A Cog In The Wheel

Below is a letter I just wrote to the participants in an offering I call The Intuitive Gym.  It was a brainstorm of an idea that showed up last May.  I launched as a summer experience to explore intuition and workout that piece (peace) of the amazing mind. I was moved to share what I wrote this morning on the blog because I want to.  As simple as that.   I am sharing on the blog because I am aware at this point that as I become more visible in the world, I am noticing the critic, the censor.  I notice that I write and then hold on to it.  A blog post sits in my edit pile, an email in the draft folder, a new idea for an offering in the file in my cognitive mind.  Ah, cog - only one of the pieces needed to keep the wheel in motion.  Now, let me share a bit about how I write.   As I was writing this little intro to the post below, which I wrote in my email a bit ago, I notice for the very first time 'cog' in cognitive.  This is how the mind perceives now.  Things pop out.   Especially words.  There are SO many brilliant clues in words.  So, I then pop on Dictionary.com and find the definition for 'cog.'  There are several but I notice this one and it feels true.  A  'person or thing playing a small part in a large organization or process.' A small part.  A cog in the wheel - not the whole wheel itself.  The larger organization is the mind, body and spirit, not just the cognitive, rational mind. So, life is inviting that even while I am expanding, being seen by more people, I am not going to censor - filter, yes - not censor.  So, like the It's Alive post, and The Intuitive Gym and this Cog in the Wheel post, I will learn by doing, by putting out the ideas, the blog, the emails, the offerings and learn from experience. 

So, here comes the uncensored stuff.  News at 11.

Email to The August Intuitive Gym Members - Sent on Sunday, August 14, 2011

Welcome to The Intuitive Gym,

Our first group session is Tuesday, August 16th from 4 pm to 5 pm PDT. Please RSVP so I know who will be live on the call. Even though the call will be recorded, the experience of attending and 'playing out' - (really, when you are in the sweet spot, feels much more like play than work), is where the opportunity for growth and change occur. Let me share a bit about my experience in my own intuitive gym and why this is my particular passion and how I coach and inspire others.

I like to say I was living a fairly conventional, stable, well-ordered balanced life as a mother, active parent volunteer, a worker bee in part-time positions for a variety of organizations. Then, in the summer of 2001, a few months before 9/11, I began to fall apart. What started as some routine numbness in my left foot and leg began a five year odyssey through the medical community and through the inner workings of my body, mind and ultimately my heart and spirit. In 2006, after exhausting the options through the Western medical community and one final conversation with a compassionate and wise neurologist, I went to see a marriage and family counselor. Now, I was reluctant to do this because I knew this wasn't all in my head...it was literally in my body and I wasn't able to grasp at the time how one could be set in motion by bringing all the parts of myself together instead of holding them separate in my mind. Sure, I had heard the term holistic and mindfulness and others such ideas, but that is what they were - intellectual ideas. I, like a lot of Americans, have a terrific logical mind - sharp, rational, orderly. Well, I was to discover that I had been cut-off from accessing a vital and valuable part of myself - the creative and intuitive mind. I was unconscious to how this mind - this beautiful mind - scared me because I had met it before and it was free, unpredictable, and brought what felt more like chaos than control into my life. So, I closed the door on this mind years before and call it fate, destiny, kismet, timing...whatever word fits, that door reopened. After six months exploring with this lovely, gentle and deeply intuitive counselor,  in the spring of 2006, a shift occurred in my life so deep and profound, that I literally woke-up to a new world, new body, mind and spirit - spring awakening. The experience of being guided through this non-linear, non-rational mind was so potent I began to take action and walk through deeply challenging experiences with a new found sense of peace and freedom - not always joy or happiness or bliss ( though they were there as well) - freedom. And now I am singing a new tune, a new anthem - let freedom ring.

So, this sets the stage for the Gym. Life was my first coach and it has been an empowering relationship. And that, my friends, both old ones and new, is how I came to be offering back the wisdom that came through this opportunity to wake-up to a new life. Over the last almost six years now, I have been re-made and have a new life - from the inside out.

First group call - Tuesday, August 16th from 4 pm - 5 pm. Show up - amazing things happen when we just show up. Schedule your one-on-ones. And don't be fooled by the price you paid for this experience. Life gives us opportunities all the time to show how we value an experience. So ask yourself, whether you pay $99 or $999 or $9999, life isn't concerned with the decimal point...imagine if you invest in this experience as if you paid your 'wait' in gold. Well, come along - because you did. You have a 24 karat gold experience ahead. ( a head - get it?) Life is so clever and funny. Come share a laugh or two.

Ask questions, be curious, notice, feel and experience with an open mind.

See you in the Gym,
Mary