I got another great music video from Rumaisa Rahman on Monday. It reminds us of the relationship of truth and aliveness. The folks in the video are dancing in public–that can be scary but the fear of telling the truth with coworkers, bosses, friends, and loved ones generates great aliveness. Dedicate the day to difficult truths: truths that flow from deep within. I’ve put some of the lyrics below if you want to just read, but the video is lively and compelling–an invitation to your truth.
LYRICS:
You can be amazing
You can turn a phrase into a weapon or a drug
You can be the outcast
Or be the backlash of somebody’s lack of love
Or you can start speaking up
Nothing’s gonna hurt you the way that words do
And they settle ‘neath your skin
Kept on the inside and no sunlight
Sometimes a shadow wins
But I wonder what would happen if you
Say what you wanna say
And let the words fall out
Honestly I wanna see you be brave
With what you want to say
And let the words fall out
Honestly I wanna see you be brave
I just wanna see you
I just wanna see you
I just wanna see you
I wanna see you be brave….
Everybody’s been there, everybody’s been stared down
By the enemy
Fallen for the fear and done some disappearing
Bow down to the mighty
Don’t run, stop holding your tongue
Maybe there’s a way out of the cage where you live
Maybe one of these days you can let the light in
Show me how big your brave is….
Innocence, your history of silence
Won’t do you any good
Did you think it would?
Let your words be anything but empty
Why don’t you tell them the truth?
Today we are looking at the cost in aliveness when we do not take relationships to the next level. When we stop fully engaging in our relationships, we put them on life support.
Why? Because we are afraid of the aliveness of expressing our next level of truth.
I am at the leadership supervision and training group. We are looking at the point where our aliveness starts being shut down because we are afraid to take our relationships to the next level.
Today, let’s all take as many relationships to the next level as we can.
We discussed the moment of truth in relationships where we tell people the next level of where we talk of our hurts and frustrations and see if the person is going to be available at this next vital level.
How alive are your relationships? Are you ready to express your next level of truth? Share your thoughts with me.
Here is what you have been requesting, an extended community of like-minded individuals across the country supporting each other and working on a common assignment to bring out the best in themselves and those they touch—sharing their learning and growing, inspiring and encouraging each other.
Each of you who deals in will receive a new lesson each month based on a principle, concept, or lesson to focus your personal development in concert with others. Your lesson, concept, or principle is a personal development assignment to bring out the best in you and those you touch.
Just imagine, all of us working on the same assignment designed to encourage and inspire more effective relationships, bring more meaning and satisfaction to every moment, and provide more service—maximizing potential for love, enjoyment, and leadership.
This is what you have requested in the feedback you’ve given and what we are aiming for in the Wright community—an accessible way for you to keep challenging yourself and to keep you connected with a community of like-minded individuals.
YOUR JANUARY ASSIGNMENT
This month we are kicking off the year with the January daily assignment to live the principle of ALIVENESS as fully as you can. That means that you orient to the principle of aliveness in the morning when you wake up and vision yourself being more alive at different points during the day using the implementation intention of If…then’s….
For example: If my partner gives me grief, then I will__________If I am at a business meeting, then I will speak up at least three times….(Check out our life project planner https://wrightfoundation.org/make-mistakes-to-advance-your-life-project if you have not attended the Transform Training or learned how the implementation intention of If… then’s…. fit into the life project.)
Throughout your days, ask yourself the question, “How can I be more alive right now, in this moment in this situation?” The road to greater aliveness leads through expressing rather than holding back the thoughts and feelings we have when we edit our judgments, fears, or other feelings. Be sure to review the results and lessons from your aliveness assignment every night.
Aliveness!
For now, know that Aliveness is the foundational principle from which play, truth, joy, love, and everything stems. When we repress ourselves, we are cutting down our aliveness. Aliveness is that bubbly force that explodes from us when we laugh, when we giggle, when we cry, when we yell. These all are part of the expressive pole of aliveness. There is also the aliveness of contained joy and excitement where our senses are heightened and our vision becomes clearer, and more focused. Our attention is fixed and the bubbling builds in anticipation and excitement, a fountain of possibility and potential. It may be the anticipation of a lover, a child awaiting the return of his father after a day’s absence, a student anticipating the results of a test. Every moment of our lives is pregnant with possibilities and too often, loss aversion—the immobilizing fear of failure that keeps us from even recognizing it as we hold back our deeper yearnings and run on automatic pilot.
Aliveness is the principle that unleashes our deeper yearnings, that causes us to be more in touch with our emotions in the here and now, that brings our hunger to the surface—our hunger for experience, our hunger for contact, our hunger to see and be seen, our hunger to make a difference, our hunger for something new, our hunger for adventure. Aliveness is the foundational principle that awakens these deeper yearnings, that guides us not only to lives of adventure and engagement, but also to create deeper meaning, greater fulfillment, and satisfaction.
These do not come without a cost, because by engaging we will inevitably be more hurt as we open ourselves up to new possibilities and uncertainties. But by being more hurt, we have an opportunity to learn and grow. Go for it!
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ALIVENESS: More Support
BLOG:
The monthly lesson and inspirational conversation on learns and grows will also be available on our blog, www.wrightliving.com/blog. Be sure to subscribe and pass it along to friends so you can follow along together and share comments on how you are doing!
TWITTER:
We will be regularly tweeting on the lesson (www.twitter.com/drbobwright post @drbobwright, #morelife) to keep you inspired. We encourage you to tweet what you are learning too.
LIFE PROJECT PLANNER
You may want to pick up our Life Project Planner for any New Year’s Resolution (https://wrightfoundation.org/make-mistakes-to-advance-your-life-project ). Use it to plan the growth you want to in the coming year. It will help you strategize how being more alive will fit into your growth, development, and service in the coming year.
I remember this time last year, I was really struggling to start the New Year out right with a positive, can-do attitude. Things have been challenging for us financially and it hangs over my head like a cloud. Additionally, we have an amazing list of initiatives. Each one seems the most important when it is the one in focus, but this most important one gets shoved aside when the ‘next most important one’ comes into view. Talk about how to eat an elephant! It is easy to say, “Just eat it one bite at a time,” but it is quite another thing when that immense carcass is looming. Focusing on each bite and taking responsibility to preserve the carcass so we can eat it is a real challenge.
These thoughts were how I started my day, overwhelmed, challenged, and despairing. I just had a dream about someone on life-support to top that off. While eating breakfast, I had finished reading the paper. I began reviewing our book Transformed! to prepare myself for media and the book launch. We had quite a bit lined up and I remember I was going on Coast to Coast, a nationally syndicated late night radio show for three hours on January 10 and 11, 2013.
It was then that I read the section on recognizing our deeper yearnings in our book. We say to list goals and ask ourselves why we want that goal and what we hope it will do for us. We begin by communicating to ourselves, “I want this goal so that ________.” Our book directs us to keep digging until we find the deeper yearning beneath it.
I told my wife Judith about the irony of how much I needed these words right then and how I needed to practice what we preach right now by focusing on my immediate yearnings. Judith asked me a few revealing questions and I clearly was fearing pain and problems in the future and failing to choose full aliveness in the moment. Judith helped me further clear some stinking thinking that was going on in my head and it was really great. I recognized my desire for greater financial solidity and student flow is in order to have more fulfilling contact and joy.
I was missing that contact and joy in the moment right then. My day has been significantly different since then as I work on my next transformation—whatever that is. We know this since real transformation isn’t something we plan but something that emerges and is discovered—way beyond goals.
So, here is my outreach and contact—wishing you all the joy of the season and a life full of realized yearning that inspires you to engage in ways that reveal your next most radiant self and help you to the greatest contact and service.
