Intuition Is A Verb

Maybe you’ve seen: God is a verb.  Compassion is a verb.  So, intuition is a verb.  Intuition is being and doing.  It requires that we are aware and actively engage our thoughts, words, and actions. 

We are asked to be-friend our intuition in those quiet moments.  Through our doing, we enter into a spectrum of action from the idling of quiet listening to full throttle response.  Most of our intuitive awareness falls somewhere in the ‘tween.

Intuition often hovers just outside our awareness until the moment that it zips and zings in ways that catch our attention.  Attention caught, we awake to an inner knowing.  This nudge may be a gentle reminder, a sudden awareness of a missing item’s location, or a prod to connect with a friend.  Through our invitation comes the invitation to be and do differently.  We are encouraged to respond.

Our response requires a suspension of worries or disbelief.  We are asked to stand courageously in trust.  With curious daring we enter and explore this extraordinary world that requires altering our perception.  Through our intuition we reframe and rename our reality.  In this shift of understanding, we touch the extraordinary.

Intuition is a verb.  And, like the acceptance of the active aspects of the Sacred and compassion, once we accept our intuitive awareness, our lives are filled with the wonder and awe of possibility.

Wishing you a life of being and doing intuition,

Vanessa Hurst

Vanessa is an Intuitive, Community Builder, and Compassionista, and Author of Engaging Compassion Through Intent & Action

Goodbye: Surviving or Thriving?

Maya Angelou said, “survival is important, but thriving is elegant.  As I reflect upon the difference between thriving and surviving, I ask myself about the difference between a goodbye that is based upon survival and a goodbye that allows all to thrive.

Almost nine years ago I left the employ of the Sisters of St. Benedict.  Although my departure happened quite quickly because I secured another position, we engaged in what I considered a gracious goodbye.  During those last two weeks all of us thrived.  Time was spent in celebration and reconciliation. 

I think of the other times in my life in which goodbyes have been accomplished while in survival mode.  The need to make a quick getaway overshadowed the opportunity to create a gracious, thriving exit.  Both parties in those exits took the path of survival.  No one was more responsible for the choice of departure…it was the conscious or unconscious decision of both.

A gracious goodbye is a compassionate act.  It provides opportunities to let go of old hurts and celebrate the good that occurred in the relationship be the connection professional, personal, or somewhere in between.

Although a gracious goodbye may not be the easy path to closure, ultimately it provides the most long term healing.  This way of separation requires courage to address the shadow and curious daring to explore the root of any suffering.  In those moments of gracious closure, we create the space for true intimacy to flourish. 

With a gracious goodbye we do not end but live within a transitional pivot point.  This space provides opportunities for us to move into newness.  With sure steps and our humble goodbye, we walk the path of transformation.  

Graciously, Courageously, and Curiously Daring,

Vanessa

Vanessa is a Intuitive Healer, Community Builder, and Compassionista, and Author of Engaging Compassion Through Intent & Action

www.intentandaction.com

Repairing the World

Self compassion is the root of all compassion.  Through compassionate eyes, we can accept that we are truly a work in progress.  Without this acceptance, we are stuck in a mire of loss and hurt.  As our compassion flows from our eyes, we see our woundedness swirling around us.  In that moment when we are face-to-face with our hurts do we realize that the first step to healing the world is to heal our self.

Jewish mysticism provides two ways of healing.  One, tikkun olam repairs the world.  The other, tikkun hanefesh repairs the self.  Neither are quick fixes; both are part of our life long journeys of healing.  While neither is likely to restore us to our original being, each is a way of making us whole.

Earlier today a friend talked about “working on our own stuff.”  This is exactly what tikkun hanefesh is requiring of us.  For me, repairing myself begins with self compassion.  It is a centering and calming balm that invites us to look with courage and curious daring at our life.

While it may be easy to admit that we need to change, the step to begin that healing must be taken with courage and curious daring.  Both are necessary when we live from this stance of tikkun hanefesh.  In moments of curious daring, courage ignites our divine spark in a flurry of healing.  In this healing we transform.  

Through healing we return to a whole.  This healing does not impel us to become a carbon copy of what we were.  Through healing we fill with the power of our potential.  With this potential, we reconnect with our spark.  A flare goes forth joining us with the sparks of others, of creation.  We become part of tikkun olam.  We become a repairer of the world by repairing our self.

May we journey with tikkun hanefesh,

Vanessa

www.intentandaction.com

Vanessa is a Intuitive Healer, Community Builder, and Compassionista, and Author of Engaging Compassion Through Intent & Action

Climbing Out of the Abyss of No Response

January passed in a whirlwind of emails and phone calls for me.  This week as I reviewed the list of those I had contacted, the number of emails that fell into the abyss of no response was disappointing.

I believe in the power of the compassionate no.  For you see, over the past year or so, my attitude about receiving a no answer to my request has shifted.  I’d rather have someone tell me no, well, because then I will know.  The compassion behind the no impels me to soldier on to find a welcoming yes.

No.  Those two letters, one short syllable has the ability to open our potential.  But, we often give that word more power than it really has.  With that utterance, we believe that we control the possibility of another; that our “no” will dash someone’s hopes and dreams.  Does “no” shut of the door of potential, of possibility?  

To answer this question, I turn to the murky area where compassion struggles to exist — that place where instead of being honest, we hedge; afraid that we will hurt someone’s feelings.  Compassion born of fear creates an illusion that in reality causes more suffering.  Within this fear-filled, murky place lies the power of authentic compassion.   A compassionately responded no has the potential to set another on a truer path.

When we ignore a request, it falls into the abyss of no response.  Even though the possibility of connection is gone, we just haven’t let the other know.  And, the other may be expecting the potential connection.  Their energy is still attached to something that will never happen.

In these moments of no response, we are perpetrating the illusion of possibility.  When we rise above the illusion by telling the other “no,” a moment of discomfort is unavoidable.  But, in that moment of honesty, we eradicate the illusion.  The other can turn their energy to manifesting the extraordinary in other avenues of their life.

As the days grow longer and the hope of spring teases us, let’s call upon our compassion as we use a simple word — not to close doors but to help another turn toward a different direction.  Through our compassion, the other and our self may just find the perfect place of possibility realized all through the power of a compassionate no.

Dancing out of the Abyss in to the Compassionate Power of No,

Vanessa

Vanessa is a Intuitive Healer, Community Builder, and Compassionista, and Author of Engaging Compassion Through Intent & Action

www.intentandaction.com