I’ve come to this revelatory humility through two important practices in my life: 1) getting ready to go on stage, 2) yoga.

Like most speakers, I have a pre-presentation ritual. I review my notes, usually just a few points written on a Moleskine page; I speak my best bits out loud (it’s essential to hear your own voice); I do sit ups (helps with core awareness and diaphragm flex); and I do some fire breathing and a few Kundalini yoga/Kung Fu moves. Once I get on my heels, I’m READY.

But here’s what I noticed: a tributary of subtle panic streaming through my preparation. It’s slight, but just a drop of panic can taint pure intentions. It’s as if, in my power breathing and ritual and I’m saying to God, “I just wanna be good enough. Make me worthy. Make me better, better, better!” Oy.

I’ve had it all wrong. All these years…all the prostrations, prayers, mala bead counting, deep breathing, self help literature, workshops, visualizations, affirmations, asanas, training, and goddamn vision boards…Good rituals, not so good motivation. Right motion, wrong intention. And intention is EVERYTHING.

This revelation started brewing in a hotel room as I was preparing to give a talk. And it shimmered into liberating clarity on the yoga mat a few days later when I felt, as I often do these days, that transcendent kind of energy that eclipses your fatigue and vanity and has you realize that no matter what — at all times, in fact — the resplendent super juice of life itself is not only accessible, it’s pulsing…in me…in you…in us…for the eternal now.

That leaves very little to fix, and so much to discover.

I can sum up my new approach to progress in one declaration: “My name is Danielle, and I’m here for my power. Now, please.”

ACCESSING YOUR INNATE POWER vs. IMPROVING YOUR SORRY SELF

Self improvement infers there’s something wrong with you, so you’re already starting off with a disadvantage.

Of course there’s something to improve — always will be, life is an evolutionary equation. But liberation is about consciously choosing your perspectives, moment to moment, so let’s choose viewpoints that are advantageous and give us warm fuzzy, encouraging feelings.

You may feel broken, screwed up, neurotic, defective, sub par — take a number. You may be afraid — so very natural. You maybe just be really really excited and you’re labeling it as anxious — easy mistake.

Rather than doing whatever it is that you do to ease, mitigate and transform those states of being as acts of “self improvement” and “getting fixed” or “making better”, what if you approached those rituals and remedies as ways of getting to your power? No fixing and no anxiety, rather, a trip to the Limitless Well of Knowing and Reliable Awareness.

You show up at your therapist’s office to access your power.
You go to church to access your power.
You put on your heels, or your power suit, or your lucky charm to access your power.
You call your friend for advice to access your power.
You pray, dance, let go, breath, unplug, run, bend, drink smoothies, go on retreat, clear the air, ask for help, get enough sleep, get up early, train, set goals, affirm, chant, rock out, climb, hike, sweat to…

access your power.

Hiro just released How To Rule Your World From The Inside Out: The Art Of Inner Leadership. What she’s offering here is luminosity: practical techniques to tap into your soul-power and align your inner selves, even in the midst of crisis and uncertainty.

I spoke to Hiro the other day, and the conversation was luminous, indeed.
Please curl up, listen in, and learn from the master.

AN EXCERPT:
Danielle: Can you talk to us about … the deeper aspects of imagination?

Hiro: … As entrepreneurs, we are constantly creating. This creativity is why so many of us are drawn to being in business for ourselves because we are supremely creative beings; we recognize it and our businesses give us a way to be creative in very practical ways that also serve our clients, our customers and our world.

When we’re creating, when I’m creating, for example, when I was creating this program, I started by attuning to the soul level of the program. Everything that exists on this physical plane has a spiritual counterpoint which holds the pattern or the blueprint for its perfect unfolding.

This doesn’t mean that this pattern is fixed. It can unfold in many, many, many different forms but the purest form of that pattern is held in the energy field of subtle energy being long before it ever comes into this reality.

You start by attuning to the soul of whatever it is that you want to create.

GET TOTALLY TUNED IN – LISTEN TO OR READ THE FULL INTERVIEW:

: Click here to listen to the audio stream.
: Click here to download the audio file.
: Click here to read the handy transcript.

How To Rule Your World From The Inside Out: The Art Of Inner Leadership is available now.

The program includes a 200-page Playbook, 17 playful meditations and journaling exercises, an intimate exploration of all 7 chakras, transcripts sourced from sovereignty classes, access to quarterly Q & A phone calls, and 8 hours of audio. And a wee foreword from me.

Reclaim your creative joy & certainty.
Rule your world — because the world needs you.

And…there’s something brighter about people who have stared death down — they look at you from the inside out, without wavering.

Kris Carr deets:
: award-winning documentary film producer of TLC’s Crazy Sexy Cancer.
: creator of the wildly popular CrazySexyLife.com.
: author of best-selling cancer survival guidebook.
: and one of the most dynamic public speakers I’ve seen.

And on January 17, 2011, starting with an appearance on Good Morning America, Kris Carr is releasing Crazy Sexy Diet: Eat Your Veggies, Ignite Your Spark, and Live Like You Mean It!

I bought 10 copies of Crazy Sexy Diet for sistahs this Christmas and the thanks are still rolling in. I think if scores of people watched Food, Inc., and then read and lived the Crazy Sexy Diet we’d make quantum leaps with everything from depression and vitality, to pharmaceutical monopolies to the politics of agriculture.

Kris and I jammed on wellness, love, and kale. Watch ’til the end and you’ll hear how I’ve used Crazy Sexy Diet to get my own glow on (and what I think of Dr. Oz, hint: oo la la.) Here’s a video:

Crazy Sexy Diet. Get it.
Vibrant health,
pronto.

Crazy Sexy Diet is a compassionate approach to an anti-inflammatory way of life. Kris has woven her personal cancer-survival story throughout. Compelling. Practical. Illuminating. Available Monday, January 17, 2011.

You can preview a chapter right here.

And order a copy (or ten) over here.

The experts are gushing:

“Kris has been there, and she brings the depth of her experience to this uplifting book and offers tips from experts and success stories along the way. She even offers a 21-day cleanse with recipes included. Kris Carr is an incredible and tireless advocate for health and she’ll be your coach, confidant, and companion page after page. I hope you enjoy this book as much as I have.”
- Neal Barnard, M.D.

“Kris Carr makes practical and hopeful suggestions as we face greater and greater numbers of our friends and family falling prey to chronic degenerative disease. I am personally inspired by her example in leading the way for people to take control of their bodies and their health.”
- T. Colin Campbell, PhD

“Kris Carr titillatingly turns a kitchen into a pharmacy.”
- Dr. Mehmet Oz

“Consider this not a diet book, but a guide to living fully; not a meal plan, but a road map to self-empowerment, adorned with Kris’s unrivaled enthusiasm, humor, and compassion.”
- Dean Ornish, M.D.

(Before I tell you how it went down, allow me to say that I think you should approach all meditations guided by strangers with caution. I’ve been to many a gathering where someone wants to lead us down the golden path – and while their intentions are often good, they may not be filling your airwaves with the highest quality thought forms. Guided meditations are like eating at any restaurant – you need to take small bites until you’re sure what you’re consuming.)

Back to a certain guided meditation. “Close your eyes.” (Uh huh.) “Deep breath.” (Uh huh.) “See your dream before you.” (Locked in on crystal clear.) “How does it look, sound, etc, ?” (Feels freaking suh-weet.) “Now,” [insert New Age chimes and slightly evangelical tone...] “…know that your dream is POSSIBLE! … And now, open your eyes.”

Whu? THAT’s IT?! I lean over to my girlfriend and say, “Possible?! Fuck that. My dream is a done deal.” Snort. “Ditto,” she snortled back in solidarity.

“Possible” can be magical. But magic has varying degrees of power. There’s magic sprinkles, and then there’s elixir potions, tonics of creation, galvanizing spells. Leave the sprinkles for cupcakes.

MO’ EFFECTUAL DREAMING
You can’t dream in images of possibility-maybe-could-be-perhaps and get manifestation traction. It’s profoundly unrequited. Possibility can be a lot like purgatory. You just never quite get there, not even in your dreams.

Wizardry is about conjuring up an experience of DONE (not “maybe”.) Succeeded. Achieved. Arrived. Pow!

Visualizing Possibility = striving, maybe, reach, stretch, hit or miss, up for interpretation, deliberation, incomplete, out there, the resounding feeling that there’s still so much to do.

Visualizing Done = the sensation of satisfaction, a reason to celebrate, achievement that you can walk into it, serious calm, expectation you can wrap your head around, a vision that calls you to stand up straight and be your wisest.

But here’s the coolest part about Visualizing Done: that image of success may have something to tell you – a few pointers about how it got made real. When you visual things as “done,” you can walk around the vision and see what it has to say. The image of success can reveal how-to’s and pathways to itself.

Here’s how I do it: I see a myriad of Done Deals in my cosmic atmosphere. I get myself to that state of full-on assuming that what I desire already exists in some dimension, and I just need to step into it, or pluck it out of the ethers. Done. This gives me an incredible sense of calm, and a feeling that life really wants me to win.

And then I ask the done deal to tell me how it…got done. And I hear strategies. For example, I envision my next book as a New York Times bestseller. Done. (Maybe a bestseller? Possibly a bestseller? That feels shaky, not invigorating.) And when I see that bestseller in action, I get really fresh ideas about how to make it a bestseller. Pow. Practical. Invigorating.

Sometimes I see Done Deals and I sniff them out and decide it’s not what I want after-all. Next. You’re never obligated to a dream or a belief.

The business of affirmations and visualization is a mind game, of course.
Ante up.
Play to win.
Big deal.

. . . . . .

INTERVIEWS

I got a shout out in USA Today thanks to NetSetter, who interviewed me about starting businesses, collaboration and seeing opportunities. Click here to read the NetSetter interview.

I’m over it. I figure I have an astral tribe of cheerleaders and there’s nothing they love more than helping me plot my course to pleasuredom. Maybe some of them are are bangin’ funksters, or DaVinci himself. This is what I imagine the classic angelic ones sound like… These are great songs when you’re high, low, or on the outside of any door.

The Unfolding Now: Realizing Your True Nature Through the Practice of Presence
by A.H. Almaas

A.H. Almaas is the creator of The Diamond Approach work, which Ken Wilber calls “a superb combination of some of the best of modern Western psychology with ancient (and spiritual) wisdom…probably the most balanced of the widely available spiritual psychologies/therapies.”

The Unfolding Now book is like chamomile tea for the soul, made with purified water, with honey from sacred bees, served in a hand made Zen bowl. So simple and nourishing. It is a book of rare transmission that sparks one’s deeply innate desire to be real.

We want to learn how we can be here in as real a way as possible: How can I be completely here and completely myself, or as completely as possible? How can my atoms, which are scattered, vibrating, and oscillating in some kind of frenzy, slow down, collect, and settle here as what I am?
- A.H. Almaas

The most delicious mix of questions I drank in all year.

One mile south of Georgia O’Keefe’s beloved Ghost Ranch in New Mexico, thirteen miles down a cliff-hugging dirt road in the heart of Chama Canyon, you will find Christ In The Desert. The Benedictine Monastery is cloister to about twenty monks. I’d fantasized about retreating to the remote monastery for about fifteen years. And when I finally made the white-knuckling drive to the end of the long road and saw that adobe-anchored cross kissing the sky, I felt … Home.

The peace. The humility. The sheer devotion. Getting to Christ In The Desert was a pilgrimage that my cells thirsted for. It’s worth mentioning here that I considered being a nun when I was about six years old. Then I learned what celibacy was and heard that there was a lot of cleaning involved in convent life, and I asked Jesus for his forgiveness because I just knew I wasn’t going to make the cut. I decided I wanted my own variety show, like Cher. Religion, cabaret…it’s all a kind of intense theater of passion.

I arrived just in time for prayer. The monks sing their prayers. Glorious Gregorian chants echoed against the baked clay walls. My heart swelled. Tho’ the heavy sin-trip of the Psalm wasn’t lost on me, I was swept away by the beauty of it all. And I so needed to be swept away. When the chants concluded and the monks filed out behind the tabernacle, I was able to be alone in the chapel for a long, sweet time. I thought about hope – which I have a very cantankerous relationship with. And I thought about priorities of the most divine kind. My priorities have been bumping against each other for a while now – clanking around and grinding down my heart. The focus of my trip was to put my so called priorities on the altar. Smash few. Polish some. Reorganize them to sync with my soul.

“Above all, prayer holds the first place in the monk’s day and nothing must be preferred to this activity. Prayer involves coming into contact with divine life, in openness to the mystery of love which is written in our hearts.” The monks are encouraged to stop their chores if they feel inspired to pray. The passion to pray comes before work and all other tasks. The Brothers pray seven times in day in collective chanting and in solitude. Seven times a day.

So many mornings I have chosen email over meditation. I let deadlines rank over a stretch or a cuddle or a glass of water swallowed slowly and appreciated. I override the call to feel myself – the call to pray, or meditate, or be fully awake. Prayer comes in all forms and each one spoken brings grace to the day.

Thank you. Yes. Have mercy. Keep them safe. How lovely. Courage, please. I love you.

Our hearts are the altars. Ours days, when lived awake, are another chance to know the joys of what matters most. Attend first to the divine and the work at hand becomes art.

Tune in tomorrow for Part II of my monastery adventures…

Saraswati, by Pieter Welteverde www.sanatansociety.com

Saraswati is my #1 Goddess. She rules what I dig most. I’m surprised she’s not up there with Kali and Aphrodite in mass popularity. Saraswati is regarded as the Goddess of knowledge and the arts. She represents consciousness and wisdom, is regarded as the goddess of sound and speech, and is revered as the dispeller of chaos and confusion. As she is the wife of Brahma, she is also seen as the co-creator of the universe. Her name means ‘the flowing’ or ‘the beautiful one’. Yeah baby.

My Saraswati story…
Years ago in Santa Fe, my friend Navjit and I went to a gathering for Guru Karunamayi. New Mexico is to gurus what New York is to rock stars – they all pass through eventually. So catching a Hindi lecture on a Friday night and then heading to the club was par for the course.

So there we were in our leather pants and Timberlands, gold eyeshadow and Betty Paige bangs…in lotus position. Karunamayi spoke of a love that carries all. The God Head Love that bears everything for it’s creation. “My children, my babies” she said in her high-happy Indian accent, “When you are angered, give your anger to Mama. Mama will carry it for you. When you do not know, give your confusion to Mama. Mama will carry it for you.”

When it came time to be blessed – the touch of her hand to my forehead – I went flush…turned to mush. It was confusing. I’m not wired for guru devotion or public displays of emotion. But I felt a sense of love emanating from Karunamayi that was expansive and warm. I felt forgiven, cradled, curious. When she touched me, tears fell from my eyes as if there was tap at the crown of my head that she gently twisted.

I left with one of her devotional chanting tapes – $8 bucks was the least I could do for having my head spun ’round. One chant burned itself into my memory and for years, even tho’ I never knew what it meant, I instinctively hummed it to myself. The chant would come into my mind before a speaking gig, or a big meeting; while on the acupuncture table or when I was sick. When my son was being born (at home) my mother accidentally flipped the stereo from “CD” to tape cassette (which hadn’t been played in years,) and there it was, the scratchy Karunamayi chant looping ’round for ten hours while I laboured:

Om Aim Srim Hrim Saraswati Devyai Namaha

I finally decided to look into the origins of the chant – for all I knew it could be a blessing for the fertility of camels. As it turns out, it is a devotion to Saraswati. My Sistah of speech. My Mama of the Arts. The Goddess of clear, calm strategy.

Goddesses always show up when you need them to.

Who’s your favourite Goddess?

. . . . . .

Here’s a wee little clip of the chant from the “Amma Store.” Charms me to the core.

The Saraswati Mantra is a condensed form of Sri Gayatri Mantra and contains powerful seed syllables representing the three major forms of Divine Mother. Amma highly recommends this mantra for daily meditation or japa. This mantra grants the divine qualities of kindness, gentleness and true nobility.

. . . . . .

RELATED:
spiritual glamour: my first guru heartbreak

the Dalai Lama looked me in the eye and said, women rule! (in so many words)

This weekend my son and I ended up at a Sand Mandala ceremony guided by Tibetan Monks. I just vaguely remembered that something about monks was going on at the Chinese Gardens, and we just happened to arrive as the ceremony was beginning. And there was a prayer carpet in the front row that was just the right size for us to sit together, crossed legged and curious. When things are that charmed, I always pay closer attention.

The creation of sand mandalas is a ritual in the impermanence of life. Incredibly complex patterns are painstakingly built by trinkling grains of coloured sand into their microscopic places. Mandalas can take many weeks to construct – not a grain out of place. And then…the mandala is swept into the wind, the sea, or smeared up into a pile of nothing but sacred sand and given to worshipers or carried to the river by procession.

All that work. Then poof! Since not many of us have worked in the medium of sand, try this metaphor on for size: imagine covering a 5 × 5 foot canvas working with only the teeny tiniest brush. You work round the clock for weeks, barely eating. Eyes stinging, hands cramped. The perfect masterpiece of meaningful complexity – worthy of the Louvre. Instead of a gallery show or collecting a commission, you take it out back and burn it.

Or…imagine building a successful company from just an idea; weaving a marriage together for years; growing a community; a garden; a belief system that guides your entire life… and letting it all go, just walking away. No leverage, no strings, no regrets.

Could you do it?

I think I could. I think I might.

. . . . . . . .

pssst…I’ve decided to tweak my “I’m Loving Mondays” regular feature to simply, “I’m loving…” and run it when I’m inspired. The Monday thing was feeling too restrictive. That said – look for an “I’m loving…” post tomorrow! It’ll be a good one.
xo
D

. . . . . . . .

my upcoming speaking gigs

Dear Friend,

Om shanti. Sometimes when we are together, you ask me why I don’t seem to get tired when I travel from India or give programs into the evening. Tiredness is a kind of sickness. When we work with honesty and love, everything happens without tiredness. When we know how to take cooperation from others, there is no tiredness. It is not a matter of how long we sleep that determines whether we feel tired. It is waste and negative thoughts and actions that create tiredness. Create positive thoughts and elevated actions and you will take strength from that, and your tiredness will leave you.

Work for money and you will count your hours and your salary. Work for love, and you can work 16 hours a day with happiness and without getting tired. Serving others brings energy. You will then feel your happiness accumulating.

Love,
Dadi Janki

I think a lot of us have a big story around needing sleep. I know what science says about sleep and overall wellness (“eight hours is a must.”) But then, science doesn’t have quite as much to say about the chemical effects of joy or enthusiasm. Many eastern teachers believe that we are a culture that sleeps too much. Some practicing monks get by on five hours a night. Apparently Einstein slept in four hour increments to just “rest his brain.”

Rest is the Great Healer. In fact it’s the only time that the body is concentratedly repairing itself. But it’s worth considering that, under normal circumstances, perhaps we don’t need as much sleep as we’ve been lead to believe. Happiness over matter.

One thing I know for sure about myself, is that if I’m enthusiastic, I feel fully rested on less sleep. If I’m complaining or stressed, I need more sleep, I crave it. I feel the same way now about sleeping as I did when I was five years old: I’d rather stay up because I just don’t want to miss anything. I figure there will be lot’s of time to sleep when I die.

How about you?