Imperfect in an Uncertain World

If we believe that practice makes  perfect, we forget that life isn’t about becoming perfect — it is about developing a practice of living from our authentic core. When we consciously engage in practice, our actions become outward reflections of our internal life.

Inward focused practice includes meditation, journaling, creating art, or other contemplative exercises. Outward focused practice occurs in every moment as we listen to our internal voice, recognize the messiness of life, and respond from our authentic core. Through practice we recognize how our imperfections hijack our life. Instead of blaming or shaming  imperfect actions, we choose to reframe those reactions into responses.

Accepting that we are imperfect and the world uncertain, we more easily connect with the messiness in each unfolding moment. How we react or respond in those moments are reflections our mindful practice. Our reactions scatter our mindfulness sending us down dead end detours. Our responses are the navigation tools that power us nonviolently through life’s uncertainty. Accepting that we are imperfect and that the world is uncertain poises us to meet our challenges and identify our life lessons objectively. 

Attention to practice refines us. It is the cloth that rubs the tarnish from the imperfections of our authentic self. Through practice, we live our soul purpose by identifying what is illusion and what are honest, true reflections of who we are. Through our practice, we recognize that our journey is less about being perfect in a certain world and everything about negotiating this uncertain, sometimes scary, world in the imperfect vessel we are. 

Through practice we let go of our judgments, our defenses — the blaming, the shaming of our self and others. When we rub off the tarnish to reveal our imperfect self, we move from blaming and shaming to forgiveness of our self and others. Through forgiveness we celebrate the humanness reflected in our imperfections. The acceptance of our humanness is a beacon shining us into a new reality. Our life with all the imperfections and uncertainty becomes a message of courage and curious daring. 

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 assists 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 / ©2018

Catching The Compassion

’Tis the season: cloudy skies, cold breezes, and lots of malaise. One malaise settling over the world is suffering. Dodging right. Feinting left. Moving down the middle. Splat! I am caught. But, I haven’t caught the malaise. I am catching the compassion as my actions alleviate suffering. 

Catching the Compassion brings questions to my cloudy mind: Will I be

• overwhelmed by empathy? 
• take on the suffering of everyone? 
• relapse into a fixer mode?
• excuse the bad behavior of others?
• convince myself that suffering really isn’t really suffering at all? 

I shudder. Maybe I want the flu instead. Catching the compassion isn’t for the faint of heart. It requires our authenticity, humility, and vulnerability.

“Wait,” I tell myself, “Breathe in. Find your quiet spot. Open the eyes of your heart. Discern what it means to have caught the compassion.” 

I realize that I do not need what I do not already have. Compassion makes me whole as its wild effervescence swirls from the ground of my being. It connects me to the Sacred and networks me with everything in the world. Compassion

• uplifts and informs
• draws us to places of suffering
• allows us to feel, without attachment, the turmoil of suffering 
• gives us the freedom to confront suffering
• fills us with the strength to withstand the angst
• graces us with the courage to bear witness to suffering

Catching the Compassion is not a malady. It has the power to return each of us individually, and collectively, to wholeness. For compassion invites us into solidarity with another — to be with one another in the cataclysmic dive into suffering; to discover the jewels resting at the murky bottom of sorrow. Catching the Compassion makes us strong enough not to fix or commiserate — with compassion, we am strong enough to hold the space where challenges are met and life lessons learned. 

So, be healed from the infections of the bug of complacency, of enabling, of ignoring a world rife with suffering. Catch the  Compassion. You won’t be sorry. I am not. 

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 assists 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. 

In A World Cloaked in White Silence

The world is cloaked in white silence. It clings to the branches quieting the noise in my soul. No birds chirping. No animals scampering. Even squirrel is warm and cozy hidden from the white silence. Standing at least six feet from the cold seeping window pane, I crane my neck to watch the swirling white land upon a gray world. The monochrome world of silence echoes quiet uncertainty. 

The world is silent, and so am I. With clarity, I hear the ramblings of my internal monologue; feel my struggle to catch even a pinprick point of light. Oh, my soul yearns for the silent beating of the mid spring sun and the rains that soak the earth giving birth to the colors of spring. With the clarity offered by this white silence, I capture sparks of wisdom. These elusive flickers becomes the grace that births my reframe.

The Reframe: Now is not the time to hide away; to hunker down, hibernate, or take just one more nap. The white silence invites me to courageously stand in the blistering chill — to feel the stark beauty of knowledge, to taste the undertones of hidden wisdom, to smell the fragrance of understanding, to see the song of dormant reverence, to hear the monochrome texture of wonder and awe. Its time to open the ears of my heart. I awaken to the possibilities of right judgment that reveal themselves over and over again when I open my eyes and see. 

The world is cloaked in a white silence. Unlike the squirrel, I cannot burrow into my warm cozy. I stand in this cold, blistering world of possibility, let go the self defeating words dancing in my mind, and breathe the clarity of possibility. In the white silence I hear the beauty that gives birth to my spring.

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 assists 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 / ©2018

Be The Older Unity: Body/Mind/Spirit/Heart

We disconnect in real time. Instead of interacting in the moment face-to-face, we post to Facebook, tweet, engage others through Instagram, text, email. 

We may believe that we are engaging on deep levels, but as we increase our cyber interactions, connecting from our authentic core diminishes. Our relationships are one dimensional. While we interact with others mentally, these connections are superficial — we do not connect body, mind, spirit, and heart. 

Thomas Merton was right that “we have forgotten an older unity.” But, our interactions are more than forgetting how we are connecting with each other. We have also forgotten that each of us is a multidimensional being who relates to others through the four aspects of self — when aligned they authentically represent who we are. 

To enter into intimate relationships (those characterizing our most authentic natures), we must recognize the illusion of “we are spiritual beings having a physical experience.” We understand that our experience of this reality occurs in our bodies, with our minds, through our emotions, and for our spiritual growth. When in unity with our self, we create intimate relationship by connecting our four aspects to the four aspects of others. 

Body — a study in the 1960s found that 7% of the meaning is derived from our conversations was based upon the words spoken. 93% of meaning is found in inflection, body language, and other nonverbal cues. Through our bodies we connect consciously and unconsciously.

Mind — our internal monologue provides a running commentary on the world. It is filled with compassion as well as judgments and defenses. When we connect mindfully with another we listen to how we sabotage our interactions and reframe destructive thoughts in ways that intimately connect us with another. 

Heart/Emotions — with mindfulness we notice the play of emotions throughout our body and use this information to defuse our illusions and strengthen our connection to our authentic core. Our relationships with others deepen.

Spirit — our divine spark, that which connects us to all, is what powers our experience. It grounds us into our authentic self and connects us to the authentic selfs of others. Whatever relationships we have in this life grow us spiritually or stagnate us. When our body/mind/heart/spirit align authentically with our self and others, we recognize when we are learning and what barriers wall us into our misunderstanding and ignorance.  

Through relationship we form deep connections with others. We recognize the “gate to heaven everywhere” (Thomas Merton). This gate leads not to some other dimension; it is a place where we are courageously aware of the illusions that prevent us from living in intimate, compassionate relationships. This gate is a place of curious daring where we are no longer limited by our fears; instead we live from our authentic core. 

 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. 

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Twitter: @fyrserpent / ©2018

Live Large in 2018: Detangle Illusion

January…a time for living out those resolutions. Did you know that about 8% of people actually keep their New Year’s resolutions? The other 92% of us are most likely unaware of what is stopping us from being our best authentic self. What if we could flip those numbers? What is there was a way for 92% of us to be resolution stable? The way to successfully be resolution actualized lies on the journey to being our authentic self. 

The first days of each year have become a time for beginnings— new year, new way. But, what if instead of focusing on becoming a newer, better version of our self, we turn our attention to those things that have us in a stranglehold — those things that stop us from being who we truly are? We often allow the illusions inherent in our dreams, our relationships, our work to define us instead of allowing our dreams, relationships, and life work (which may have nothing to do with what pays our bills) to flow from our authentic core.

Instead of getting tangled in our illusions, what if we hold life like water in the palm of our hand? With each drip drop loss of illusion our life has room for who we truly are. What our authentic self needs flows into the nooks and crannies vacated by our illusions. These needs power of our authentic self. Change becomes less about resolutions and everything about what we truly need to be who we are in the ground of our being. 

January 2018 — Let’s make this a time of taking stock. Let’s identify what is life giving and what is illusion enabling. Let’s admit the fears that stop us from letting go. Let’s identify what tangles us in knots. Let’s intentionally begin to detangle our self. Let’s accept that there is no defeat in acknowledging the illusions that have fueled our life. This is the time to admit how we have never really grown into our full potential and to identify what is prohibiting our growth. Instead of a January filled with resolutions that 92% never realize, it becomes a month of purging what is stops us from living our soul purpose as we lay the foundation of living authentically.

Your challenge? Name one aspect of your life that is not working. Name what is stopping you from being your best, highest self. Identify how is it stopping you. Name one thing can you do in this moment to detangle the knots that this nonworking element in your life has created. This will expand your life so you can fill it with what contributes to your most authentic being. 

Let go of your resolutions and embrace the person that radiates from the core of your authentic being. I am ready…are you? 

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 / ©2018