Category: 2017

Wisdom’s Way to Peace: The Wonder of Self Kindness

HAPPY NEW YEAR! In this next year, my overarching theme at Feathers, Rainbows & Roses will be peaceful relating with all our relations. Peaceful relating, as a practice and an attitude, is choosing to communicate and engage – with ourselves and others – with love, with respect for the dignity of another, and to do so justly. My desire is to help you develop and enhance your skills and inner capacity to enjoy and practise peaceful relating with all your relations.

We live always in the wonder of relationship, regardless of the quality of those relationships. I believe that collectively, we are awakening to the truth that we need one another in socially and intimate ways for our well-being. We need love and inter-connection. We are social beings who thrive when we are loved and when we love. We are awakening to the reality that most of our deepest hurts and pain result in the wounds of human relating, in the absence of connection, of acceptance and of belonging.

Recently I was teaching a class where I was introducing a new routine to dog training students. I was excited about a section of the routine, knowing it required handling skills beyond what we have done before. I hadn’t worked out all the kinks and wasn’t sure how this section of the routine would yet flow. So, after the first run-through of the routine, I asked the class for input and suggestions about it. Without warning, one member took the opportunity to sabotage the class, resulting in confusion, frustration and resentment for most of those present. Suddenly, I was caught in a situation where I hadn’t planned on being.

In reflecting on this situation afterward, I thought about what peaceful relating looks like when boundaries, whether personal or group, are being trespassed. What could I have done differently to give an opportunity for people to voice their thoughts without my own boundaries being intruded upon? [Thankfully, I was able to debrief later with another trainer and come up with responses and strategies to manage the situation better should this behaviour occur again.]

I also contemplated on various elements of my upcoming workshop and their relevance in helping me to handle myself with grace, patience and professionalism. I was able to stay grounded, centered and responsive in a difficult and unexpected situation. Practise what you preach, they say!

Creating boundaries which promote kindness and health for ourselves while maintaining connection is an ever-evolving skill. Learn more about how to do this in my upcoming workshop – The Self Kindness Response: Boundaries for Healthy & Joyful Living on February 24-25th, 2017. Join me for two full days of developing and practising better skills at saying YES and NO to sustain our health and well-being (kindness toward ourselves). We will set ourselves up to be prepared for, rather than overwhelmed by, the daily stresses and demands of our lives.

In the coming weeks, I will be releasing a series of podcasts, this time with Jennifer Bodenham, a team development coach, in which we explore why we need boundaries, what they are and one specific exercise to help you learn how you can get started towards living a life that is more kind and joyful. The wonder and value of self-kindness, health and maintaining connection with others, even when it starts to get difficult are mutually possible with a little education and lots of commitment towards peaceful relating with all our relations (that means ourselves too). I invite you to listen in. Consider this a sampling of what you will gain from attending The Self Kindness Response: Boundaries for Healthy & Joyful Living on February 24-25th, 2017.

Namaste,

Shirley Lynn

Wisdom’s Way to Peace: From Love to Courage

Being deeply loved by someone gives you strength, while loving someone deeply gives you courage. Lao Tzu

During a web search for quotes about courage, I found that most quotations suggest that courage precedes before all other virtues. First you need courage and then you can be kind and compassionate and generous. I find it easy to agree with this order of moral quality. So it gave me pause in reading the ancient teacher Lao Tzu’s perspective. He tells us that it is loving another which gives us courage. What he really reveals is this: It starts and ends with love.

In preparation for writing this blog, I first had to sit with various definitions of what courage is understood to mean. I read the following:

  • the ability to do something that frightens one;
  • strength in the face of pain or grief.

I then found the following definition to be a more full and complete definition:

  • mental or moral strength to venture, persevere, and withstand danger, fear, or difficulty (Merriam Webster).

The origin of the word courage comes from Middle English corage, from Anglo French curage, from coer (heart), from Latin cor. In other words, courage comes from the heart, the way of love. As Maya Angelou wrote, “One isn’t necessarily born with courage, but one is born with potential. Without courage, we cannot practice any other virtue with consistency. We can’t be kind, true, merciful, generous, or honest.”

It starts with love. We are born loving. We are born to be loved foremost. Compared to other mammals, human infants would need to be in utero another 12 months to have the same capacities of new life as other infant mammals. Foals are able to stand and walk within hours. Kittens and puppies within weeks. Human babies take 9-12 months (or more) to walk. As newborns, we are completely dependent. We start with love, not courage. And love is what keeps babies thriving.

When you watch a child that is deeply loved, it is this love which provides a strong foundation to explore, to fall, cry and get back up to try again. A loved child builds courage to touch and taste the world. A loved child develops the resilience to face the great challenges of life.

When I was 10 years old, my father was killed in an industrial accident with burns over much of his body. Though he loved his children deeply, my mother showed us the burns to explain that he didn’t leave because he didn’t love us, but because of the burns. Because he loved us first, and we knew it in our bones, we had the courage to face both the tragedy and the aftermath of a parent’s death. To this day, his spirit continues to demonstrate his love for me, a love that nurtures my courage to step out and into the fullness of my potential.

About 10 years ago my grandfather died. Three days prior to his 85th birthday, our whole family gathered to celebrate his birthday around his death bed. We expressed our love and gratitude to him for the love and commitment and mentoring he had shown us in our lives, through song and prayers and story-telling. He came and lived before us and left a legacy of love and gentleness for us to follow. Because he loved us deeply, and we knew it, he developed the courage to face his own death, his own transition back into Spirit. He knew he would have to travel this journey and leave us behind. Just as coming into this world is a courageous act, so is leaving this world and trusting that those you are leaving will be well. It is love that first nurtured such courage in both of their hearts. And it is love that builds courage in the next generation to step out and forward to create their future of good fortune and blessing.

Lao Tzu says when we love another deeply, we build courage. When we receive love, we build strength. When we are courageous because we love and receive love, we have more joy. We develop the joy that comes with loving when hurt is still mending, for we will indeed have to face this life experience. Love gives us the courage to open our hearts to give more love and to receive love, even after the hurt, the rejection, the betrayal. Love is the deep motivator to be courageous and open to one’s inner knowing and wisdom that guides us to face the fear pressing in, shrinking our mind and our relationships.

If you are afraid, or if you are struggling to exercise the courage to follow your heart and pursue your dream, perhaps you need to contemplate your inner state of being loved and deeply loving another. If you don’t feel strong, where do you need to open your heart and receive love? And if you lack courage, then where do you need to more deeply love another?

To thrive with courage, first deeply love. Courage is love. Courage is my soul. It is my potential. I was born to love and be courageous. I came through the birth canal, riding the waves of contractions, to come head first into a sea of light into a new world. I am hard-wired to be resilient. To take the knocks of life, to get back up and keep choosing love. And so are you!

So please, keep loving deeply. That’s courage, and you have it in you. Contact Shirley Lynn for individual coaching and whole life therapies to bring healing to the stories of love that need to be transformed. Find the courage to awaken and re-kindle your heart’s truth and passion.