June 13, 2011
Plunging Into The Deep

Life Can Be Scary No matter how brave,strong,or levelheaded we are, sometimes we all get scared.

Life can take us on a roller coaster ride full of highs and lows and twists and turns. Even for those of us who enjoy unexpected thrills, it’s frightening to suddenly find ourselves heading for a deep plunge. Yet, it happens to all of us. At these moments, it is important to remember that you are not alone in your experiences. No matter how brave, strong, or levelheaded we are, sometimes, we all get scared.

Our fears may revolve around our physical safety, particularly if we are not feeling well, living under difficult circumstances, or doing work that exposes us to hazardous conditions. Or, we may be experiencing financial woes that are causing us to be fearful about making ends meet. We may also fear the loss of a loved oneg who is sick, or we may be scared of never finding someone special to spend our life with. We may be scared to start at a new school, begin a different job, move to a new town, or meet new people. Whatever our fears are, they are valid, and we do not need to feel ashamed or embarrassed that we are, at times, afraid.

It may be comforting to know that everyone gets scared, and it is perfectly OK. Sometimes just acknowledging our fears is enough to make us feel better. And while it sometimes takes a lot more to ease our mind, we can console ourselves with the knowledge that life can be scary at times. Giving ourselves permission to be scared lets us move through our fears so we can let it go. It also makes it alright to share our fears with others. Sharing our apprehensions with other people can make our fears less overwhelming because we are not letting them grow inside of us as pent up emotions. Sharing our fears also can lighten our burden because we are not carrying our worries all by ourselves. Remember that you are not alone.

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This article is printed from DailyOM – Inspirational thoughts for a happy, healthy and fulfilling day.

June 8, 2011 Enjoying the Ride The Flow of the Universe     Many people live their lives struggling against the current while others use the flow like a mighty wind. The flow of the universe moves through everything. It’s in the rocks that form, get pounded into dust, and are blown away, the sprouting of a summer flower born from a seed planted in the spring, the growth cycle that every human being goes through, and the current that takes us down our life’s paths. When we move with the flow, rather than resisting it, we are riding on the universal current that allows us to flow with life. Many people live their lives struggling against this current. They try to use force or resistance to will their lives into happening the way they think it should. Others move with this flow like a sailor using the wind, trusting that the universe is taking them exactly where they need to be at all times. This flow is accessible to everyone because it moves through and around us. We are always riding this flow. It’s just a matter of whether we are willing to go with it or resist it. Tapping into the flow is often a matter of letting go of the notion that we need to be in control at all times. The flow is always taking you where you need to go. It’s just a matter of deciding whether you plan on taking the ride or dragging your feet. Learning to step into the flow can help you feel a connection to a force that is greater than you and is always there to support you. The decision to go with the flow can take courage because you are surrendering the notion that you need to do everything by yourself. Riding the flow of the universe can be effortless, exhilarating, and not like anything that you ever expected. When you are open to being in this flow, you open yourself to possibilities that exist beyond the grasp of your control. As a child, you were naturally swept by the flow. Tears of sadness falling down your face could just as quickly turn to tears of laughter. Just the tiniest wave carrying you forward off the shores of the ocean could carry you into peals of delight. Our souls feel good when we go with the flow of the universe. All we have to do is make the choice to ride its currents. For more information visit dailyom.com This article is printed from DailyOM – Inspirational thoughts for a happy, healthy and fulfilling day. Register for free at www.dailyom.com

My Prescriptive Life has taken me to many places, high and low, with lots of curves and turns.  Where has your Prescriptive Life taken you?  The article below can give some insights.

-Dr. Penn

June 1, 2011
Forward Momentum
The Train as Metaphor

People can be like trains, making unscheduled stops along the way, but inevitably always arriving at our proper destination.

The rails that crisscross the countryside and cut through cities have long captured people’s imaginations. Just the idea of taking a ride on a luxury train, an express commuter line, or a cargo train can often evoke a sense of freedom, adventure, or romance. Trains are like people in that they must inevitably arrive at their destinations. They make scheduled and unscheduled stops along the way and move at their different speeds. Some trains can travel for hours and are mindful of only a single destination; other trains meander from busy stop to busy stop. The route and purpose of any train may change as the years go by.

Our lives stretch out in front and behind us like train tracks, and we are the train, its passengers, and the engineer. The way you choose to live your life and the goals you are working toward are the route and destinations you have chosen. Like a passenger riding a train, you have the choice to get on and off, find new routes, pick new places to visit, or just stop and enjoy the view for awhile. Perhaps you like to move quickly through life as if you were an express train. Or maybe, like a commuter passenger, you like taking the same routes over and over again. You may even want to stop just riding along and choose a different direction you’d like you’re life to take.

If you have examined the tracks of your life and are feeling unsatisfied, you may want to explore changes you could make to find a more fulfilling path to follow. Perhaps you’d like to slow down a little bit more and take a windier path rather than just traveling down the straight and narrow. Or maybe, you’d like to experience your life more as an adventure rather than just a ride that gets you where you need to go. Changing your route can sometimes give you a chance to “get on the right track.” You may even discover that the something new you’ve been waiting for is just around the bendFor more information visit dailyom.com

This article is printed from DailyOM – Inspirational thoughts for a happy, healthy and fulfilling day.
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One of my core values is elegance.  I love things that are both beautiful in aesthetics and function.  I’m a geek for great design, be it in appliances, cars, houses … or people.

If a car has a cup holder right where your hand would naturally want to put a cup of coffee, it’s a beautiful thing in my world.  My friend Siddiqi’s electric water kettle has different temperature options, allowing you to heat water to the perfect temperature, whether you’re brewing green tea (160° F) or French pressing your coffee (200° F).  An example of elegance that might be in your hands right now –  Steve Jobs said of the iPhone “we made the buttons on the screen look so good you’ll want to lick them.”

And then there’s nature, which has both elegance and beauty that seems obvious (like the symmetry of the veins in a leaf), and many ways we don’t quite see the underlying elegance and order of a seemingly chaotic world.  When the forest burns we aren’t usually thinking of the elegance of the design of death and rebirth, and the necessity for occasional forest fires if there is to be a healthy forest for years to come.

We live in an elegant world, and where I particularly see that elegance is in the perfect design of our core wounds as the training program for our life’s work.

Huh?  Our wounds as elegant?  Shouldn’t we try to heal our wounds and forget about them as some bad, bad thing that happened long, long ago?  I mean they feel awful – who’d want to relive them?

Well, as a teacher of mine once told me “whatever you can’t be with owns you.”  This floored me.  I mean, at the time I was busy trying to fix all the ways in which I was broken.  And I was doing it because I couldn’t see the elegance of my wounds.

My wounds have trained me, perfectly and brilliantly, for my life’s work … and yours have done the same for you.

See, as a kid I secretly felt different, and in that differentness I felt broken, broken, wrong and defective … like the 1 toy out of 1000 that doesn’t work right when you put the batteries in.  And I feared that if anyone found out, I’d be discarded and thrown in the trash heap just like one of those discarded toys.  Now, not ALL of me felt this way – I actually had a pretty good childhood, but the wounded part of me certainly did.

So how could that be elegant?  How could that be beautiful, perfect design?

Well, the fear of getting ‘found out’ as an awful, rotten person led me to create a bright star persona that could do anything.  Because of that wounded motivation, I did end up going out and learning lots and lots of great skills – all of which I use in my purpose today.  Among other benefits, the star personal I built got me onto stages all around the world as a singer and performer.  And NOW I get to use those performance skills in service to my life’s work instead of in service to and reaction against that wound.

I became really competent at everything I’d let myself put my hands on.  This made me really good at a lot of things … and also taught me what it feels like to drive yourself to perfection, seeking approval of others.

Perhaps the greatest gift of all – in my decades fight with God for redemption, after years and years of the deep pain of separation and self loathing, I learned of a God that is nothing but love, and within which, I am nothing but love.

And here’s where all of this shows up in my life’s work today – my own experience of deep ache allows me a deep level of empathy with my divine market.  I know what it’s like to ache to bring your gifts to the world.  I know what it’s like to know you have a message inside of you and not know exactly what it is or who needs it.  I know what it’s like to feel like you’re ‘kinda’ doing what you’re here to do, but you aren’t telling your truest story and are scared to “come out” for fear of personal and business rejection.  And because I know what it’s like to feel that way, I know how to speak to my market in a way that is real, authentic and engaging.

In the process of learning to heal my own ache and knowing myself as whole, I’ve learned how to help others find the gift of their wounds and bring those gifts to the world in the form of their business and leadership.

I mean, what an elegant design!  I can’t imagine a more perfectly created training program to prepare me for the exact work that I’m meant to do on this earth, serving the people I’m meant to serve.  It’s taught me who my market is, how to speak to that market with a high level of heart and engagement, and it’s helped me learn a specific process to find the hidden jewels in the parts of people they’d just as soon toss away.

So too, you are elegant.  There is a perfect design to who you are and what you’re here to give.  There’s nothing wrong or broken and nothing needs to be fixed.  There’s nothing that needs to be hidden away, left behind and ‘managed’ inside of you.  In fact, the more you bring out the very thing you may have thought you couldn’t show the world, the more specific, actionable mojo you will have.  And it’s that exact mojo that can set you apart in a sea of 500 million blogs.

That’s why we’re here – to translate your wounds into a highly successful business that is the exact expression of your purpose.  This is the exact work we do over three deeply powerful days at the Spiritual Marketing Quest.  The work we do in those three days have helped hundreds of people claim the gift of their wounds … and build six figure businesses from that gift.

We do this by helping you find the gift of your own wounds, how they’ve trained you and what they’ve trained you for.  This helps you understand the rich and complex emotional and psychographic profile of your divine market.   From there we help you craft out the demographic profile of your market and where they are hanging out online.  We then uncover their deepest craving that you’re here to serve, who your niche-mates (competitors) are and how you stand apart.  This allows you to find the perfect place to stand in the market, where you can speak to your ideal clients on a visceral, immediate level that engages community and action.

The bottom line is this: YOU ARE DIVINE – you are God/Source/Spirit being expressed, so no matter what it is, IF IT’S IN YOU IT’S DIVINE.

So, here’s to your wounds, for without them you wouldn’t be the person you are … perfectly equipped to do the work that only you can do.  May you do that work with joy, prosperity and celebration.

I realized that in addition to prescriptions for their health, people needed to have prescriptions for their lives. For that reason I provide and direct people to the information, products and services that assist them in finding the best “life prescriptions” for the various areas of their life and lifestyle.  How do you see your passions as prescriptions for your life?

-Dr. Marcus Penn

I consider living an intentional life as living a “prescriptive” life.  One that is deliberate, and not by default or by accident.  A “prescription” for our lives is simply a focus for our lives.  Ideally we want prescriptions that agree with our system (life).  What do you consider prescriptions for your life?

-Dr. Penn

We all have had experiences that pull us from fear to courage.  What has been your biggest triumph?