What is Unfolding?

Unfolding is one of my favorite words — it’s full of possibility. What may come because you made a choice? Who may you meet? What opportunities will present themselves.

As you make a choice, you begin walking with two feet. Your left foot walks in action, with purpose and at your command. Your right foot walks in openness, attentive and receptive to inklings and happenstance. Your left foot represents masculine, doing energy, and takes the necessary action to bring your choice to fruition. Your right foot, more feminine in nature, represents observing, noticing and allowing. It enjoys the meandering and surrenders control, allowing the present to unfold instead of forcefully shaping it. Just as the power of seeing with both eyes enhances your visual perception, walking consciously with both feet allows you to sense the full spectrum of what’s available to you. You have one foot focused on action, the other on what is magically unfolding, and you walk with balance and awareness.

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Choosing to Leave her Faith

tova-mirvis

Tova Mirvis, the author of A Book of Separation: A Memoir, made the choice to both divorce and to leave her orthodox faith and her community.

Raised in an orthodox Jewish community in Memphis, Tennessee she grew up feeling like there was a set path for her; one that her family was part of and one that was always expected would be her own. She knew from a young age that to stay inside a religious community meant she’d always have this sense of community and identity

of who she was supposed to be in the world. Trying very hard to be that person, she married at a young age, had children, and was part of a very religious community where every choice was mapped out for her.

Yet, she had a quiet whisper of doubt for many years — Is this what you really believe? Is this who you really are?

Afraid of what might happen if she let herself answer those hard questions, and how she’d change, she didn’t.

Until she did.

She experienced a growing awareness that who she was on the outside didn’t match who she was on the inside and it became impossible for her to navigate the feeling that she was two separate people She wasn’t living a life she believed and it was inconsistent with who she thought she was. And so, she made a change to live differently than she had before.

During our conversation she discusses how whenever one of us in a family dynamic changes, it changes everyone around us. She couldn’t stay a person who wasn’t going to think about hard questions and pretend so she could belong.

Part of making a change is accepting that pain and responsibility, and feeling the sadness and sometimes the guilt that goes along with knowing that you’re the one who changed something.

Would we ever want our children to not change and to feel like they are incapable of change?

Choosing to change affects those around us, but is that a bad thing?

Listen to Tova’s wisdom about change, identity and belonging. The common thread amongst those who’ve reached out to her, from many religious backgrounds and communities, is they weren’t living the life they felt they were meant to.

To learn more about Tova, please visit her site, and connect with her on Facebook.

To subscribe to the podcast on iTunes, visit this page.and one that was always expected would be her own. She knew from a young age that to stay inside a religious community meant she’d always have this sense of community and identity of who she was supposed to be in the world. 

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Finding Our Way Back: Peek Behind the Curtain

In this podcast I’m doing something different than I’ve done before — I’m taking you behind the curtain to my process in creating a new class that’s evolved from my journey of exploring choices. My vision for Finding Our Way Back: Healing the Rift, is to give you the tools to listen without judgment and speak without anger to those you’re in relationship with, who matter to you, whether it be a child, sibling, romantic partner or friend. It’s for you if you care about the relationship you’re in, but it’s not where you want it to be, and you crave a way to get there.

In this episode I invite you to listen to a conversation I had with my writing coach, Elise, who supported me to pull the brilliance from me (which is usually something I do for others) by asking intuitive questions and allowing me space to answer. If you’ve considered creating your own class or product, this process will hopefully be helpful to you.

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The Alchemy of Choice

I’ve dreamt of speaking about all that we can learn from our past choices to make better future choices, but I’ve resisted. After listening to my friend Patty share how she’d spoken 50 times in 50 weeks, and the transformation she had, I was inspired to take action. As synchronicity would have it, while exploring an alternate high school for my youngest son, I got connected to Joanne. As we got to know each other I shared my work around exploring choices and told her I had a vision to speak about it.

“Did you know that I’m the organizer of the New Haven PechaKucha community?” [Read more…]