Process vs. Progress 

“Focused on process our creative life creates a sense of adventure,”

-Julia Cameron

I want to share with you three mindset shifts, direct you to possible areas of focus, and allow an opening to curiousity that can support you to have the deepest experience during our time together

Mindset Shift One: Step into Radical Possibility

KEY: Act as if what you desire and what you dream of, that the possibility that you feel in your clearest moments is absolutely real.

I want to invite you to let self-doubt move to one side and let that glimmer of possibility that you’ve felt of something higher, to step into owning that that’s real and that all of life is organizing around your success to bring it forth. You know, we often feel glimmers of possibility, but we also experience a tremendous amount of self-doubt, and so we don’t really invest in showing up because we don’t really know if what we desire is possible.

I’ll share something with you,

anything that is worth your attention and your intention is going to be something that is outside of your current sense of possibility, because it’s a higher potential of who you are.

So, you might not have the experience in your past, you might not have it in your present, but what I want to challenge you to begin to see is that this is something that is part of your destiny. This is something that is a future possibility, and is even bigger than anything you’ve maybe experienced before.

Most of us, when we’re uncertain, or we don’t know what’s possible, we’re afraid of fully investing ourselves in the process because we don’t want to be disappointed. And what happens? What happens is we don’t really show up, we don’t really move powerfully into a process of creation. So what I want to disrupt is the idea that you need to be certain of whether or not something’s going to happen to fully commit to the process.

It’s this kind of self-belief, and this kind of radical positivity and optimism and a sense of true possibility that we need to stand into. I want to invite you to stand into that, to act “as if” while we’re here together, I want to invite you to step into a radical and powerful sense of possibility.

Mindset Shift Two: Live in the “Magic Growth Zone”

I want to challenge you at the outset to get uncomfortable and to be willing to grow outside of your comfort zone.

That future self you began to see, that is your true potential. We just did the visioning, it’s that you stepping into your greatness, you stepping into your gifts, you stepping into your genius. That’s who you truly came here to be in this world.

The reason that we haven’t realised these deeper possibilities is we haven’t yet become the person we would need to be to create these things—in our identity, in our ways of being, in our ways of showing up. That’s what we’re here to do, we’re here to grow ourselves into who we are becoming.

Nobody ever won a gold medal at the Olympics because they just had a natural talent for athletics, they were running down the street one day, saw a race, and won a gold medal.

What happened? There was natural talent, there was an aptitude, and then there was a commitment to growth and to training and to practice and to development.

I want to invite you to stretch just outside your comfort zone, into the magic growth zone, where you are just slightly out ahead of where you’re comfortable. You’re not so uncomfortable that you feel unsafe; you’re in this magic growth zone where you’re just stretching and reaching into who you’re becoming.

Mindset Shift Three: Become Unstoppable

A commitment to unstoppability.

It’s a commitment to unstoppability because here’s what’s likely to happen. Every time we set an intention to reach higher, the first thing that happens in the process is what I like to call “the power of un-manifestation.”

Usually, when you’re up-leveling and you’re reaching higher, and you’re setting an intention and you’re telling yourself, “I’m going to reach higher,” what starts to happen is old structures in our life start to be disrupted. We experience setbacks. And those setbacks are particularly challenging or painful because we’ve been so vulnerable in our open-heartedness to risk for something, to reach higher for something, right, that what can happen in the face of those setbacks is that we contract, and we contract into a sense of non-possibility and isolation and hopelessness.

When we’re sent the wrong size of shoe in our order, we don’t make it mean that we’re not meant to walk, do we?

But often when you set an intention for love or prosperity, and you break up with your partner, or you get an unexpected bill when you are starting to get ahead financially, what happens? We make it mean, “Oh look, here I am, I just tried to reach higher, and life’s not supporting me,” etc.

So you have to say, “This is just the power of un-manifestation, and these disruptions, these setbacks, I’m going to use them like a slingshot, to propel me forward, and I will be unstoppable. And I absolutely believe that all of life is organising around my success, even though I don’t know why, even though I don’t understand how, I am unstoppable.”

Because you’re in a transformational process now in your life, being here with me. So, you’re going to disrupt things. There’s likely to be setbacks, and so you want to be ready for them, and you want to know, “I’m unstoppable.”

Opening to Curiosity

I’d love to invite you to take a moment to put everything to one side as we start with an opening centering meditation. We’re going to make the shift from ordinary awareness to extraordinary awareness. If you’re somewhere where it’s safe to do so, I’d love to invite you to take a moment to close your eyes and allow your awareness to drop down into your body, moving all the way down into your hips, down into your legs, down into the soles of your feet, and into the earth.

And with each breath, taking your attention off of all the places where it may have been so far today: on the things that there are to do, taking care of other people— being aware of their needs, and feelings and experience. Bring 100% of your attention back inside of your own body. Letting yourself feel and expand your awareness outward to the edges of yourself, fully in your own centre.

Connecting with this deeper, wider centre where you can access all of the wisdom, the resources, the creativity, the brilliance, the genius that you have developed and that you are.

Bringing the most powerful parts of you — the places where you show up, as a friend or as a parent or in your work, or when you are expressing your creativity — wherever you feel most yourself. Breathing into that centre of power that’s already there, and expanding your awareness out to the edges of the room.

Allowing your awareness to deepen and soften. Letting go of control, or the need to know any of the answers to any of the questions of your life — the who, the how, the when, the where, the what, the why.

Let yourself move into curiosity, openness, wonder — the place that is already connected to your deeper knowing—where you can know that all of life is organising around your success.

Being curious about yourself:

When we’re talking about your relationship with yourself, as you are learning how to have an empowered relationship with yourself as a source of power in your life, we’re looking at the self in your mind and the self in your body. Most of us have not yet cultivated a very connected and fluid relationship between these parts of ourselves.

If the self in your mind and the self in your body were two separate people, what would the quality of their relationship be like?

Is there trust?

Is there connection?

Is there presence?

What’s the flow of energy?

Is there a partnership?

Meditation Practice:

I’d like to invite you to take a moment and allow your awareness to drop down into your body. From a place of presence, asking the question to yourself—and you can call yourself by the first name.

Asking the question:

What are you feeling?

If I’m doing the practices, then it would be:

Iona, what are you feeling?

I’m taking my attention to listen to myself. Listen. Not thinking about the answer. And then not fixing or acting upon what’s said. Just listening for the answer.

What are you feeling?

Then mirror and reflect back to yourself and feel with yourself:

“I can see that you’re feeling,” and naming whatever it is that you’re feeling.

“I can see that you’re feeling happy.” / “I can see that you’re feeling angry.” Not fixing or changing, just reflecting.

See if you can go deeper and repeat this three times.

“What are you feeling?” “I can see that you’re feeling…” x3

In this next round, asking yourself the question again and replace listening with,

What is it that you need?

Turning toward yourself, asking the question: “What is it that you need?”

Listening for the answer, mirroring back the response with love,

“I can see that you need…” and naming whatever is there:

“I can see that you need more time.” / “I can see that you need more rest.”

It’s like building a muscle of presence and connection. And don’t worry if you didn’t have an experience of being connected to yourself. Being present in this way and asking these questions is going to create a space that will eventually lead to this reconnection to yourself. Work with this every day.