atcreatingspace.annaparadox.com.
May you and everyone connected to you thrive!
Anna

Writing Tip

Published
by
admin
on June 28, 2011
in Writing Tips
. 0 Comments
Are you thriving as a writer? Do you enjoy writing and receive what you need from it? Are you writing with integrity? Does your writing overflow to help those around you? If not, how could it?
Take these questions to writing and let your writing lead you to the answers it needs.

How to Detect Blindspots

Published
by
admin
on May 31, 2011
in Newsletters
. 0 Comments
Has this ever happened to you?
You’re driving an unfamiliar vehicle down the freeway. Your mirrors are clear, so you go to change lanes. Half-engaged in the move already, you take a glance out the window, and discover a car only inches from your fender. Heart pounding, you pull back into your original lane.
You didn’t know that you didn’t know there was a car there. This is startling twice - once because of the near miss and once because what you thought you knew - that the lane was empty - was wrong.
There is more knowledge in this world than any one person can contain. So it’s natural for us to have blindspots. For example, I still discover words I haven’t heard before. Recently, I heard the name of a science completely new to me - and I’ve already forgotten its name. It’s fine not to know everything.
However, if there is something you really want - that many people have - and you believe you can’t have it, that strongly suggests a blindspot. Look at statements like these:
I can’t be happy.
I can’t find love.
I can’t make a living.
I can’t forgive myself.
I can’t make a difference.
I can’t lose weight.
I can’t stop smoking.
I can’t be creative.
Each one of these statements is a wall that creates a blindspot.
So how do you see into these blindspots?
First, be aware that they may exist. That is how you keep from being startled by discovering something that you didn’t know that you didn’t know. Second, try gaining a different perspective. Some methods that work are journaling about the area, inquiry through The Work of Byron Katie, or hiring a coach.
I am a long ways from knowing everything. Yet just by standing in a different place, I see things from another angle. If you are stuck, give me a call, and let’s see if I can help you.
We learned to see what was important in the current economy. The next economy will develop in different places. To thrive as the economy changes, we will need to find our blindspots and look inside them.
May your eyes open to new possibilities and new opportunities.
Best wishes,
Anna

A Journaling Opportunity

Published
by
admin
on May 31, 2011
in Writing Tips
. 0 Comments
Over at www.ralphwaldoemerson.me, the team from the Domino Project has started a 30 day journaling project. This is an excellent way to:

Know yourself better.

Improve your writing skills.

Illuminate some of your blindspots.

If you join, you will receive a writing prompt for each of the next 30 days. I’ve already started. You can see what I’d find most important to say if I had 15 minutes left to live at my personal blog,www.paradoxworld.blogspot.com.

So Then What?

Published
by
admin
on May 17, 2011
in Newsletters
. 0 Comments

I have a confession to make. It’s bizarre, and uncommon, especially in this society, but here it is:

Money doesn’t motivate me.

I just really can’t drive myself to do anything by thinking about the money it would make.

I do like money. It’s fun to think about what I would do if I suddenly had a lot of it. It pleases me to be able to pay my bills and bring home groceries and spend a little of the old do-re-mi on something fun for myself. It seems right to me that my time and effort be repaid in income - it’s respectful and makes me part of the great flow that keeps our economy moving.

Yet, when I do think about what I’d do if I had a million dollar windfall - after I cleaned up some messes and redid the kitchen and helped some people and took a really great trip - my imagination only covers a year or so. That’s about how long the management of that money would hold my attention.

So then what? Then I’d be back to looking for great projects to work on and great people to work with, pretty much the same as I do now. My life might be a little easier and a little more luxurious, and maybe the extra funds would let me do something that had more meaning for me. And maybe not.

It’s not the money of itself that would give me more of what I really want. So the prospect of money doesn’t add any spring to my step. What I want is meaning. When I write good words or coach clients through their stuck points, I have a lasting sense of accomplishment. The money, on the other hand, gives me no lasting pleasure. When it comes, it leaves me looking for the next thing.

What are you trying to create, or earn, or win? Imagine you have it. So then what?

If what comes after your goal won’t satisfy you, maybe it’s time for another goal.

May the world be better for your existence.

Anna

The Road Goes Ever Onward

My work is helping people change. So it’s natural enough that I change myself. In a new dramatic development, I have decided to go to graduate school. I can better help people thrive in the next economy if I know more about it. So I will be studying economics and using my thesis to test some ideas that can help. I am really looking forward to it. My plan is to continue to reserve three hours a week for coaching. This means current clients have priority, and I will fit in new clients as I can.

Small Steps

Published
by
admin
on May 17, 2011
in Small Steps
. 0 Comments
“That’s one small step for [a] man, one giant leap for mankind.”
Neil Armstrong, as he placed the first footprint on the Moon.

This issue’s Small Step for Space:  Stop to appreciate the space station.

How many generations of humans have looked up at the stars? Now we can see our own artifacts flying above us. It takes only a few minutes for the International Space Station (ISS) to pass overhead. It’s a great time to pause, watch the sky, and appreciate how much more is possible now than ever before. There are a number of ways to find out when to view the ISS. Check out these websites:

http://spaceflight.nasa.gov/realdata/sightings/ - the official NASA site (a little confusing but very accurate)

http://www.heavens-above.com - 10-day predictions, multiple locations (tell your friends in another state when to look up)

http://www.n2yo.com/ - real-time display of ISS and Shuttle ground track

Or try these iPhone apps: ISSLite or Satellite Tracker

You can also follow @twisst on Twitter to receive alerts for good viewings.

Isn’t it neat to live in the future?

Book Recommendation

Published
by
admin
on May 17, 2011
in Book Reviews
. 0 Comments

Wyrmhole by Jay Caselberg

This is a noir mystery featuring a psychic dream detective. He lives in The Locality, a city on an alien planet that eats its own tail. I liked the voice and world-building of this book. It’s full of glittering surfaces and corrupt undersides, with a determined, weary hero at the center. I enjoyed spending time with the characters and was eager to see what would happen next. I’m very likely to read the following books in the series, too.

Wear Purple Now

Published
by
admin
on April 19, 2011
in Newsletters
. 0 Comments
Do you remember this:
“When I am an old woman, I shall wear purple with a red hat…” For a while, I was seeing this poem by Jenny Joseph everywhere. It’s called Warning, and it is often quoted just in part. I looked it up today, and was pleased to find these last lines:
“But maybe I ought to practice a little now?
So people who know me are not too shocked and surprised
When suddenly I am old, and start to wear purple.”
Yes! Absolutely! Wear purple now and be free to be yourself.
I investigated further. This poem was first published in 1961 - in many ways, more part of the conformist 50’s than the countercultural 60’s. The Balkan Spring - which has similarities to the current wave of democratic demonstrations in the Middle East - was still to come in 1968, and the Iron Curtain would not fall until 1989 - 21 years later.
Will that pattern repeat itself: self-expression leading to demonstrations leading to governmental change two decades later?
I do not know. What I do know is that the daring it takes to wear purple is good practice for daring to do something more important.
Dare. Today.
If you’d like to see the entire poem, it is available here:
It stirs up thought and feelings, and that is what a good poem should do.
May you dare to live what is true for you.
Anna

Book Recommendation

Published
by
admin
on April 19, 2011
in Book Reviews
. 0 Comments

This book surprised me by being very well-written and suspenseful. I expected it to be a radical book in its politics and vision of the future. It adds good plotting and good characterization to that. The story takes place in 2050. The Bay Area is home to a peaceful, ecological, socially flexible society - and it is under attack from the remainder of the United States, now governed by a regime that considers both the earth and the human body to be evil. This makes the book sound like it could easily be more of a rant than a story - Starhawk avoids that by carefully drawing the people involved, and showing their day to day lives in a time of conflict, rather than having them tell us their philosophy. I enjoyed it very much.

Stars and Systems

Published
by
admin
on March 1, 2011
in Newsletters
. 0 Comments
You are a star. You are a radiant source of energy, choice, and creation. In the fires of your heart, one element becomes another, and you send new light into the world.
You may well pay a lot more attention to the system you live in than your nature as a star. There are the orbits you follow, the other gravities you experience. It may seem that you have followed the same path for eternity, repeating the cycle of your system over and over again, and that coasting along that line of least resistance is all there is to do.
In times of great change (and ours is one), stars fare better than systems. A star takes what comes at it, adapts, and continues to shine. A system counts on everything remaining the same. When new bodies pass through, a system begins to wobble. When other stars begin to move, the old orbits don’t work any more. Systems fall apart when the constellations they are based on change.
Our world is changing. In a way, it is the systems we have built that foster the change that undermines them. Our market rewards innovation. New products and new ways of doing business make old models irrelevant, outdated, unable to compete - like online distribution of MP3s making big retail outlets for CDs obsolete. When a system does something really well, in large volume, for a long time, what was originally a small and unnoticeably minimal side effect can grow to be a major problem - like air pollution in cities that have large numbers of gas-burning engines.
We often try to adjust the system. We add catalytic converters to cars, and additives to fuel, and refine the fuel to burn cleaner, and improve engine efficiency, and institute carpooling lanes, and recommend against driving when the smog is too heavy. We create regulations to try to solve the problems, and incentives to change behavior, and empower police to enforce the regulations, and create taxes to pay for the enforcement of the regulations. In the end, we have a huge superstructure built upon what was originally a simple idea.
Sometimes, it’s easier just to start over. Stop struggling to clean up the bad results of a dirty energy source and begin using something cleaner.
You are the star, and not the system. If whatever system you are attached to is falling apart, if it no longer makes sense, you can fight to fix it - or you can choose another course. It is hard to choose - and it becomes harder and harder to hold together a system whose foundation is crumbling.
If you have forgotten your nature as a star, and are in pain because the systems you followed are perturbed, please call me. One of the most rewarding aspects of my work as a life coach is helping people rediscover their starhood and let go of the systems that no longer serve them.
May you experience your ability to adapt and choose as the radiant freedom of a star.
Best wishes,
Anna