Non-Violence: Return to the Older Unity

All around me I find opportunities to react — to think thoughts tinged with judgment, to say hurtful things, to act defensively. So many situations in which I am given a choice – to can act upon growing fear or find ways to be courageous. A new world of growing uncertainty is filled with fear and triggers of anger. 

How do we acknowledge our fears while confronting the tumultuous vortex of uncertainty? By living from a nonviolent stance. We do not wake up one morning having shed our violent tendencies. Nonviolence is cultivated through objectivity. As an objective observer we practice non-attachment, non-judgment, and non-defensive behavior. These 3nons are not negative; rather, when coupled with the 4non, non-violence, they are ways of being in the neutral, middle ground. 

Non-attached, we do not cling to what we want or shove away what we have an aversion to. We are aware of how we cling anxiously or what we push away out of fear. When non-attached, we recognize the roots of our reactions and reframe them into responses. 

Non-judgmental, we are aware of how our internal monologue spins stories, draws assumptions, and assigns motives. We recognize that this internal conversation is based upon our reality while acknowledging that it does not represent the realities of others. We seek to understand the realities of others.

Non-defensive, we refashion our personal reality to more accurately depict the world as it is not as we wish it were. We acknowledge the many ways that we defend our illusions while striving to act from our most authentic self. We forgive our self for the many illusions we accepted as real. 

Nonviolence doesn’t mean that we passively move through life ignoring the tumult. Being nonviolent means we know who we are. We acknowledge our judgments and defenses. We recognize how we get caught in attachments. We attempt to understand not only our self but the many others around us. This understanding is foundational to how we interact in the world. Within our understanding lays the power to defuse our judgments and defenses and release our attachments. Within  our understanding are the roots of our non-violence. 

Vanessa F. Hurst, ms, is a Mindful Coach, Neural Synchrony™ facilitator, Professional Speaker, and Author who weaves her inner wisdom into all she touches. Vanessa offers Neural Synchrony™ sessions to assist clients in navigating their life paths with intuition. Her books are A Constellation of Connections: Contemplative Relationships and Engaging Compassion Through Intent & Action. Contact Vanessa @ vanessa@intentandaction.com for keynotes, programs, and consultations. 

Website / LinkedIn Profile / Facebook / Twitter: @fyrserpent / ©2017

Bring Intent to Action: Hope, Courage, & Curious Daring

Outside my window is a squirrel leaping from barren branch to barren branch seemingly unfazed by the fact that the greenery is gone and winter is moments away. Exposed to the wintery elements, he springs from one limb to the next. I am amazed that he keeps his balance. For Squirrel, courage and curious daring are inherent in each movement. He lives within the possibilities of his world. 

Squirrel does not stop his playful exploration because the world is gray and the air is nippy. He scampers from tree to tree, rustles through the dry leaf carpet, and steadfastly climbs spindly tree trunks. He is the master of living in the moment whether that moment is one of abundance or adversity.  I wonder if he laughs at the antics of humans. 

I am curious — does he have an actual destination as he catapults from one branch to the next and then scampers down the side of a tree? I want to be a squirrel whisperer as he freezes silently on the ground while watching me with those serious brown eyes. Drawing ever closer to him, I imagine that he is discerning friend or foe. On those days that I can get to within a foot and a half of him without scaring him away, I know that I am in peace-filled balance. 

With a squirrel mind, I ponder the ups and downs of my life and those of others. I burrow beneath the crinkly leaf carpet of adversity to discover what is stopping me from being authentic. I feel the inspiration and freedom in each catapult and leap. I am filled with hope, courage, and curious daring for nothing is impossible in the simplicity of being.  

Coming back to human, I engender squirrel energy through hope, courage, and curious daring. In times that I cannot seem to muster hope, courage, or curious daring, I ask, “what is stopping you?” And, know that only I can answer why, at times, I do not have the hope that ignites the courage and curious daring that lays dormant in my heart.

I have come to realize that, for me, squirrel energy is all about hope — with hope our actions mirror those daring leaps from limb to limb. When we are disconnected from hope, we timidly cower under the crispy leaf carpet. Hope doesn’t create illusions, with hope we can boldly discard the illusion and stand within the power of our courage and curious daring.  

As we edge ever closer to the year’s end, I wish you the energy of Brother Squirrel: may you have the curious daring to leap, the courage to trust, and the hope to sustain your through the barren time.  

Vanessa F. Hurst, ms, is a Mindful Coach, Neural Synchrony™ facilitator, Professional Speaker, and Author who weaves her inner wisdom into all she touches. Vanessa offers Neural Synchrony™ sessions to assist clients in navigating their life paths with intuition. Her books are A Constellation of Connections: Contemplative Relationships and Engaging Compassion Through Intent & Action. Contact Vanessa @ vanessa@intentandaction.com for keynotes, programs, and consultations. 

Website / LinkedIn Profile / Facebook / Twitter: @fyrserpent / ©2017

Create Your Intent of Love, Joy, & Hope

The days shorten. We edge closer to the end of the year. There is more darkness than light. It is that time of the year when we wake to a darkened window and drive home with our lights on. We are in the dark, barren time of the year.

Yet, in the darkness of winter are celebrations of light. We share love, joy, and hope with loved ones, friends, coworkers, and even strangers. Our bodies crave the light that our mind, spirit, and heart know — within the darkness are opportunities to live fully. We have only to intentionally experience love, joy, and hope.

Perhaps we are not even aware of the love, the joy, and the hope that hovers outside our vision. They are blips of light in the darkness — brief word filled and wordless opportunities: kind words for an intimate stranger, listening to the sorrow of a friend, smiling at the moon’s illuminated beauty, breathing in the crispness of the night sky, basking in the warmth of sun’s rays. 

While some of these moments are spontaneous, we can consciously create these moments. We plan get-togethers and other ways to consciously engage in moments of joy and happiness. These intentional moments are opportunities for our light to be reflected into the world. As our divine spark connects with the billions of points of light in the world, we are recharged. 

How can we shine ever brightly? By consciously setting our intent not several weeks from now, but beginning on December 18^th. As the moon grows larger, so can our intent. On December 18^th ask, “What is my intent? How do I want to grow my life? What do I want for myself in 2018?” Then as the moon grows over 14 days, spend time each day focusing on your intent and finding ways to share it in your actions. 

Then on January 1, 2018, when the moon reveals herself in her fullness, affirm who you are and how you shine in a world whose light ebbs and flows amid the shadows of darkness. 

Vanessa F. Hurst, ms, is a Mindful Coach, Neural Synchrony™ facilitator, Professional Speaker, and Author who weaves her inner wisdom into all she touches. Vanessa offers Neural Synchrony™ sessions to assist clients in navigating their life paths with intuition. Her books are A Constellation of Connections: Contemplative Relationships and Engaging Compassion Through Intent & Action. Contact Vanessa @ vanessa@intentandaction.com for keynotes, programs, and consultations. 

Website / LinkedIn Profile / Facebook / Twitter: @fyrserpent / ©2017

Being a Mystic: Traversing the Web of All

I had my first mystical experience at the age of 30 months. As I chanted during a Catholic Latin Mass, I was one with the Sacred, the presiding priest, and every person in the pew. I remember feeling the embrace of Divine as I intoned with the priest and answered with the congregation. I felt the melody of divine love that filled with wonder and awe. It wasn’t until my sister elbowed me that I came crashing back into the mundane.

You see, at 30 months, I did not realize that this experience was out of the ordinary. I did not know that mystics were the few in number who lived in communion with the Sacred and regularly experienced wonder and awe. I didn’t understand that my experience of communion — unity with all — was out of the ordinary. A somatic memory of this event was lodged into my being. I promptly forgot about this experience only to have it resurface decades later.

I shared this experience in the forward of my first book. It was then that I finally identified this experience as mystic. Since then I have spent some time glancing over my shoulder into other memories. What have I discovered? That what happened to me as a 30 month old was not an isolated event. It was a true, poignant, unfiltered memory of how my inner mystic connected to all. I had only to open my eyes to recognize how I truly interacted in the world.

Being a mystic is not for the exalted few. It is available to all of us when we open our eyes and see the wonder and awe of the world. When we peer into our life with mystic’s eyes, we see with empathy and compassion. We know with certainty who we are, what our our responsibilities to the world are, and how we are required to interact in the world. 

As a mystic, we connect to the Sacred in everything we do. We travel the web that connects us and all of creation to the Source. We understand the necessity of this connectivity. Using the power of our empathy, our compassion sparks across that web — the whole becomes stronger than any part or any combination of parts. This knowing is foundational to a mystic’s engagement in the world.

For a world that is so connected on a material level, we have forgotten the old unity that connects us to one another through our body, mind, spirit, and heart. The web is weakened as siloed webs are created. Chaos reigns; the web of all unravels. The mystic voice that cries to be heard is falling in a chasm of deaf ears. And, I wonder, do we have to destroy the web in order to recreate it? I do not know the answer to that question. But, I hope not.

What will bring us back to the old unity? It will happen when we see wonder and awe reflected in the eyes of everyone we meet. It will happen when we acknowledge the wonder and awe reflected in all of creation. Rediscovering the older unity will occur when we courageously address our fears of scarcity. When we stop judging and defending, we will find those pockets of peace and calm within the chaos. And, in those pockets we will accept our inner mystic and respond with wonder and awe in each interaction. We will be a daring paradigm of mystics powered by wonder and awe and manifested in empathy and compassion.

Vanessa F. Hurst, ms, is a Mindful Coach, Neural Synchrony™ Facilitator, Compassion Consultant, Professional Speaker, and Author who weaves her inner wisdom into all she touches. Vanessa offers Neural Synchrony™ sessions to assist clients in navigating their life paths with intuition. Her books are A Constellation of Connections: Contemplative Relationships and Engaging Compassion  Through Intent & Action. Contact Vanessa for keynotes, programs, and consultations. 

Website / LinkedIn Profile / Facebook / Twitter: @fyrserpent / ©2017