Tag Archives: New Universe

Dream Project Challenge

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What if the thing you thought would take your whole life could be done in ten months, in half an hour a day? What would you do then?

Consider the possibility that everything is much, much, much easier than it seems. I have this theory that everything is easy. It’s just our way of looking at things that makes them seem as they seem.

I’ll get into the history and origins in a minute; first, here are the guidelines of the Challenge itself:

Dream Project Challenge Guidelines

1. Be a busy, successful person, with lots of great stuff happening in your life
2. Think of or recall a Dream Project, one you’ve had shelved for a long time, or never really thought you would be able to do, or perhaps never thought you would have time for
3. Commit half an hour a day to that project – think where you could find half an hour a day, if you really wanted to, if that meant this Dream Project could become reality
4. Do half an hour each day, each day thinking what is the best use of that half hour to move the project forward
5. At the end of the half hour, stop! Experience the magic of what can be achieved in a tiny amount of time, once you allow it

Then rinse and repeat. You can miss one day if you need to, but never two in a row – the magic is in reconnecting with the project daily, even if that’s just talking about it to a friend, a colleague or a stranger…

And then, would you do me a favour?

There are a couple of extra things I’d love you to do, once you get into the challenge itself: first, let me know what you’re up to – I’m collecting stories for a book, and I’d love to hear yours. Email me with your project, and update me with your progress. If you like I’ll add you to the Facebook group, so you can share what you are doing with others.

And second, issue the challenge yourself, personally, to the people you know who have bigger dreams, bigger capacity than they are currently living, people who could do more, love more, change the world faster than perhaps even they know is possible. They might already be doing huge, amazing things, and you know they would love the challenge to do more, in a different way. Send them to this page, and tell them to get going!

So how did it all start?

I was on the train back from the airport yesterday. My husband, daughter and I had spent a few days in Florence looking at art.

Paul was asking me about my New Universe, how it works, and I was describing the idea of projects in the new paradigm, not problem-based, but creating without historic constraints. In the New Universe, as I see it, we create whatever we can dream of, according to positive constraints we set ourselves.

So here’s what I said.

“You need to get people’s minds to shift, to see how things can be easy. If you put people in the same office, working the same hours, they’ll continue to work the same way – you can give them a new job title but nothing fundamental will change. You have to change something fundamental – like tell them they’ve only got half an hour a day to work on a project. Then they’ll do something different.”

“And you’ve tried this, you’ve tried it out on people?”

At this point I got grumpy. “I’ve done it myself, with my books. And I’ve suggested it to people. But no, I haven’t conducted any kind of systematic experiment.” I stared out the train window, feeling inadequate.

And then I thought, why not? Why not conduct a systematic experiment? There are plenty of people I could ask who would rise to the challenge. I’m looking for the examples that push the envelope – what’s possible, not what’s guaranteed. It’s easy, like everything – issue the challenge, let people be inspired by what they themselves can achieve.

So here I am, issuing the challenge. What could you achieve in half a hour a day? Why not try it, see for yourself, and then let the whole world know about it?

Let me know about your Dream Project by email, or message me via Facebook and if you’d like information on how to get personal support, see the Dream Projects page.



 

Hate and Love

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Let’s consider for a moment the idea that creation and destruction, hate and love are not opposites, they are the same. Contrasting sides to the same coin, one implicitly holding the fact of the other.

It gives us a beautiful way forward through the things we are resisting, if we see that the things we want to change hold the absolute truth of the things we want to create.

I love being with people who are angry, who are taking huge grief and spinning it into wild destruction, either outwardly or within their own lives, because I see so clearly the bedrock of love and connection that is witnessed through the destruction.

They could not be as they are without the seeds of huge passion, huge love, huge hope, even. Somewhere in their anguished attempts to hurt and revenge is a vision of something entirely different, entirely opposite. They see the possibility of wild, enormous love, and ache at its apparent absence in their lives and in the world.

These are the people we can learn from.

It is numbness that saddens me, the world of small lives, where imagination is stifled in favour of conformity, where people are taught to toe the line, as if a row of identical workers could create the world we see as possible. They can’t. At best, they can keep us on our current trajectory, wherever that may lead.

My vision is to listen to the impassioned, to admire them, love them, hear what they have to say. We may need to wait through some ranting, some fearful scenarios, some recounting of woeful wrongs; and these we can learn from, also, if we’re truly listening for the nuggets of gold that pepper the diatribe.

My experience is that once people who haven’t felt heard feel heard; once those who haven’t felt respected feel respected, once they experience someone who can stay with them, accept them, love them, something alters – their ideas shift and come to the forefront; their anger becomes possibility and love, and something totally new opens up in front of them, something that will benefit us all.

Let’s play with the idea that passion is good, always, that it just needs channeling to become something wonderful, beautiful and new.

It may be that the coin needs flipping, but really, how hard is it to flip a coin?



The New Universe

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These last few months have been a time of huge personal growth for me, letting go of the last of fear and hesitation, guided and supported and challenged by two exceptional coaches: Dave Kibby, www.davekibby.com and Saskia Clements, www.nzlifecoach.co.nz.

Part of the learning over this time has been of interdependence, and the realisation that two are more powerful than one, many are more powerful than two, and developing the skills to harness and revel in that possibility. I knew this before, in my head; now that learning has reached my body and become an integrated part of who I am.

There came a time a month or so ago when I found myself asking a question: “once we’ve got to that point beyond fear, and are looking at a world of truth, of destiny, of following our true path, what then? How does the world look different from here?” It’s a question I didn’t immediately get an answer to. In fact, it’s a question I couldn’t immediately get people to understand.

Bit by bit, however, the answer is emerging; I get snatches of phrases, glimpses of visions, exhilarating, exciting ideas of how things might be. I see, long term, a world without money, as everyone contributes their unique part with joy. Resources stretch and expand because people only take what they need in the moment, trusting tomorrow for tomorrow, like the lilies of the field.

I see health as distinct from medicine, focusing on the delights of the human body in its flexibility and strength. I’ve been working with Martha Grover at Joie de Vivre, London, on effortlessly creating a body that moves easily, and is a source of joy; and here has been the reinforcement of a truth I’ve suspected, that everything is so much easier than we have believed it to be.

Things can be easy, effortless, if we only open ourselves to that ideal.

Every aspect of life has a new vision in this new universe. I know I’m only just beginning to see. Just running the thought experiment gives me a deep sense of satisfaction, of purpose, that we might have the vision ready when the world as a whole steps forward, and asks how we would like things to be.

Today’s imagining: The beginnings of education in the New Universe… in audio format here, because it’s time I speed up my thoughts, to keep pace with the changing view. (Right click and choose Save link as… to download)