Gail
4 Ways to Work with Gail
Let’s stop watching the newsand make the news!I invite you to join the unmistakable calling of our times to bring your imagination and voice to a new story that is being born in your heart! Like many of us, I’ve been in a wait and watch mode since early March. I’ve sensed something is incubating that is not yet formed. With scheduled travel cancelled, it seemed like a good time to bring a new puppy into my life. What an adventure that has been–for both me and my 9-year old dog Paqo — who is sort of adjusting but remains less than thrilled!
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It’s Holy Fools Day! Let’s Ditch Deadlines and Grab the Lifelines
I can’t let April 1 pass without greeting you! I know you’re out there and sensing at a deep level that–somehow, some way–we are in the awakening of a lifetime. And that we’re being asked to make history, not just watch it.
If you’re not yet familiar with Holy Fools Day, it was inspired by Joseph Campbell’s statement that the Holy Fool is the most dangerous person on earth and the most threatening to all hierarchical institutions. Holy Fools follow their own inner compass to do what needs to be done and do it, no matter what. Their actions make a difference in creating a more just and sustainable world in support of all of life. Since 2014, I’ve been hosting annual online events to shine light on the inspired action of Holy Fools in the Transformational Speaking community. (Meet them here.)
Now here we are at April 1, 2020, and I’m postponing the Holy Fools Challenge (and the grand prize that will thrill you … stay tuned.) Because the truth is, I am unable to whip up my annual Holy Fools fervor and face a deadline. My fierce and feisty oscillates to flat and feeble and–thankfully! sometimes!– back to festive. I’m deep in the Well of the JourneyWell® wheel as illustrated in my March 20 message to you about “A New Rhythm for New Times.” It’s time to grieve and withdraw for a bit to reflect on and integrate this non-negotiable life experience that has upended our lives. Continue reading
A new rhythm for new times
Some of you know that my customary way to just stop has been to break bones. Yes, sometimes two, or sprain both feet! All amount to a full stop. Enforced! No negotiation!
I’m not kidding. The day I was to start my Transformational Speaking book tour, I broke bones in both legs and was confined to bed for a week until the swelling subsided and I could be trussed up. (My friend Lisa called it “extreme avoidance.”)
Then when I launched Transformational Speaking Online, I broke my hip in the middle of our series of 8 weekly community calls. I didn’t see my home again for nearly 3 weeks.
When my dear friend Margaret died, I missed two stairs and her memorial service in San Miguel de Allende when I sprained both feet.
In the shamanic path, we know that breaking a bone is about breaking a pattern. It was clear to me in all the above cases that my pattern was to move too fast to pay attention to what my body and soul were telling me.
Radical Self-Trust: Answering Your Call to Adventure!
A Holy Fools Day Conversation with Patrick O’Neill
Today’s my favorite holiday–partly because I got to make it up!
But even more celebratory, it’s a special day that invites you to answer the Call to Adventure and take an inspired action that your soul is asking of you.
Holy Fools express what indigenous peoples call Original Medicine. You are formed for a singular purpose for which you have gifts and talents that are nowhere else duplicated. And if you don’t express those gifts, they are lost to the world for all time.
I first learned of this profound but simple teaching from cultural anthropologist Angeles Arrien, with whom I had the privilege of studying for over ten years.
Angeles left the earth plane five years ago and Patrick O’Neill, with whom she co-taught for 20 years, is continuing her great work. Both of us feel the best parts of ourselves were gained by osmosis by sitting so close to Angeles for so long.
I reached out to Patrick to mine his deep wisdom on the subject of: Continue reading
Realigning Inner Drive with Outer Doing: How Soul and Ego can Partner Up!
Everywhere I’m hearing about the intensity life is serving up these days. I’m feeling it . . . are you?
The times we’re in have me primed for a Soul Reset to look at life through an inspired lens. I’m much more inclined to align my inner drive with my outer doing when I’m guided by wisdom, poetry and beauty instead of, say, the daily news!.
So for a download of the good stuff, Danielle LaPorte has rallied a whole crew of her wise and witty friends to contribute to LETTERS FOR RENEWAL: 30 Days of Courage, Conviction, and Hopefulness. It all starts September 1, and… it’s FREE. Registration is open:
Original Medicine – your expression to the world
This is the time to shine in the light of our
medicine and speak our truth.
The elders say we are the ones we have
been waiting for.
Give yourself and the world the gift of stepping
into the full experience of your power, presence
and magnificence.
Speak from a Happy Heart in Troubled Times
Stop giving ’til it hurts & find the exquisite balance of giving & receiving
This quote from Eleanor Roosevelt embodies the spirit of Transformational Speaking.
“The giving of love is an education in itself.”
Yet while we want to express that high vibration of Love, receiving it is just as important for our own balance. So . . . what if we could also experience speaking as an act of receiving Love?
For a simple practice of how good that feels, watch this 4-minute video from Master Mingtong Gu on “How to Give and Receive Energy.”
Calling All Voices
The Four Questions You Must Ask Yourself to Ignite Your Holy Fool
Many of you are asking for the four questions from our Calling All Voices event. Yes! When you take the time to thoughtfully consider your answers, you’re on track to stewarding your strand in the web of life.
One Woman’s Effect: Zoe Tryon, Disturbing the Comfortable!!
The Honourable Zoe Tryon could have married a “lovely” Earl or Lord and lived in a castle. But the Amazon called to her instead, inspiring her great passion to be a voice for the voiceless. She has fallen in love with a people whose ancestral lands are being devastated by oil drilling, whose children are dying because their only source of water is poisoned.
Zoe in Ecuador -“Big Oil’s Dirty Secret”
Birthing the New Story! Imagining a World that Works for All of Life
Back in 1987, most of us put our trust without question in the promise of existing structures and heedlessly follow their protocols in an attempt to create lives that work within an established system. Unfortunately, even though our lives as a whole aren’t working all that well, we still do. But it is 2020 and we’re starting to break the spell of believing someone knows more than we do about how to create the world to which we want to belong. Our blind allegiance is faltering, and well it should. We’re in a time of health, political, environmental, racial and financial crises. The structures we’ve relied on are crumbling, and no election or single leader can change that.
What will it take to break the spell of believing in an old way and imagine a world that works for all of life?
For years, I have been captivated by the Rumi quote, “Speak a new language so the world may be a new world.” I’ve spoken about that as I’ve sensed that there are languages of the soul that can awaken us to new ways of seeing and being that open the way to the new world we trust is possible and want to co-create.
Continue reading →