Saints be praised! I can feel the stirrings of a new cycle of blogging, poetry, and other shared pursuits. While I’m shaking off the residual cobwebs, enjoy this poignant classic by Billy Joel.  These poetic words and his sensitive performance seem to characterize where many of us are these days: Letting go of the old (whether by choice or circumstance) and opening our tender hearts to new ways of being, feeling, and engaging with others.  Enjoy! Both tears and smiles are appropriate responses.

PS: There’s no footage of Joel singing; only a black background with the lovely, touching lyrics.

The ground is shifting under the feet of us all, but perhaps even more so, for men determined to release themselves from old ways of being. Someday, the gender distinction will likely prove itself irrelevant. Until then, this feels like a good time to revisit this post, which originally appeared in April, 2008.

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I created this piece and presented it at a local Leads Group meeting last year. Now, more than ever, independent businessowners need to bring head, heart, and spirit to the table in equal measure. In business as well as personal arenas, it’s time to Be Whole Now!

ASK
Ask yourself the tough questions.
Ask why you are in business.
Why you are in this business, in this place, in this time.
Ask yourself if you truly love what you’re doing.
If you truly enjoy getting up every day and engaging
in the business of your business.
And if you don’t, ask why you keep on doing it anyway.
Ask people who you trust and whose opinions you respect.
Especially ask those whose answers you may not want to hear.
Ask what they think about your business.
What they think you might be doing better.
Ask your customers how you’re doing.
Don’t stop with the easy questions.
Keep on asking, and then, take the time to…

LISTEN
Listen to your own answers,
and listen to the answers that others give you.
Listen as deeply as you can.
Listen from a different perspective and hear things differently.
Sometimes, the most important answers are hidden beneath the surface,
or never even spoken at all.
Listen to words, but also listen for the sound of footsteps approaching your business.
If you can’t hear them, the silence alone may speak volumes.
Listen to how you speak to others about your business.
Listen to the tone of your voice,
the words that you use,
the images you project.
When others listen to the music of your business,
do they hear a light melody,
a comforting concerto,
a clash of cymbals,
a funeral dirge?
Are they inclined to want to learn more about your business
and to…

CONNECT
Connect with your customers, your clients,
your suppliers, your neighbors.
Connect in person or on the phone.
Connect on the internet, on the bulletin board,
at the market,
in the coffee shop.
Connect through volunteer service,
through special events and joint promotions,
newsletters and festivals and walks in the park.
Find your point of connection.
Seek out ways to strengthen weak connections;
seek out opportunities to build upon strong connections.
Every connection is a doorway
into another connection,
or three,
or nine
or twelve.
Business isn’t so much about making sales,
as it is about making connections.
Sales are complete when the customer walks away.
Connections develop over time,
and provide the fertile soil for your business to…

GROW
Grow your business at the pace and rhythm that you choose.
Do you want to grow into a larger space
or into a more highly defined market?
Do you seek more customers –
or more loyal customers?
Would you rather expand your geographic reach,
or expand your menu of services or products?
Do you see yourself growing roots to anchor your business,
or wings to carry you into new directions?
Grow a wider network of other businesspeople,
develop authentic relationships
based on a balanced give-and-take of ideas and support.
Expect to grow as an individual,
and bring your mind and your heart
and your spirit
into your business dealings.
Only then can you…

SUCCEED
Success can be measured with many yardsticks.
Financial success may or may not be
your primary motivation.
How do you define success?
Your version of success may be centered upon
the contribution you make to your community,
upon a lifestyle that allows more time with your family,
or the opportunity to express yourself creatively.
Whether your goals include helping others to find
greater ease, comfort,
joy, health, safety,
or peace-of-mind in their lives,
only you know when you have succeeded.
Your business is what you make of it,
just like the rest of your life.
Cultivate success in every moment
and you are certain to achieve your every goal.

]]> http://rachelsnyder.wordpress.com/2009/01/27/five-words-of-wisdom-for-entrepreneurs-of-heart-spirit/feed/ 2 rachel http://rachelsnyder.wordpress.com/2009/01/06/india-arie-rumi-writing-automotivology-forgiveness-remembering-who-you-are-favorite-posts-of-2008/ http://rachelsnyder.wordpress.com/2009/01/06/india-arie-rumi-writing-automotivology-forgiveness-remembering-who-you-are-favorite-posts-of-2008/#comments Tue, 06 Jan 2009 10:33:12 +0000 rachel http://rachelsnyder.wordpress.com/?p=1002 ]]>

Even though be whole now is not yet a year old (like me, my blog is a Piscean), the start of this sure-to-be-unforgettable new year is a good time to unearth and recycle some memorable posts from 2008.

Here are a few of my favorites, based on a purely non-scientific selection process.

1. I never tire of watching diva India Arie sing the James Taylor classic, The Secret O’ Life. Every word speaks directly to my soul. Maybe yours, too? Click right here and enjoy!

2. My poem, I Had Forgotten, But Now I Remember, came through after a particularly momentous breakthrough session with intuitive healer/midwife of the soul Dawn Knapp.  Choosing to remember may just be Job #1 on the path to wholeness: find the poem here.

BTW, you can learn more about Dawn’s work over here (www.dawnings.org).

3. In the post, ordinary oracles: the tao of automobiles, I donned my robe to give uncannily accurate automotivology readings. If you’re stuck in neutral, seem to be going backwards, or have a tendency to veer off the road, check out this post. Personal readings still available, although they now come with a request for donation.

4. I could never forgive myself if I didn’t include my prayer for radical forgiveness in my list of favorites for 2008.

5. Intelligent inspiration for writers with new resolve to write! Here is a reprise of my 20th-century essay, voice lessons: finding your inner writer.

6. Rumi’s expression of Divine love never goes out of style! Click here to visit (or revisit) my post, this Rumi poem & video ought to be rated R for Ravishing!

Today feels newer, bigger, and more significant than just one word! Here’s a trio, all taken from my book, 365 Words of Well-Being for Women (McGraw-Hill softcover version, $12.95) / Words of Wisdom for Women (Barnes & Noble hardcover version $7.98). It’s for the feminine in us all, the masculine in us all, and every stripe and hue and gradation in between. Don’t let a few tiny pronouns get in your way of reclaiming your personal power and moving into a more expansive, more satisfying experience of life. Your local bookseller can easily find this book, too! Just ask.

Question

Never stop asking. Ask who you are, why you’re here, what your life’s purpose is all about — and be perfectly content not to know any of the answers. Ask Why me? Why her? Why not them? Question your motives and those of others. Is your intention pure? Question why the woman down the street with yellow curtains at her window makes you remorseful about your younger sister. Just question; the answer may take months or years to present itself. Question why others have what you so desperately want — and then question why you so desperately want it. Sit with not knowing, as difficult and frustrating as it feels. Sit. Without questions, how will you ever stumble onto any answers? Don’t rush toward resolution. At the heart of every question lies a greater quest.

Push

Sometimes now and then, you’ve just got to push. Push yourself to make it over the finish line. Push yourself to make your deadline. Push yourself up over Heartbreak Hill. Push yourself to stand without crutches. Push yourself to try! Come on, push a little harder. Push your body. Push your brain a little further. Push the limits of your endurance. Dig way down deep and push. Roll back the stone that’s blocking your way. Push! Push through the roadblocks — real or imagined — that say you can’t make it. Push! Push past indecision and confusion. Push on. Push yourself to get it done. Come on, push just a little harder. Everybody’s pulling for you, now push!

Empower

Empower yourself to take full and complete charge of your life. Reclaim the personal power that you never should have lost in the first place — and come to know that you never really did. Feel the breadth of your own power: the power to feel deeply, the power to trust your own voice, the power to create and bring forth life. Learn the true meaning of power: how to use it and not abuse it; how to stand in your power without stepping on anyone else’s. Join with others to empower each other. Summon up the inner will to co-create meaningful and joy-filled lives. Empower yourself to take control of your financial life and to prevent others from taking control of your emotional life. Remember: You have the power to empower, and anyone who tries to tell you otherwise has absolutely no power over you.

A man needs to learn what it means to be a man. He needs to meet his own needs, and to ask for help when he needs it. He needs time with himself and time with others. He needs one or two authentic friends, be they women or men, and he needs to trust them without reservation. A man needs a companion, two-legged or -four. He needs to know his history — who were the men who came before him and which of their needs were never met. He needs to acknowledge that there may be something larger than himself, and he needs to figure out for himself exactly what that might be. He needs to be listened to without interruption, especially when he’s having a hard time knowing what to say. A man needs someplace to call his own, and if that place has a door, he’s the only one who needs the key. A man needs to know himself inside and out. Sometimes he needs to cry and to laugh, and to know that both are okay. A man needs to know that he’s only a man. And he needs to know that is enough.

Excerpted from the out-of-print book, What There Is To Love About A Man (Sourcebooks 1999), by Rachel Snyder. No new copies available right now, though used and perfectly imperfect copies can be found floating about the Internet. I’m always open to leads on publishers who might resonate with this material.

This word pushes buttons all over the place!

Give in, give over to something larger than yourself. Sink to the floor and cry and wail if you must, and acknowledge you’re lost, confused, afraid.

To some, it means to give up, to accept defeat, to hand your sword over to the enemy. It means “I have lost.” It’s something you scream out loud so your brother or sister or best friend will stop tickling you. Others couch it in religious terms; the surrender is to an all-powerful God. Surrender is something you do — or more likely, adamantly refuse to do.

Give in, give over to something wiser than yourself. Stop trying to work out solutions in your brain, and let go of your desire to be in control (which, by the way, is a highly over-rated position). Just give in.

Over time, surrender has become one of my favorites, part of a family that includes gratitude, joy, love, grace, peace, forgiveness, among others. Each of these words represents so much more than an action you execute in response to a given set of circumstances: Each is rounder, fuller, embracing a quality or presence that you cultivate throughout life. Surrender isn’t something you do between getting the oil changed and upgrading your cell phone service. You breathe it, live it, embody and express it.

Cry out “It’s too hard!” if it feels that way. Yell and scream “It’s not fair!” if it isn’t. When you’re through kicking and screaming, just surrender.

Surrender is not for the weak, but the strong. It connotes not failure, but victory over that which threatens to hold you in emotional, psychological, physical, or spiritual bondage. Surrender is the liberator, the freedom-bringer, the warrior wielding the sharp sword that looses the ties that too-tightly bind. Surrender beckons, invites you to lay down your burden, exhale your anger, jettison your resentment, offload your baggage in exchange for a lightness of being and an ease that allows you to feel response-able in every moment (instead of responsible for all time).

Surrender is the crown jewel of “letting go” (perhaps Job One for most of us right now). Same song, different lyric, stronger melody. And by the way, this word has been whispering in my ear for several days now, as I quietly, patiently (mostly), wait for that perfect moment when I manifest safe passage from here in rural Utah, back home to Colorado — even though I feel “done” here and a tad antsy. Pondering, writing about, and accepting surrender’s invitation to dance, sure beat whipping myself into a knotted frenzy!

Imagine a place where you can drop off a basketful of your pain, fear, and darkness and say “Here, it’s yours” to a kindly soul who will return your interior laundry in a cleaner, crisper form.

But first, you must say I surrender…

There seems to be a lot of “not knowing” going around, which is only a problem if people believe it is. You may feel flooded with options, spun around in circles or flung from pole to pole and back again. It’s not just you: We are at a critical juncture in the forward march we call human evolution. Quite simply, the species is moving beyond the Age of Reason. If you seek to be whole now, become accustomed to inviting your mind and your heart, your logic and your intuition, to the equation. As the Sufi proverb suggests: Pray to Allah – but first, tether your camel. When you feel that calculating and strategizing, figuring it out, creating a what-if spreadsheet in your mind, or other purely mental gyrations just aren’t cutting it any more…

…and magical thinking alone isn’t doing the trick, either – it’s time to learn to discern.

Discern

Practice conscious intolerance. Decide which people you want to spend time with, what relationship you want to invest in. Know the difference between truth and hollow flattery. Respond accordingly. Determine whether, this time, the out-and-out truth is what truly serves. Ponder whether you’re being guided or led astray. You decide. Take an extra moment. Make them wait. What does your gut tell you? What does your heart tell you? Trust your inner ability to know what’s right for you and what isn’t. Learn the difference between the ways that fear and exhiliration move through your body. The surge you feel when you run away from danger is not all that different from the surge you feel when you’re getting ready to reach the top of a mountain, birth a baby, win a race, celebrate an inner victory. Learn the difference. If it isn’t YES!, it’s probably no.

Excerpted from Words of Wisdom for Women, available as a Barnes & Noble bargain book via the right-hand sidebar — and also in its original incarnation, 365 Words of Well-Being for Women (McGraw-Hill/Contemporary), available here at amazon and other places, too.

Doing a bit of spring blogcleaning!

prayer for this time: i am the miracle has now taken up permanent residence in the Pages section in the right-hand sidebar. If you didn’t see it the first time around – or would like to revisit the poem – Scotty will beam you up & over if you click here.

Even though my books and writing may be labeled “for men” or “for women,” these distinctions often reflect publishing-world realities more than anything else.

Each one of us resides (and from time to time, slides) along a masculine/feminine continuum. Much of the work we undertake to be whole now, involves integrating our inner masculine and inner feminine in a divine marriage. Liberation from cultural and family oppression and repression is not the province of any particular gender or lineage: It’s Universal (with a capital Y-O-U).

I culled these 7 words from my out-of-print book, What There Is To Love About A Man (Sourcebooks, 1999). My prayer is that women’s anger and the culturally acceptable male-bashing of the late 20th century are behind us: Let us now see our own reflections in the eyes and hearts and spirits of others, variations in body parts notwithstanding.

Fire

Something inside a man sizzles. Red-hot coals lie aglow in his belly, waiting for the breath of inspiration that will set them aflame. This is the fire that lives in a man. These are the roots of his passion, his fervor, his fuel to create a well-tempered existence. Herein lies his tinderbox, awaiting to arouse a man to a luminous life. When his fire is tended and nourished and fed, a man can kindle a revolt of his spirit, and awaken a brilliance as bright as the sun. He need only build the proper hearth to channel this white-hot intensity into the energy of action. To build and to dance; to begin and to be. To radiate a light that shines from within and enlightens all in his orbit — and nobody needs to get burned. A man has the power to be a firebug for his very soul, but first he must find his own matches. And then, he must play with his fire.

Fertility

This is not about sperm counts. This is about the potent fruitfulness that lives in a man. It lives in his fertile imagination, in his prolific mind, in the seeds of innovation and initiation that he gently scatters like milkweed on the wind. A man’s heart is fertile when it gives rise to acts of perfect love and radical forgiveness. When it sows the seeds of peace and justice. When it flowers and drops its petals in receptive soil strengthened by the sun and nourished by the rain. A man walks upon fertile ground when his every thought and his every action favor compassion over contempt and amity over animosity. This is more about productivity than it is about reproduction. This is about begetting a future void of old, obsolete ideas, and bringing forth new ways invigorated by new truths. This is about creating; this is about life.

Work

It doesn’t matter how many jobs a man may have, unless he’s found his work. Not just the work that pays the bills, but the work that feeds his soul. The real work of a man goes on 24/7/365. The work to define his place in the world, and to help create that world. The vocation that fits him like a glove and that no one else can do exactly like him. If he listens, work will call to a man. But until he’s found right livelihood, everything else may feel wrong. He can work for money or love or sheer satisfaction. He may wear a white collar or a blue collar or a pink collar or no collar at all. He can work for wages or work for himself or work for the company store. A man can work with his hands or his head, but to work at what he loves, a man must work from his heart. He must give freely of the gifts that only he can give. Until he steps into his one true calling, a man’s work will never be done.

Eros

Cupid pulled back his bow and hit a bull’s eye, and now the man is real, real gone. He’s leaking love all over the place and sucking the deliciousness out of life. He’s stopping to smell the roses and sticking around to taste the dripping flesh of a ripe and juicy mango. He sees lovers cavorting in the clouds and alongside the road and he’s trembling with runaway lust. Suddenly, all is sensational! Birdsong sweeter than he’s ever heard lilts across meadows more lush than he’s ever seen. A light rain sprinkles his face and he rises up into rapture. He trades in flannel for silk, and cotton for satin, and finally chucks it all to run naked ‘neath the moon. Love songs spill out of his lips without the slightest provocation, and he stays home from work on account of desire. He craves deep chocolate ice cream with hot raspberry syrup, passionfruit nectar with a twist, and Pavarotti twenty-four hours a day. He’s washing in rosewater and soaking in ylang-ylang. He’s been struck by an arrow, and he’s taken it to heart.

Voice

Listen to the voice of a man. Hear it cry out for freedom and call out in triumph. Hear it keen and bellow and moan and wail. His is the voice that exploded in battle; his is the howl that ignited the flame. Beneath all the babble, he spoke sotto voce ; his basso profundo enveloped the hall. You can hear the entire world in the voice of a man. The bit of brogue, the touch of twang, the patois of the plain, and the elocution of the noble. The changing voice of a boy becomes the unwavering voice of a man. A full-throated man voices his fears and his deepest yearnings. He voices his anger as he voices his joy. If called upon and ready, he voices the conscience of the people. The strongest men’s voices still strain to be heard, while somehow, the lesser are heard over all. Listen to the sound of a man’s voice in all of its glory. It just might be a god, with the voice of a man.

Truth

There’s a lot more to the truth than just facts. Or consequences. Truth be told, it matters little whether a man tells the truth, unless he also lives it. Unless he lives the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth of his life. The genuine article; the very life he was born to live. It is one thing to stand in a court of law and swear to be truthful; it is something else altogether to stand in front of the mirror and commit to live a life without lies. When a man creates a life in tune with his deepest knowings, he lives in his truth. When a man forsakes the agendas of others and lives according to his highest values, he can truthfully say he is living an authentic life. The truth is sometimes bitter, and often strange. To get to the naked truth of his own existence, a man may have to peel away lifetimes of layers of lies. When he does, he will find his truth, his way, and his life.

Sanctuary

In the woods, beside the creek. High on the mesa, beneath the ruins. Down in the cellar, behind the furnace. At his desk, late on Sunday. Back at the woodpile, chopping, chopping. Out on the range, running the horses and racing the wind. Over at the levee, skipping stones. Hangin’ at the garage, tinkering with tools. Men without women. Men deep within. On the floor of the library, flipping through art books. Up on the roof, watching the sunset. At the tip of the island, building castles in the sand. Down on his knees, surrounded by Spirit. Underwater. Alone in his den, gathered at the lodge. Lost in his music, seeking the silence. Finding his song, quelling the voices. Behind the wheel. At the controls. On the road. Off the grid. Below the surface. Beyond the din. Far away, men go within.