Clebrity Night Shot

Thich Nhat Hanh wrote: "The Vietnamese boat people said that every time their small boats were caught in storms, they knew their lives were in danger. But if one person on the boat could keep calm and not panic, that was a great help for everyone. People would listen to him or her and keep serene, and there was a chance for the boat to survive the danger. Our Earth is like a small boat and is in danger of sinking. We need such a person to inspire us with calm confidence. Only with such a person -- calm, lucid, aware -- will our situation improve."

The calm center of the storm is where I reside more and more in my life. The space I hold 10-15 hours a week facilitating the transformation of performance anxiety into ease for one person at a time is the perfect training regimen to get me there.

The "storm" sometimes shows up in the swirl of contradictory voices within, as the winds of change in family or at work, as the lightning flashes of unease in the world around us.

It is a given that until I can stand in the calm center of my internal stormy weather, I cannot be the lucid person at the center of the disturbance "out there."

I am not the hurricane; I am the eye of the hurricane. You are not your self-consciousness; you are the powerful being noticing, with compassionate curiosity, ways you make yourself small in front of a group. Such transparent noticing in a supportive listening environment allows those contractions to release.

We do not "conquer" performance anxiety; rather, it dissolves when we identify more with our lucid observer and less with that which we are not: our situations and our problems.

In the serene absence of self-judgment and mind chatter, authentic power naturally emerges in one's unique style and pace.

You see, by plugging into the essential listening field of humanity, we discover how to "expand the moment" and take up residence in the Now while in the company of others. Do your typical days allow for this?

When we step into that lush listening field, the Now becomes a lot more interesting than the past and future, which are the breeding grounds for anxiety and "monkey mind." We find we are no longer identifying with our stories, so we can tell them from an observational distance. From here, they are often amusing, and instructive. (Brilliant humor comes from exactly that distance.)

From here, the lucid mind effortlessly spins out wisdom, clarity, boldness, leadership, insight, grief, celebration, stillness... whatever wants to come through. We learn to trust ourselves to be easygoing in the not-knowing, where life's greatest adventures arise.

Join me now in the expansive stillness. The luxurious Oneness of humanity is never more than a full breath away. Here it comes.