An embodied memory arose last night. The memory was of being at the pool when I was ten years old. Cold after swimming, with a towel wrapped tightly around myself, I stood alone, shivering. Throngs of people were around me, but I was isolated and frozen. Nowhere to go, no one to be with. I sank deep into an abyss from which I believed I would never transcend.
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As coaches, therapists, spiritual healers and the like, though we are aware of the depths of experience the majority of our clients carry, we do not realize that in order for them to transcend the abysses, a paradigm shift is required.
Transformation itself requires a paradigm shift. It requires that there is somewhere else – a different context, a different reality, a different dimension or realm into which we will emerge. Without the knowing of that “opposing” paradigm, we can’t empower our clients, or ourselves for that matter, to empower themselves through a transformative process.
Why?
Because we wouldn’t have anyplace or anyone to transform to, or into. We wouldn’t have a context within which such a paradigm exists. We have to know that a paradigm exists beyond our current fear-based, limited, and constrained paradigm in order to transform.
I’ve been noticing lately that my current paradigm limits my capacity to even know that the impossible is possible. I understand that my current paradigm of limitations and constraints is based on the past, on my lineage as a woman, my religious upbringing, and my family’s beliefs. My current paradigm is based on the country and the region I was born into. My current paradigm also includes the consensus view of reality as well as the collective consciousness.
In my eyes, my work as a transformational coach requires me to keep stretching my own capacity to experience what is beyond my current paradigm. Did you know that? Do you practice that too?
I devote myself to noticing and acknowledging limiting beliefs and interpretations – many of which had never occurred to me before today. As I cultivate awareness of such patterns of thinking and believing I become more competent at choosing to let go of those patterns, for no other reason than they don’t work for me anymore, and they are not in alignment with my highest truth and my highest knowing.
Circling around back to the embodied memory of being ten years old, alone and frozen; I want this young beautiful child, who resides within me, to know and experience that her heart’s desire to be embraced within a home that is always loving, always kind, always compassionate, always joyful is here for her now. I want her to know true connection with people that are loving, generous of spirit, and who adore her in all ways. I want her to emerge from the abysses and enter into the light of innocence, creativity, and the freedom to be the fullest expression of her essential self.
Currently, to this end, I’m pushing through barriers that have limited my willingness to bring greater degrees of beauty and peace to my property. The same is true regarding bringing greater harmony and balance to my physical body. I’m noticing the attachments to identities to whom I experienced myself to be in the past. I’m noticing that as I untether myself from those identities, I’m then aware of another reality, a paradigm, that is ready for me to embrace. I know I’m no longer that old me. I’ve moved beyond that – almost.
A Dilemma Arises
When I imagine turning away from the way I’ve been perceiving myself and my reality, I experience a sense of abandoning the past, a disloyalty to that past. It has something to do with that lineage of living life with the fear of perpetual defeat, bitter disappointment, and a failure to thrive. It is a life of Suffering, Settling, and Surviving.
The choice-point for myself and for all of us is this:
Do I choose to remain faithful and loyal to a paradigm that will not allow what is infinitely pleasing, or do I choose to journey towards what can only be expansive and inclusive of all possibility for me and for the world?
Nisagardatta wrote a book called I AM THAT. I know I am that which he speaks of, and as I untether myself from what I am not, I effortlessly experience that which I am. David Hawkins says that all there is to do is let go of anything that isn’t aligned with your truth, and you will arrive at your heart’s desire.
It is my heart’s desire to bring myself to this moment, to this edge, to this paradigm shift, so that I can continue to empower and support others to do the same.
Will you join me here?
If you’re a coach, check out my Transformational Coaches Consultation Group.
If you’re an individual looking for a coach, email me to get started!
