Wide Awake Living Newsletter

by Alice Gardner

Heart Centered Holidays

In these tumultuous economic times, it seems to me that we are being invited to do something very different this year from the standard American materialistic holiday season.

Perhaps I am speaking to the choir here! Perhaps the question of what can we give others that really comes from the heart has been asked so long that no new answers are forthcoming? It can sometimes be hard to know how to truly assist or inspire others with our gifts, even if we have all of the right intentions. It can sometimes be hard to resist the materialistic focus of our culture, even when we know for sure that material things are not what can satisfy us or our loved ones. We have been submerged in a very materialistic culture and being different is not easy.

I would like to invite us, in this holiday season of economic "collapse", to use these times to collectively be different. With the help of the times, we are supported in the choice to over-rule the internal demands that tie our ability to give to our ability to purchase objects and services.

We have known all along, have we not, that the most powerful inspirational act that we can give others is that of modeling a way of living that reflects the truth of who we are. We can choose this, rather than making holiday choices that reflect the outmoded cultural edicts that we are in the process of outgrowing. This is not to say that we do not give other people things as gifts. We simply do not attach the importance of the gift to its materiality. We have something far more valuable to offer.

When we are able to model for others the peace that passes understanding, the peace that is here even when the world is topsy-turvy, then we are giving them the gift of choosing to center their lives in that stability also.

The material gift that I personally have to offer this holiday season is the book that was published about a year ago: Life Beyond Belief, Everyday Living as Spiritual Practice. It's physical-ness makes it possible to give it to others, and by doing so we are encouraging others to realize this evolutionary step in human development for themselves. I am only special in the way that we all are, and this description of my experience can hopefully bring home this possibility for all of us.

Remembering that our own examples are the most powerful, I want to also point out that there are many other wonderful books, CDs etc available through which we can invite greater numbers of people during this unique holiday season into this evolutionary shift in consciousness. Many of them are listed on my "Recommended Reading" page of the Wide Awake Living website. There are also many others not listed there. I have not been keeping up with my own reading. I'm writing again.

The next book is about using these tumultuous times as an opportunity re-unite with who we really are, and then to know what life requires of us from there. Tentative working title: Turbulent Times as a Wake-Up Call, New Possibilities for Fulfillment and Peace. I am working full time again at Stanford Med School, so am writing in the early mornings as best I can. It feels like what life requires of me right now, to put this message out simply and clearly.

Please consider my first and very personal book Life Beyond Belief, Everyday Living as Spiritual Practice for your own Holiday inspiration and that of your friends and family. I will see if I can have the next one out for next year.

Transformational

Leadership in

American Life

There has been a lot of interesting leadership material coming out of the business community over the last decades. I will do a gross summation by saying that as organizations have realized their most valuable assets to be the creativity and loyalty of empowered employees, the art of business management has deepened from the mechanics of correct administration to the art of individual empowerment, fulfillment and the fascinating question of what is involved in transformational leadership.

Tranformational leadership can be said to be the ability to allow organizations to move in quantum leaps as the changing world demands, rather than in incremental and survival-based steps.

Companies that have floundered in survival and greed seem to be falling all around us at the moment and proving once again the need for a new way of doing business with each other. How interesting that insight is coming out of a business community currently demonstrating the collective repercussions of following ego's ambitions and fears.

Yet embracing the business community's learning about transformational leadership in the political arena at this time could well offer new ways of understanding our national challenges and help restore a sense of collective possibility. The stage is set for a transformational leap on a national scale by the collapse of the reigning ideology and the subsequent don't-know-mind that such an event opens.

Could it be that the rule of the mind-made self is coming to its end in exactly these times? As our incredibly interconnected world presses on each person's sensibilities day after day, year after year, can we feel a natural relaxing of the firm boundaries of the ego which would draw a circle around itself making all else "other" and dangerous? Can we notice a larger identity already present? Can we relax our preconceived notions about how life works and what is going on long enough to see with new eyes? Perhaps the possibilities for our lives are something far greater than we had thought!

A notable quote from Barack Obama: "The true test of the American ideal is whether we're able to recognize our failings and then rise together to meet the challenges of our time." Our mind-made-selves and their fear and greed are failing us. This rising together Obama talks about is one way of expressing what is possible now. In order to allow this rising to occur, we each do our part when we internally relax or just turn our attention away from our stale thinking, our outworn survival mechanisms and petty divisions and make room for transformation to occur in each of our individual lives. This is simply life giving us a chance to move beyond old perspectives and see the world freshly. Then we will know to take action or not, each within our capacity, not just for our own personal advantage or that of the causes we believe in, but for the collective well-being of all life. Then leadership will be coming from within, and our collective energies will power a rising beyond anything our new President could imagine.

© 2008 Alice Gardner

If you wish to explore these subjects further you are most welcome to visit the Wide Awake Living website and blog, and/or to consider purchasing my book at Amazon.

Alice

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