Reverb11: Giving

Throughout December, I will be sharing my personal responses to the prompts of Reverb11. Below is my response from the seventh prompt.

Prompt 7: Giving. “The purpose of life is to discover your gift. The meaning of life is to give your gift away.” (David Viscott) What is your gift to give?


I have been avoiding answering this prompt and while procrastinating I read this on Cynthia Oceill's blog,  


"You want to live a big life and create real change, but you're afraid to take strides toward your dreams, to risk failure and rejection. You're clinging to your small life to avoid pain. You cannot stand in achievement or magnificence and stay in the comfort of littleness or the delusion of unworthiness too. Man up (you too, ladies) and give your littleness away".-Cynthia Occelli


What is your gift to give?  I am not sure I know the answer to that question and it is a question that I desperately want to answer.  Playing small, playing safe is not serving me or the world. 


I attended a board retreat for the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society seven weeks ago and I created a personal vision statement.  We were instructed to share our vision  with three people every day in order to keep it alive and other than telling my wife I have not declared my vision.   Along with the vision there has to be an intention and a commitment. 


I have reached the point in my life where I want  to feel inspired.   I want to live an inspired life and be able to inspire others.   I want to write and I resist writing, putting myself out into the world. 


I am not sure if my vision is my purpose and I know if I lived into my vision, I would be living from inspiration and magnificence.  If I inspire others than I am giving my gift away. 


I am inspiring communities to join the Blood Cancer Freedom Fighter revolution where we are all engaged in the fight to create a world without blood cancer. 


I intend to enroll people in my vision. 


I commit to declaring my vision to the world. 


That big decision you're putting off? This is your permission to just do it. Light, Love, Belief in you. Now, go-Shayna Lister Hefner

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Reverb11: Adding Ease in 2012

Throughout December, I will be sharing my personal responses to the prompts of Reverb11. Below is my response from the sixth prompt.


What can you do to add ease to 2012?


Daily Meditation practice.  I started this in October of this year and have found it to have a very calming effect.  I have had trouble sleeping through the night for many years and this is a much better way of spending the nocturnal moments. 

I really like this particular guided meditation narrated by Carman Warrington, Who am I?

Practicing the ancient Hawaiian system of Ho'oponoopono.  I have been doing this every morning  for twenty minutes before I get out of bed in the morning and at various times throughout the day when I find myself feeling unbalanced. 


The  Ho’oponopono process consists of repetitions of the following phrases:

• I Love You
• Please forgive me
• I am sorry
• Thank you

Psychic cleaning:

Removing things/memories from my life that no longer serve me.  

Practicing detachment:

Suspending judgement.   What if I stopped attaching meaning/judgement to my story?  No right or wrong, not good or bad.     Loving what is as Byron Katie says. 

What if I stopped judging everyone else?

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Reverb11: Year in Review

Throughout December, I will be sharing my personal responses to the prompts of Reverb11.Below is my response from the third prompt.

3. Year in Review. As you reflect back on the happenings of 2011, what were your high points and what were your low points? What do you notice as you look back on the year as a whole?

High points:

Meeting Patti Digh and Clara Boza in person in Asheville, North Carolina.

Running in a new state, North Carolina(#15)

Going to Europe for the first time. 

Seeing Les Miserables in London. 

Running in two new countries(England and France(#3 and #4)

Training for  and running the Paris marathon(#17) with my daughter Laura and raising money for the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society as members of Team in Training.

Celebrating my 28th wedding anniversary with my wife at the Sheraton. 

The search for the perfect Margarita in Denver. 

Meeting new people who have inspired me, Heather Ehle(Project Sanctuary), Cassandra Perkins(Global Voices) 

Running the Colorado Relay race(200 miles, with my daughter and seeing the first ever proposal at the end of the relay. 

Hugging Marci Shimoff, Don Miguel Ruiz and Cassandra Perkins at the Evolve Expo on 11/11/11. 

Seeing Ragtime at the Arvada Center, Les Miserables at the Buell Theatre.  Love going to the theater with my family. 

Having this extended period of time to be able to spend time with my children. 

Low points:

My mother slipping on black ice and breaking her ankle while walking our dogs. 

Being away from home for 3 1/2 weeks in March.  Longest time I have ever been away from my family.   

Crippling shin pain that almost derailed being to run the Paris marathon.  Initially thought that I had stress fractures in both shins, turned out it was a side effect of new Cholesterol medication(Lipitor). 

Laura having her passport stolen the last night we were in Paris. 

A hit and run that totaled my car. 

Adam moving out.

Buying and starting a business that I had no passion for.  

As I reflect on the year as a whole, there were many more high points than low points.  It certainly has been a year of personal growth which has really felt uncomfortable.  A year that started with career transition starting a new business, experienced family transition, my daughter got engaged, my son left home.  Sue and I became empty nester's.  It is just the two of us for the first time in 24 years.  

As 2011 ends the question of what's next for me remains to be discovered.  What is the work I am to do in the world?  

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