Marjorie R. Barlow, Ph.D.

My favorite question is, “How was your day?”

If you say “I am having a good day.”, I think that you might be doing something you like to do. I know that will mean that you will be on an upward spiral towards being healthier, wealthier, and wiser!

People who like their jobs do the best work.

People who like their jobs make the greatest impact.

People who like their jobs are flexible and resilient—are able to change.

One person does make a difference. You are different from everyone else. That means you are unique and that makes you significant.

I love rebels. I also love heretics. Rebels and heretics seem to make the rules rather than follow the rules. Rebels are agents of change. Change is the risk worth taking.

Talent is limited or expanded by self-image. Self-image multiplied by Support (environment and relationships) added to Intention will increase Success. All of those factors will be divided by the ways in which you manage your Time and your Energy. To the level that all these factors are positive, you will experience success; to the level that any factor is negative, your success will be diminished.

The spiral of Consciousness: From Asleep to Aware to Awake to Alive to Attracting to Allowing to Authenticity. Spirals expand up and out. Your greatest expansion will come through your Authenticity. We create from our authenticity. Consciousness is the creative force channeled through one single individual. Imagination is the springboard of consciousness and imagination is the root of creation.

You are unique and you are significant. There is no other like you. You came here to make a contribution that only you can make. The world is a better place because you are here.

The shape of things to come: We will move from triangles to circles in our meetings in the future. Future business meetings will be not so much pyramidal as horizontal and circular, with leaders sitting in every position on the circle. That means you are a leader of one. You have a sphere of influence. You really do make a difference!

Circle meetings are the wave of the future. They will be positively convened and facilitated, with all voices heard; everyone talking and/or listening; respect for time and topic; and creativity encouraged. Circle meetings foster creativity, inviting all the minds to show up, listen up, open up, grow up, lighten up, wise up, link up, and offer up.

I am thinking about the differences between a crowd and a tribe. Wondering what you think? Leading the tribe is very different from marketing to the crowd. Leading the tribe requires vision. What does marketing to the crowd require?  What is your vision?  Your vision is your self expression.  This is the uniqueness of one human being.  Each is a whole universe with incredible genius, original vision, and divine determination.  Whether the tribe is a tribe of one (yourself), or a corporation, it is your vision that supplies the leadership.  So, the same old questions need to be asked, “Who are you?” and “What can you be?”

“How was YOUR day?”  is the question that can start the process of discovery of your true self.

Woke up with clear vision in my left eye. The Cataract surgery really worked! Dr. Richard Berkowitz is a consummate professional with perfectionistic standards. I love a surgeon who is a perfectionist and I have great admiration for Dr. Berkowitz. Seeing colors is a new joy. He had promised I would see better and, indeed, that promise has been fulfilled. One side effect, I see my own wrinkles clearer. I really am old! I see my Mother’s aging face when I look in the mirror and realize that I am in the last twenty years of this life. Much to think about. It is ironic that we are addressing this very issue at our next Tribal gathering at InterfaceFlor, Inc. We are inviting a group of architects, designers, and end users to come and create a future that wants to emerge re senior living possibilities.

There is a new day coming. That day will include all the baby boomers seeking senior living places. The Eden Alternative is a good model for the coming age when we will live past 100 years. We will learn that there is value in being; not just value for doing. We will understand the reason for so-called dementia and other diseases of aging.  We will honor the cross-over phase of life from body to spirit.  We will get it that our bodies are temporary homes for the spirit of each individual.

Seeing is such a divine sense.  I have gratitude for seeing at many levels.

Last week was a whirlwind of activity in Georgia.  I am privileged to continue my work as a Strengths coach and counselor to InterfaceFlor, Inc. Most of my work is on the telephone, by appointment, yet I love the times when I travel and can meet face-to-face with these friends.  When I go to the Interface facility in LaGrange, GA, I try to work in as many meetings and events as I can.  This trip was for another Tribal Gathering, this one for the hospitality industry.  We met wonderful people, all ages, and all facets of the hotel business and a good time was had by all.  The next day, I held several group meetings and our final day was a very satisfying meeting.  This was not a meeting-as-usual, but a “reflecting” with some 40 leaders in the Interface family.  I was gratified by the response of each individual, taking ownership and leadership in their own style and Strengths-Path.  As I move into my wise elder years, I feel confident in the next generations capability to craft the future, based on the best patterns from the past.

This post, today, is to pay tribute to Miriam Lukken.  I had the privilege of meeting her through Amy Lukken, my friend and colleague at Interface.  Miriam’s book, Mrs. Dunwoody’s Excellent Instructions for Homekeeping, was her gift to me.  I have been scanning and browsing this morning while Paul makes his broiled grapefruit for breakfast.  One quote that is so meaningful to me, I want to share with everyone:

“In a letter to a grandchild: Mrs. Dunwoody wrote, “Have nothing in your home that you do not know to be useful, or believe to be beautiful.  Home is a sacred place for you and your family.  Home interprets heaven.  It is heaven for beginners.”

Living in hotel rooms for several days reminded me that we carry “home” with us wherever we are.  I always unpack and move in to the hotel room, making it home for the few days away.  That keeps a certain kind of helpful continuity in my life.  Returning to our home here in Buda, TX, I feel the joy of the heaven we have created here.  Heaven for beginners–that is what home is.

Thank you, Miriam, for your gift of writing your book, sharing the real truth of how we can live together, learning how to love, and creating “beginner’s heaven”.  Mrs. Dunwoody was a survivor-thriver of the war between the states, and I, a survivor of the great depression in the 30′s, share the belief that order and stability can be made through homekeeping.   “Keeper of the home” is a great aspiration for anyone, any gender, any age.  It allows us to thrive.

A Review of the book, “The Spontaneous Healing of Belief” by Greg Braden

These are the laws Braden gives in his book. He says on page 30, “Every day we offer the literal input of our belief-commands to the consciousness of the universe, which translates our personal and collective instructions into the reality of our health, the quality of our relationships, and the peace of the world.”

I say that every thought reflects our beliefs, which amounts to a constant stream of intention, like prayers, which are answered according to the way they are given. If you believed that every thought was a prayer, then you might be willing to change your thoughts to be more in line with what you do want—not so much with what you don’t want. Beliefs are just thoughts we think a lot.

Beliefs are a powerful language, expressing our certainties. They come from our personal experience and express how we create our everyday reality. The anatomy of a belief is that it, first must be expressed through the medium of our bodies and it, second, must have the power to do something in our physical world. Beliefs lead to the way we think. Thoughts create what we feel. And, feelings motivate us to behave in certain ways, which reinforce our beliefs. So, it is important that you know what you believe. You can get a clear picture of that if you watch how you behave (words you speak, tone of voice, facial expression, body posture-gestures-movements). If I want to know what I truly believe, I must be aware of what I do, moment by moment.

I like the way these laws or codes from Braden’s book connect to our new computer age world. I hope you will get interested in reading his book. I would like to discuss these ideas with you, dear reader! Until you read the book, here is a summary of the codes.

Here they are:

Belief Code I

The focus of our attention, experiments show, can change reality itself and suggest that we live in an interactive universe.

II. We live our lives based on what we believe about our world, ourselves, our capabilities, and our limits.

III. Science is a language—one of many that describe us, the universe, our bodies, and how things work.

IV. If the particles that we are made of can be in instantaneous communication with one another, be in 2 places at once, and even change the past through choices made in the present, then we can as well.

V. Our beliefs have the power to change the flow of events in the universe—literally to interrupt and redirect time, matter, and space, and the events that occur within them.

VI. Just as we can run a simulated program that looks and feels real, studies suggest that the universe itself may be the output of a huge and ancient simulation—a computer program—that began long ago. If so, then to know the program’s code if to know the rules of reality itself.

VII. When we think of the universe as a program, atoms represent “bits” of information that work just the way familiar computer bits do. They are either “on” as physical matter or “off”, as invisible wave.

What is the universe computing? Itself.

VIII. Nature uses a few simple, self-similar, and repeating patterns—fractiles—to build atoms into familiar patterns of everything from elements and molecules to rocks, trees, and us.

XI. If the universe is made of repeating patterns, then to understand something on a small scale provides a powerful window into similar forms on a grand scale.

Atoms=bits

Reality=output

Consciousness=OS

Beliefs=programs

X. Belief is the “program” that creates patterns in reality.

XI. What we believe to be true in life, may be more powerful than what others accept as true.

XII. We must accept the power of belief to tap it in our lives.

XIII. Belief is defined as the certainty that comes from what we think is true, coupled with what we feel is true in our hearts.

XIV. Belief is expressed in the heart, where our experiences are translated into the electrical and magnetic waves that interact with the physical world.

XV. Beliefs, and the feelings that we have about them, are the language that “speaks” to the quantum stuff that makes our reality.

XVI. The subconscious mind is larger and faster than the conscious mind, and can account for as much as 90% of our activity each day. E.g. breathing, digestion

XVII. Many of our most deeply held beliefs are subconscious and begin when our brain state allows us to absorb the ideas of others (before the age of 7).

XVIII. In our greatest challenges of life, we often find that our deeply hidden beliefs are exposed and available for healing.

XIX. Our beliefs about unresolved hurt can create physical effects with the power to damage or even kill us.

XX. When our soul hurts, our pain is transmitted into the body as the spiritual quality of the life that we feed into each child.

XXI. The same principles that allow us to hurt ourselves into death also work in reverse, allowing us to heal ourselves into life.

XXII. Our belief in one force for everything that happens in the world, or our belief in two opposite and opposing forces (good vs. evil) plays out in our experience of life, health, relationships, and abundance.

XXIII. To heal the ancient battle between darkness and light, we may find that it is less about defeating one or the other, and more about choosing our relationship to both.

XXIV. A miracle that is possible for anyone is possible for everyone.

XXV. In a participatory reality, we are creating our experience as well as experiencing what we have created.

XXVI. In 1998, scientists discovered that photons are experienced just by being watched and discovered. They further discovered, that the more intense the watching, the greater the watchers influence on how the particles behaved.

XXVII. The prime rule of reality is that we must become, in our lives, what we choose to experience in the world.

XXVIII. We tend to experience in life what we identify with in our beliefs.

XXIX. For different reasons that reflect the variations in the way we learn, both logic and miracles give us the way into the deepest recesses of our beliefs.

XXX. To change our beliefs through the logic of our minds, we must convince ourselves of a new possibility through inarguable facts that lead to an inescapable conclusion.

XXXI. The power of a miracle is that we don’t have to understand why it works. We must, however, be willing to accept what it brings to our lives. The spontaneous healing of belief: love fearlessly and share unselfishly. Miracles can happen. We are the seeds of miracles.

Our job is to look into the world for reasons for new beliefs. Our work is to discover our world and then, with all our heart, give ourselves to it.

Love with all our heart, soul, and mind. Love fearlessly. Share unselfishly. Transformation happens through the power of our beliefs.

You As Leader

I have been thinking about this idea today.  Think of all the people in your life that you would label “Leader”…..

Next, describe how you think they are doing.  Go for the best praise and the lowest criticism for each one of them.  Take time to do this and be as honest as you can in your assessment of each one.

Now, ask yourself about your own view of yourself.  Are you a leader?  Whom do you lead?  Am I a leader?  Whom do I lead?   My answer is yes to all those questions.  You are a leader and I am a leader.  Each one of us leads.

Here is what I cannot escape as a conclusion.  We are all leaders.  We lead someone.  Primarily, we lead ourselves.  Each one of us is different and we lead humanity toward some evolutionary progress.  Or, we don’t.  Each one of us has the capacity to forward our expansive evolutionary journey as a species called human; each one of us has the capacity to delay that expansion.  Expansion is the true name of the game.  We are expanding and we will continue to expand.  They tell us the Universe herself is expanding.  The upward spiral is ever up and ever broadening.  (We need good “shrinks” to help us grasp this concept.)

Now look at the list you made of leaders.  Are they Presidents (of country or company)?  Are they living or dead; male or female; old or young?  Be in the zone of what I call “merciless self awareness”.  Ask what you are revealing to yourself.  What you see, what you react to, what you think-feel-do-believe is all here for your observation.  I hope you keep your observation objective and benign.  No self-downing, please.  Just go for the awareness of who you are and how you behave today, right here and right now.

Here’s where the moment of contrast is faced.  As within, so without.  “As a man thinketh….”  This is the Come to Jesus moment of self awareness.  Prepare to face your own self-constructed reality.  Ready?  Set?  Go!

Using your keen self-awareness, own your own projections.  Look at your lists and say, “I am like that, too.”  We see our named leaders through the lens of our own perception; through the filters of our own experience; through the life script we are living.  And we are the author, actor, and audience of the life script.  The good news here is that we can take charge of the script.

Do you ever find yourself praising or criticizing your very own self for the same characteristics you attributed to those leaders you named?  Are you even harder on yourself than you are on your manager, your boss, your company leader, your president???

What if the one person we actually lead day in and day out is number one—yourself–myself?  What if we saw the dual roles operating within us—both leader and follower.  What if we supported that internal follower with good thoughts and high acceptance?  What if I looked on myself as a follower who needs a compassionate, caring, mindful, and, yes, happy leader?  This is like self-re-parenting.  Taking charge and providing the parenting that our birth parents couldn’t or wouldn’t do, is our responsibility as well as our right as leaders of our own destiny.

Can I be a leader and be happy?  I think we cannot justify or logically support any opinion as making us happy or sad; nothing outside us makes us full of joy or full of despair.  Your job is not the culprit; your spouse or your spice is not the cause; your outside world does not dictate the experience of your inside world.  The greatest power you possess is here in this concept.  You have choices about how you respond to your life experiences.

Being a leader of one is possible.  Being happy is possible.  My job doesn’t really make me happy nor does it make me full of despair.  Nothing outside the realm of my own thought system makes me feel anything.  This is a belief that is both frightening and freeing.  It is the good news and it is the bad news.  I and I, alone, own what I believe, what I think, what I feel, and what I do.  Today, I am convinced this is true for you, too.

Therefore, we can choose to take charge of our thinking and, ultimately, take charge of our believing.  Belief creates reality.  My conclusion, on this seventh day of February, 2010, is that I am the only one in charge of my beliefs and my thoughts.  My feelings are the indicator of whether I am leading myself in the most beneficial directions.   My feelings are the gauge of whether I am operating from my native talents—my strengths—or whether I am playing the old games and being a victim of Life.  If I am in the Victim role, I will cast my leaders on the outside as my Persecutors or as my Rescuers.  Therefore, the neurotic games can continue.  (Rarely have I seen anyone cast their boss as the Victim!)

My beliefs are the prognosticator of whether I experience abundance, love, and success.  Yes, believing makes it so.  Beliefs create experience.

As Harry Palmer, the founder of Avatar, says, “If you don’t believe this to be true, you will experience it as false, which proves that the belief creates the experience!”

So, as of this moment, I send all those who are in positions of leadership my most compassionate, prayerful thoughts for their success, their embracing of abundance instead of scarcity, and their discovery of the power of Love.

I accept my expansive possibilities for more wisdom in my beliefs.  I embrace the people in my world as the genius provocateurs of my growth.  And, I thank every one of them for the contrast, the turning points, and the climb to the next level on my journey of self-discovery; self-ownership; and self-creation.