DIY Designer Passion

This week, leading up to next week’s show with Bob Doyle, I’ll be looking at passion and how it can be the illumination we’re looking for to light the way ahead.

What is a Passion and How Can You Define Yours?

During the various seasons of our lives, we may try many diverse experiences. Whilst some are nothing more than “passing fancies” or “fashionable fads”, others stay with us for life, their call to our attention, and draw on our affection, never waning.

It’s those lifelong past times, well known as the “humble hobby”, that could well prove to be the glorious golden bricks that lead you to even more gold at the proverbial end of ‘somewhere over the rainbow’.

You may never even have allowed yourself, or had the opportunity to spend any time actually doing your desired activity, but have invested hour after hour, imagining, dreaming and preparing for it.

Find Your Gold

One of the quickest, easiest ways for a lot of people to find their deepest loves, is to recall what they loved doing as kids. This isn’t a fool proof way, but it certainly can be a pretty sound indicator. Since our ‘passions’ seemed to be so inherently part of our DNA and hard wiring, they often appear very early in some form or another.

“The Passion Test”, authored by Chris and Janet Attwood http://www.thepassiontest.com/offer/ptprofile/ is also a fantastic resource.

Even so, I know many people who still feel they have NO IDEA what to do with their lives. It isn’t always because they don’t know what they love doing, but often because they have absolutely NO IDEA (again) how to monetize it. They don’t even see how such a thing is possible, so the mere thought of it doesn’t so much as enter their conscious thinking.

In these instances, a person can literally enter a self imposed obliviousness. That call from within will stay with them, seething as unidentified anger or frustration, or may surface for an odd second when inspired, but if no action is forth coming, will become submerged again in all the clutter and business that make it easier to justify letting it go. Somewhere inside though, we feel the betrayal.

This can lead to what I believe to be the greatest of all tragedies- the tragedy of dying with your song unsung and your vision still in your belly.

Mine Your Gold

If, in that moment of inspiration, some prolonged thought is given, there can be a different outcome. That blackened ember is closer to life than you could possibly imagine. It can be breathed upon and fanned into flame so easily that it will take your breath away! I’ve watched happen over and over again.

Your passion will give you LIFE. It will energise and ignite you. It will leverage any resource you pour into it back untold fold into your being. Tapping into the power of who you are through your passion will connect you to Source faster than a secret hotline to the president, and the more you commit to living true to your deepest passions, the more magic you will see come into your life to help you do so.

The more clearly defined you become about what you really want to do with your life, and the more the method of that is refined through your specific sets of skills, talents and knowledge ( usually able to be linked to your passion), the more amazing the synchronicities you will see enter your reality to help you fulfil those clear intentions.

This is why the single most important question you may ever ask yourself is “What do I Want?”

Not just “what do I want to do?”, but also “who do I wish to be?”, “what would I like to experience?”, “what would I like to give? Or leave as a legacy to future generations? ”

Refine Your Gold

I love doing SOOO many things, and often, I’ve heard people comment on how this could be a blessing, or a curse, because it makes it hard to choose. But going through the process of prioritising those loves certainly makes it clearer. It’s not the mode of expression (singing/writing) that mattered to me near as much as THE MESSAGE.

I took Janet Attwood’s Passion Test 3 years ago, but I had spent so many years pondering my vision for the future, and was so thorough in following the instructions, that the 8-9 pages of information that outlined my Top5 , their ‘markers’ and the details have remained as true as the day I penned them. The only aspect that has ever really changed has been in the area of monetary amounts, as I grew more comfortable with higher thresholds.

Many of the things I listed began to take shape and continued to develop, one of them being to mix with the company of certain well respected high profile people in whose company I wanted to be considered a friend and peer, as well as those who may not be so well known, but are beautiful spiritual souls, in whose company I greatly delight.

I knew I wanted to sing (compose and play), to speak, and to write-on a public scale, and watching these things come to pass has been great fun. These desires coupled with my deeply appreciative love for other Arts practices, became the basis of my content and the source of my empowerment. They led me into greater understandings and made it possible for me to ‘hone’ them for the benefit of others.

I knew I wanted to sing, but I also knew I didn’t want to sing rock in pubs after midnight. I also knew I wasn’t interested so much in cabaret and music theatre, although I enjoyed them a lot. I found my ‘first love’ for singing, my deepest satisfaction in singing about my love for, and connection with, God. After that, I found, whatever I felt passionately about-this is what I wanted to give melodic voice to. That’s also what came out in my songs. Love, intimacy, communion, connection, family, adoration, appreciation, joy, truth, beauty, wisdom and grace. I did this in churches for a LONG time, and loved it, but when I left I didn’t know how to re-shape it. The ‘new’ spiritual awakening has given me a long awaited platform and an appropriate audience.

I tried to be all things. Sing all types of music. I felt like I had to please everyone, and did for a while, feeling a little false because it always felt 2Degrees off MY truth. Like many ‘artistes’, I felt like what I really wanted to do, wasn’t wanted. I was working in places where having people stay and drink mattered more (as it was all about business) than creating an atmosphere for genuine intimacy, which is all about spirituality.

And here’s the thing: There doesn’t have to be a rift between the two. Spiritual prosperity, which comes from living your passion from a pure heart, should also result in monetary reward and physical abundance-sooner or later. One is the physical expression of the other.

Finding out EXACTLY what it is about your passions that you love, will help you to fashion a viable product/service package around it, so that you can dedicate your life to living it, living completely authentically, whilst still being amply supplied with all you need and plenty to share AND staying in love with what you do (plus how you do it).

Alchemical Magic.

Even though I refer to your seeds of passion as ‘gold’, they are, in some ways, more accurately termed the “blackened ember”. As they are reignited and begin to burn hot, the fire in your soul brings refining and purifying, by which process that original base element becomes GOLD.

There is an old Brothers Grimm fairytale of “Rumpelstiltskin”, a dwarf who spun straw into gold, and the way he tried to outwit a young woman of her baby through an exchange made under fearsome circumstances. Cautionary Tales, as they are more accurately termed could be quite cruel, but hidden in their plots were “secret keys” for life and growth and personal wisdom. In such tales, through ‘overcoming’ the adversary, the protagonist assumes the others’ strengths. In this case, the maiden kept her baby, but she also developed into her own ‘alchemic’ version of herself.

So, there may be fire and challenges, depending on the level of resistance you have toward being able to live your dreams through the power of your passions, but they will ALWAYS lead you into you the most pure form of Self.

And THAT is my no.1 passion. That’s what matters to me more than anything.

That’s why I want to live by my passions-because they are literally the meeting and merging place of GOD IN ME where we are fully ONE.

Not only will you have the extreme pleasure and satisfaction of a full expression in life, but you will know how it feels to be a true child of the Universe, co-creator, consciously connected and lover of All-That-Is.

Trust me...you can’t beat that. J

Lisa Shah

“The Passion Coach”

Creator of CTT (Creative Thinking Technology)

DIY Designer Living with CTT Series

Designer Alignment

Hello All! :-)

Hope you all enjoyed wonderful Valentine moments.

I made a very poor quality recording (on my phone) of myself at my gig singing “My Funny Valentine” and sent it to someone very special. Gotta say I love how technology affords such fantastic ‘connectivity’. I LOVE telling people when I think of them, what I feel for them, and somehow sharing a unique NOW with them-involving them in my life in a very present way. It’s an awesome gift!

So…this week I wanted to look at how we can align to, define and refine our Designer Life and how important it is to keep on our ‘energy toes’ with where our focus is going. A practice of taking time to “align” ourselves with what we want in our lives helps to keep our goals clear. Once that’s done, we can refine any NOW actions that can be taken to begin to align ourselves with the ultimate Design of our lives.

There is, I guarantee it, a lot more of your dreams accessible to you right now then you may even have realised.

My Definition of Alignment

To align oneself, according to me, is to be in harmony with, to agree, to flow with. In alignment there is no sense of resistance, only freedom since all that you are is merged with All-That-is. This may sound rather ethereal, but I’m sure you can tell when you feel ‘out of sync’ with yourself, or your natural rhythms. For example, when an opportunity looks good but something doesn’t feel right=out of alignment. Or when you’re looking into the face of your laughing baby and everything feels utterly perfect=aligned. It’s not really that hard to know the state of ‘alignment’. It FEELS GOOD, in all the healthiest ways. Fear, guilt, frustration=out of alignment and they DON’T feel good.

As we become increasingly familiar with what helps us to ‘connect’ to All-That-Is, we become more adept at staying in that state. Like anything, it takes practice and the creating of new habits-‘habituate to habitate’, but it DOES get easier, and so does intentionally creating your life from that place. When you create from this position, you will LOVE what unfolds.”Always reach for the thought that FEELS better”-Abe-Hicks

How To Go With the Flow

Your talents, gifts and passions are a fantastic ‘door’ into this elusive ‘secret garden’. PLEEEEEASE don’t relegate these things to your retirement, or render them unimportant or inconsequential. Given the ease of connection they offer, and the enormous capacity for personal satisfaction, they become of the utmost importance. They CAN become the very tools by which you SPECIFICALLY fashion your life into being. Mine are. Making time to work on a project or ‘just play’ is NOT NEGOTIABLE. It doesn’t matter how long it takes to complete a work/piece, as long as you have some measurable progress points. It only matters that you really engage with your inner fire.

The other infallible way to ‘align’ is gratitude and appreciation. There’s not a lot around that leverages energy in your favour the way these do. Be genuine. As with ‘playing with your passions’, it’s not what you physically produce that matters , so much as you fully and actively engage in the process. And the longer you do this and the more frequent, the better off you’ll be. Being appreciative of something’s value in your life costs nothing but some thinking. Rather than just listing what you’d miss, if you DIDN”t have something…think intently about what it really means TO have something. EG you know life would be tough without hands, right? But rather than stay in the place of imagining life without them, allow yourself to be fascinated by the life they GIVE YOU. Stop and look at them, look at how they’re made, what it takes for them to function-without your conscious thought. This is the type of DECONSTRUCTION I’ve mentioned before.

Rather than look AT something/someone…look INTO them. You’ll find such rich treasures.

Defining your Desires

When you’re in this state, you have a great sense of needing nothing. You enter into the knowing of “all things are mine” and all it takes to manifest any one of them is the confident acknowledgment that this is so. When you ‘live’ here, and you are on the path of “Zero Resistance”, you receive things swiftly, coz there is nothing in the way.

From this vantage point of Conscious Connection, you get a clear view of what you really want your life to look like. You know what really matters. AT other times, logic may want to come and tell you otherwise, but “Here”, you know. It’s so relieving, and so revealing. So medicinal. If I could physically give anybody anything, it would be to touch them with this feeling and the outlook it brings. Once you’ve tasted it, you’ll be addicted and never settle for less. Your soul knows its Home.

It is knowing WHO YOU ARE and how you fit: what your deepest passions are and what you want to leave as a legacy through them. Here, you will find a way to ‘carve your organic niche’ and leave a major mark on your world.

Refining the Package

I actually devised a CTT workshop for Home Business Operators and Online Business Entrepreneurs called “Carving Your Organic Niche” and it walks people through this process of Aligning and defining and refining their business goals, so that ALL they do is working WITH all that they are! If you’d like to have some interactive webinars like this, let me know lisa@lisashahescape.com . When there is no resistance, things ‘fall’ into place. Synchronicities you could NEVER have imagined, let alone orchestrated, take place all around you. And the REALLY fun part is when you can see how you played an active co-creator role in the specific and intentional masterpiece that is your life.

Living this way is a high like no other. Sure, the times when you’d like to blame someone, or something, else for what’s happening come along. But in accepting that everything is simply a mirror, looking for the insight it carries, being deeply thankful and adjusting our thoughts/energy, then like Simba from the Lion King, we can take our place as powerful participants in the Circle of Life-Creating our dreams and leading the way to show others how they can too-Making this a better place for all.

Why are you here?

A final exhortation just to encourage you to take some time to identify WHY you are in Obepro-or any business. And not just “to make money”, because it ISN’T just money. It’s what you think having money will do for you…in short, how it will make you feel. Imagine I was going to give you a cheque to cover whatever desires you could list in detail with approximate costs. Now…make/draw/collage/write your list in glorious detail. Send a copy to me if you can. :-) have a great Valentine’s Day week…savour it.

Lisa

Creator CTT Creative Thinking Technology

E.S.C.A.P.E. Outta the Box

http://lisashahescape.com