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Important Concepts of Heart-centered Life-leadership
The ideas we aspire to shape our lives & our world.
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"My participation in this intensive program has restored my faith that genuine people do exist! And also, that I can become one of them. I'm learning more than how to survive -- or even how to live, I'm gaining the skills and freedom to move toward living more fully and passionately. I love the whole process, every bit of it"!
Jane ~ Artist, 70 years old
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Authentic Nature & Natural Style
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Each and every person has specific natural needs, tendencies and aspirations. We are all endowed with particular creative inclinations and idiosyncrasies. It is these specific aspects of our spirit that define the authenticity of our individuality. Our authenticity is the source of our strength and our creative power.
To celebrate and champion our authentic nature is truly a life-giving and incredibly generous act. . .not only for us individuals but for human beings collectively. Why is this so? Because as individuals do the work of identifying, claiming and championing their own authentic nature, they come to recognize a vital and beautiful truth: "I am diversity." And, as we as individuals come to recognize ourselves as one of the vast expressions of creative diversity, it allows us, in turn, to recognize and relate to the diversity that lives within others and within our culture and world.
Authenticity begins at home: If we want our relationships, families, communities and world to be places where authentic diversity flourishes, we must be willing to do the work of ensuring we are in an authentic relationship with our spirit, becoming more of the truth of ourselves in service of others and community.
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The All-Pervasive Power of Paradox
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Life is paradox. We are happy and sad. Excited and anxious. Peaceful and angry. Our lives are filled with moments of great joy and celebration and moments of great grief and difficulty. What person knows victory without also knowing defeat? Sometimes things work out "just right" while other times nothing seems to go as we had hoped.
The power of paradox is all-pervasive. And it is up to us to decide how we will respond to the deeply paradoxical truth of our lives. One option is to attempt to avoid paradox, living in a small and protected way, avoiding any and all moments of challenge, hurt and mistakes. By doing so, we can easily slide into rigidity and endanger our passion and creative vision.
The life-enhancing option is to honor and celebrate the undeniable fact of paradox and allow our on-going experiences of paradox to become the womb from which our great passion, creativity and life vision are born.
Sadness, anxiety, anger, defeat, mistakes and imperfection, etc. are not the enemy. Rather, they are vital partners in the creative dance that is our lives (along with peace, happiness and excitement, etc.). To deny either side of the paradox is to throw water on the creative fire that burns at the core of the human heart.
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The Passionate Longings of the Heart
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We can live our lives based on what we think we "should" do, "ought" to do or "must" do. Our actions can be motivated by what is most expedient, what will bring us the most money or what will be most smiled upon by society.
We can also make the intentional choice to live our lives inspired and guided by the deepest longings of our hearts. To make this choice is to harmonize our living with the great creative force of life.
The passionate longings of the heart are the wellspring of passion and creativity. It is through the deepest longings of our hearts that we are able to discern our life direction and calling and thus formualte a vision for our lives. It is through the full embracing of our heart's deepest longings that we are able to break the shackles of shame and oppression that keep our spirits imprisoned. The creative desires of our heart are the doorways to our fulfillment. By learning to listen to them, we free ourselves from the stress of confusion and busy-ness.
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Advocating the "Other"
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Republicans. Democrats. Old. Young. Religious. Atheist. Jew. Arab. Black. White. Man. Woman. First world. Third world. Gay. Straight. The great quilt of our humanity is the patchwork of nature: Diversity is our middle name. The moments of our lives are filled with "otherness." We are constantly encountering people who are vastly different from ourselves. And with this basic fact of life, comes great responsibility.
Humanity is facing great challenges. And, many of our gravest difficulties stem from the fact that we do not know how to truly honor, celebrate and advocate the other. To advocate "otherness" goes far beyond mere acceptance and tolerance. Advocacy requires intentionality and maturity. For it involves looking deeply into the life of someone who is very different from oneself and then finding something within that person's belief, position, preference or viewpoint that we can passionately uphold and celebrate.
The intentional act of advocacy is both a humbling and empowering act. It requries that we acknowledge within ourselves that we need the other to complete our vision of the real. And, it ultimately empowers us as human beings through helping us make strong and authentic connections with people who don't see the world through our eyes.
Advocating the other is about building bridges -- bridges between people and bridges to an inclusive future of peace and cooperation.
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What Does it Mean to be Intentional & Heart-centered?
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To be intentional is to be deliberate and purposeful. It's about making conscious choices with regards to how we live our lives. And it involves acting according to an aim or a vision. It also means embracing the responsibility of how our actions effect and/or inspire others.
To be heart-centered is to align our living with our deepest longings and creative desires. It's about allowing our actions to be genuinely inspired and motivated by what is most passionate and authentic within our hearts.
So, to live in an "intentional heart-centered" way is to consciously choose to live by a purposeful vision that emerges from the passionate longings of the heart.
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What is Breakthrough?
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We are not meant to live as cogs in a wheel of dull habit and routine. Our lives are greatly diminished when we fall into ruts that leave us bored, uninspired or apathetic. We are meant to live fulfilled lives. Lives of deep passion, meaning and vision. To experience breakthrough is to remove or move beyond those internal or external barriers that prevent us from living the passionately fulfilled lives we are meant to live. Life-leadership is about acquiring the tools that allow big breakthroughs toward our vision to be realized.
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Countering the Depression of Spirit
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When speaking about depression there's an important distinction that needs to be made. There is a clinical depression that is connected with a person's physiology (i.e. brain chemistry) and/or deep psychological state of being. There is also what can be called a "depression of spirit" that is not clinical in nature. When we experience a "depression of spirit" it is often a sign that our lives lack passion, meaning, authenticity, purpose or a deep sense of community. A "depression of spirit" often ensues when the core necessities of our humanity (i.e. passion, meaning, purpose, relatedness) are lacking or absent. Just as it is vital for clinical depression to be addressed medically and through therapy, it is equally essential that a depression of spirit be addressed through a leadership-oriented process of heart-discovery, inspiration and vision-building.
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Freeing the Human Spirit
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The struggle for freedom comes in many different forms: political, social, economic. . . And, there is also a struggle for freedom that needs to occur within the heart and mind. When we live according to what we think we should do, feel obligated to do or have been conditioned to do, our spirit is not free. When we choose a career path that is safe and comfortable yet goes against the basic truth of our nature, our spirit is not free. When shaming voices howl in our heads and stop us from doing what we really want to do, our spirits are not free. When we betray the calling of our heart, we are not free. Each individual's spirit needs to be fully freed to create love, build community and contribute to a world hungry for peace and reconciliation.
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The Vital Paradox of Freedom & Partnership
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Human beings have come so far in so many ways. Advancements in the arenas of medicine, science and technology are truly breathtaking. At the same time, in terms of relating to each other as human beings, we still have a long way to go. Within our intimate relationships, families, communities and world we still experience important divisive gaps. Destructive behavior and violence remain commonplace. As human beings we know so much about so many things, yet when it comes to knowing how to live within the paradox of freedom and partnership it appears we struggle with a lack of pertinent information. There is no greater challenge facing humanity at this point in our development and evolution. It is imperative that we -- human beings -- acquire the tools and skills for living within this fundamental paradox. It is not enough to say that we are going to contribute to the freedom of the individual or the freedom of a particular group of people. Nor is it enough to focus single-mindedly on efforts to create partnership and community. The great task at hand is to learn how to do both -- at the same time. Within our intimate relationships, families, communities and world the pressing question is this: What will it take for freedom and partnership to passionately co-exist? The human heart within each individual has the need (and right) to be free in its expression of passionate longing and desire. And we -- collectively -- need to be able to create a thriving sense of partnership and community. And this co-creation of partnership and community is no small task. Because, when the hearts of individuals are set free and called to partnership, a sense of "community in diversity" becomes the order of the day. To truly live within this great paradox means we can no longer resort to controlling, stifling, manipulating or killing those who are different from ourselves. Rather, we build bridges from our freedom to theirs. We are called to establish diversity as a unifying force -- a creative diversity that becomes our greatest asset.
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Bridging the Gap between
Self Development & Social Responsibility
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Wisdom teachings from virtually all spiritual and philosophical traditions have told us -- in one form or fashion -- that the microcosm is the macrosm. It is important that we heed such wisdom and bridge the gap that exists between our notions of self development and social responsibility. To learn the tools of heart-centered life-leadership is not solely about transforming one's personal life. The tools of such life-leadership are about both -- self and world -- all at the same time. The 4 Keys of Heart-centered Life-leadership hold tremendous potential and promise for us as individuals, while at the same time they offer a tool map for making an important impact on a larger social level. In essence, the 4 Keys are about the authenticity of our individual creative nature, the authenticity of the paradox of our lives, the authenticity of our heart's creative desires and the authenticity of humans as creatures of community.
To make authenticity come alive is to unlock tremendous sources of transformative possibilities for impacting all realms of our daily living, as well as contributing toward bringing greater peace, reconciliation, freedom and justice to our world.
The ILC offers programs of self development for the purpose of making a significant difference in one's personal life and the world. Heart-centered life-leadership facilitates a soulful relationship to one's self and to one's world. For we are truly individuals, as well as individuals that exist in a world and are thus responsible for blessing the world.
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