[Ecstatic Presence Ezine] Coming to practice...change Your Work, Change the World...Gratitude Games

LaSara’s Note * Change Your Work, Change the World * Ecstatic Presence Empowerment: Gratitude Games!

Hey friend,

When it’s hardest to give myself to practice, it’s the most important to do so.

Big changes are afoot in my life, and I - knocked off center - come back to the zafu, sit in front of my quiet altar, draw a card for contemplation from my goddess deck, and receive Kuan Yin. Goddess of Compassion. She will lead my practice today.

I draw at random from my stack of meditation books. It’s Jon Kabbat-Zinn’s Wherever You Go, There You Are. I open to a page at random, and it’s an essay called “A What-Is-My-Way? Meditation”.

I find my way in the few minutes of quiet. The way of surrender. The power of prayer enfolds me, and I surrender to being held by something larger.

I feel my heart constrict, a baby in the birth canal, I am being pushed through this moment, into a larger awareness of self, of potential.

Death and birth are solitary walks. Every moment of it, truly alone…yet not alone. In facing my absolute sense of self, I break nearly into a knowing of the larger truth – that there is no alone.

Compassion sits just outside my reach, because I have placed it there. Presence is, or is not. Presence is releasing expectation, releasing attachment, releasing time.

There is no time in the eternal now, the forever unfolding is-ness of the moment.

I am present, in practice. I am breathing compassion, in practice.

So I come back to the meditation altar, back to the pillow, and sit.

peace.

-LaSara
www.lasarafirefox.com

For those of you who missed our Teacher to call class, all is not lost – Robert and I made it into a training product! And, if you pre-order now, it’s less than half price! Read on for the details.

Change Your Work, Change the World; Teacher to Coach Training Product
with LaSara Firefox, MPNLP, and Robert Allen, BA, MHP

Teacher to Coach is a career call to action for teachers, advocates, authors, and educators to take their expertise and develop a dynamic coaching business! Teacher to Coach is now available as a training product for you to use at home and office.

From coaching styles, to marketing, to self-care, Teacher to Coach offers information on how to transform your area of expertise into a career as a coach, FT or PT.

This value-packed, multi-media home course will help you begin transitioning your entrepreneurial endeavors from teaching to the coaching model. Buy NOW, and as a thank you gift for your pre-order, you’ll get:

• The Teacher to Coach multi-media course for less than half the usual price. You’ll pay only $19.99. (Regular price; $49 – reduced rate ends Sept. 1.)
  
• AND, a half-hour personalized coaching session with Robert and LaSara as follow-up, for the first 15 people to purchase a pre-order.

The Teacher to Coach training product includes;

• a 45minute audio recording with Robert Allen and LaSara Firefox, that covers the details necessary to begin your coaching practice (mp3)
  
• Six reasons to Build a Phone Coaching Practice, by LaSara Firefox (pdf)
  
• How to Monetize Your Blog, by Robert Allen (pdf)
  
• Introduction to Social Media Marketing, by Robert Allen (pdf)
  
• Pre-coaching evaluation from LaSara Firefox (worksheet)
  
• Pre-coaching evaluation by Robert Allen (worksheet)
  
• BONUS GIFT: Doing Business with LaSara Firefox and Robert Allen – interview with Dan McComb and Lara Feltin, founders of Biznik.com, on How to Choose a Business Network (mp3)

This product is totally green: zero waste! You will receive audio files and pdfs. You can use the product entirely from your computer (or palm-top). Or, print or burn as needed.

Product will be shipped on or before September 1, 2008.

Need more info? You can contact Robert at Robert@coachingwithrobertallen.com, or LaSara at firefox@lasarafirefox.com.

Ecstatic Presence Empowerment: Gratitude Games!
by LaSara Firefox, www.lasarafirefox.com

I wrote this Empowerment for the Thanksgiving holiday. However, every day is a good day to practice gratitude. If you feel inspire to integrate gratitude practice into your life, create a Gratitude Gathering. You can use these games as a starting point.

1. Gratitude Practice: The old standby. Everyone in your cluster takes a turn saying something they’re grateful for. One offering isn't enough? Go around again!

2. "Gratigories": Take turns choosing categories, and then everyone at your table offers one thing they are grateful for in the chosen "gratigory."

At our family Thanksgiving last year we played this, and it was great! Some fun - and surprisingly touching - gratigories we came up with; public utilities, things that happened to or for us when we were teens, family traditions that have been handed down, the influence of famous people.

Have fun with the gratigories! The more diverse, the better.

3. A Grateful A to Z: An alphabet of gratitude! Start with A, and make
your way to Z. Make sure everyone takes a turn. This is obviously a great gratitude game for the wee ones in your crew.

4. Compassionate Gratitude: The most challenging o my gratitude games perhaps, but what better way to strengthen your practice of compassion, than with gratitude?

The point of Compassionate Gratitude is to find things to be grateful about in areas that challenge your lovingness. Politics? Family? America? Media? Culture? Choose your topic, and find the gift in the challenge!

Consider yourself empowered!

About the author:

LaSara FireFox, MPNLP, is mom to two amazing daughters, a life coach, and an educator. She helps her clients and students to find balance in their lives, and alignment with their personal and family-held values.

Visit LaSara’s website at www.lasarafirefox.com for more information. At the site, you can listen to her “Yoga Mama Satsangha” podcast series, download free parenting-related items, and more.

An Ecstatic Presence Empowerment: Three Steps to Engaged Gratitude

by LaSara FireFox, www.lasarafirefox.com

Do you want to increase the peace in your life? Do you want more love, more joy, more presence? Do you want to take an active part in becoming the actual manifestation of "heaven on earth"?

The most revolutionary thing we can do to increase the peace is to LIVE IT. As Gandhi said, "there is no way to peace. Peace is the way." The more we practice peace, the more peace becomes our lives. We can live peace in every moment.

I'm not talking about some abstraction, or idea of peace. Nor am I speaking of the absence of conflict. Even in the midst of conflict, we can BE peace.

Engaged Gratitude practice, in three steps:

1: Invoke and Embody The Presence of Love

Make love real. Agapic love. The big, big love that lives at the center of all things. The flame that burns "in every heart of man, and in the core of every star." How to realize, or remember, this love, you may ask. The practices are many, the goal one. Gratitude practice, asking powerful questions, inducing positive states, prayer and meditation are all ways to invoke love.

Wherever we are, whatever we are doing, we can invoke and embody the presence of love. In my "playshop" called Being The Presence of Love, I offer not only many practices to make this practice accessible, but also offer the template of experiencing being present in love, so that you have a reliable, physiological anchor that will make it easy to access the power of Divine Love in any moment.

For now, an easy way to manifest the presence of love is to think of something that makes you feel a love beyond limits, unconditional, eternal. The perfect love. I find this love at the heart of deep prayer, in the arms of my beloved, sharing a smile with my child.

Think about it, and then feel it. Ahhhh. There it is. Now feel it even more. Let your heart, your whole being, glow with this love.

Of course, invoking the presence of love is only step one.

2: Grow Your Gratitude!

Gratitude heals the heart. This is true on multiple levels. Of course it makes sense on the metaphorical level - how could becoming grateful NOT heal a broken heart? When we experience loss, healing comes from realizing that the sum total of the impact of any experience was for the best. When we get this, it becomes easy to be grateful for the experiences we encounter.

In addition to the metaphorical, gratitude also heals the actual physiology of your heart. This is wonderful, and true! Gratitude practice is recommended as part of many heart-surgery and heart disease recovery programs. How does it work? Gratitude is the antidote for stress, anger, anxiety and many other ills. Stress, of course, is a huge contributor to both heart disease and heart attack.

Gratitude offers a rest to our physiological systems. For instance, say you're standing in line at the grocery store, and the people in front of you are taking forever. You may be late getting to where ever you're going, but is stressing out about it going to change the fact that you're stuck in line? Not a chance!

The one thing you CAN change is how you are experiencing the moment. So, instead of obsessing about your situation, take the time and cultivate gratitude. Even starting small will work. You can be grateful that you have the money to buy food. You can be grateful that you have a chance to read those amazing headlines on the trashy mag in the rack. I get really simple with it, and remember to be grateful to have a moment to be in stillness and silence. (Standing in line is a perfect opportunity for a moment of meditation.)

This choice is affecting you, and as a true believer in systems theory, I would say that is affects all that is. Your stress is not just your stress - it may very well affect the whole system in some subtle way. Your gratitude is the same way. As you choose to relax instead of stress, the ripples spread. Your interaction with the cashier is going to be different. His interaction with the next person in line may well be different, too.

On the personal level alone, though, the benefits are too many to mention. Gratitude is SO much nicer to hold in our cells than the alternative.

Another wonderful bonus is that because our minds sort for, and we notice, that which we expect, when we start practicing gratitude, we start noticing more and more to be grateful for. Gratitude practice, just like any other practice, becomes easier the more you do it!

3: Make Love a Verb; Gratitude in Action!

Love and gratitude become more powerful by far, when put into engaged action. Engagement is the final step of this process. Take your love and DO something with it. That something might be sitting in prayer, but think of how much more prayer you'd bring if you were to start hosting a weekly group prayer night at your home.

When you find gratitude for the food on your table, let it remind you that you can do your part to reduce suffering by offering food to those in need. Make a meal, box it up, and offer it to a local homeless person you have seen around.

While you're at it, have a conversation with this person.

At the Season for Nonviolence gathering a while back, Dr. Arun Gandhi pointed out that compassion is different from pity. I paraphrase the esteemed man here; pity offers the food and hopes the person will walk away with it. Compassion offers the food, asks the person how they ended up on the streets, witnesses the story, and does it's part to cause an end to the reasons that this person and others end up without.

Namaste. We are one. We are none. Consider yourself empowered!

Happy Summer Solstice!

In this post: LaSara's Note; Happy Summer Solstice! * An Ecstatic Presence Empowerment

Hey Love,

Happy Solstice! May your worlds of dream come into manifestation in perfect alignment with your purpose!

Manifestation is an act of creation, and you are breating it, and being it, right now.

Lotsa love, and have a peaceful day,

-LaSara

P.S. Just a reminder that I'm raising my coaching and mentoring rates today. If you want to get on board at the current rate (and lock that rate in for your next coaching program, too), commit before midnight (pacific) tonight. Call me at 707-293-5153, or drop a note to info@lasarafirefox.com.

An Ecstatic Presence Empowerment: The Gift of Recognition
by LaSara FireFox, www.lasarafirefox.com

Sometimes when I'm in the middle of a project, it's hard to hear a request for my attention as anything other than a distraction. And the less I pay attention, the bigger my loved-one's need gets for a moment of connection.

Soon, the chant of "MOM! MOM! MOM! MOM!" begins, and my edge starts rising.

The moment I remember that this is an opportunity for presence, and a chance for a moment of divine interaction, the energy shifts. All I need to do is come present in the Love.

I invite you to consciously enter into interaction as a moment of divine presence. Bring your whole self into your heart, and connect from there. Recognize the inherent wholeness, integrity, perfection in your loved ones, in strangers, in yourself. Make Love a verb.

Consider yourself Empowered!