Greetings, Ivy SeaZine subscribers!

I hope your new year is off to a bright and promise-filled start. If not, don't despair! Possibility awaits you. Now is always the perfect time to plant the seeds and till the soil to grow your possibilities for the year ahead.

This month, we at Ivy Sea have plenty of resources and inspiration for your journey into the amazing realm of possibility.

In this edition of the Ivy SeaZine:

As always, we at Ivy Sea want to be a resource and inspiration for you on your journey. Here are the resources you'll find in this issue of Ivy SeaZine:

** Personal Mastery: New outcomes require new "road maps"

** Conscious Enterprise: Navigating entrepreneurial challenges

** Inspired Leadership: Being impeccable with your Word

** Skillful communication: The high costs of "belief addiction"

** "E-and-Tel" consultations: Bringing your vision to life

** Ivy Sea Online in December - New articles, tip sheets, skill-builder kits

** Great Quotations: Wise words for the journey

[Ivy SeaZine is a "voluntary, by request" subscriber-only publication. Want to subscribe and receive the Ivy SeaZine in your own email box each month?]

Personal Mastery:
New outcomes require new "road maps"

If your survival needs are taken care of — food, shelter, relative safety — chances are excellent that you have at least one or more goals that you'd like to see blossom into reality. Your goals might be related to your housing, location, wellness, relationships, or livelihood, or something else.

Yet many people who want to create new outcomes or new realities sabotage themselves right from the start, by failing to realize that if you want new outcomes, you need new road-maps and routes.

The great physicist, Albert Einstein, said, "Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results." He also said that the problems you face can't be solved by the same level of thinking that created the problems.

Jesus commented that you can't put new wine into an old wine-skin; the Buddha counseled that "with your thoughts, you make your world."

In other words, to change your reality or your outcomes, transform your thoughts and your "ways of doing." Change your road-maps and your routes, and you'll arrive at new destinations that may be more in keeping with your sense of true vocation. You'll find the true treasure that can be found at a place of heart-fullness.

Conscious Enterprise:
Navigating entrepreneurial challenges

Several years ago, a Major League baseball pitcher — a closer whose unique abilities had given him phenomenal success for several years — came upon hard times. The technique that had made him so successful was no longer working. Where he was used to "saving games," he now found himself "blowing games."

A reporter asked a more veteran pitcher about his colleague's painful slump, and the veteran replied, "He's an amazing athlete; very talented. But he's learning that, if you've been in the Major Leagues long enough, sooner or later you're going to get lit up."

This veteran had "been in the Majors" long enough to see all of the stops on the wheel of fortune — the full cycles. So he new that, over time, he or anyone else was bound to experience so-called success and glory, and so-called failure and frustration; times of flow, when it seems that nothing can go wrong, and times of seemingly abject drought, where it seems that nothing can go right. The wheel keeps turning.

Two popular "success mantras" in peak-performance circles is that "Success is getting up one more time than falling down," and "When you fall down, pick something up." Veterans in any field know that, while "success" is more fun and certainly more emphasized in our culture, there is great value and wisdom "in the valley."

Very often, it's "dark night" experiences that result in greater wisdom, confidence, and skill.

Entrepreneurs — whether soloists or fast-growth business builders — come to understand the truth behind the "full cycle", just as the veteran athletes do. Whether it's the usual challenges of business ownership and entrepreneurship, or those times in which outside circumstances derail even our very best efforts, every entrepreneur, if she's been one long enough, will experience both lows and peaks.

How we see both peaks and valleys, bright days and dark nights, will determine how much wisdom, experience, and skill we're able to pick up during each part of the cycle, and how skillfully or even easily we navigate even very challenging times.

How we see determines whether we'll rise up one more time than we fall down, and whether we'll pick something up when we've fallen to use in the ascent back to the peak.

To read more articles on entrepreneurial "dark night" cycles, and other articles related to the "dark night" and transformative Spiritual journey, visit Ivy Sea Online's "Reconnecting to Spirit" portal.

Inspired Leadership:
Being impeccable with your Word

We all know that words are powerful. They can be used to inspire and guide; or to deflate and hurt. They can be used to give clarity to our vision, or to confuse and weigh us down. Connected with intention and skill — or lack thereof — words are very powerful, indeed.

The very best leaders, those who are most effective at inspiring others to their highest potential, are impeccable with their word. What does this mean?

To be impeccable with your word is to know that words begin before they're spoken — they're based in your intentions and "marinated" in your thoughts, which are conscious or unknown to you depending on the degree to which you "know yourself."

Impeccability suggests a high degree of self-knowing, of consciousness, and thus of skill. Leaders who are impeccable with their words know that renegade thoughts, questionable intentions, uncontrolled or unconscious moods, and a lack of mindfulness affect their Word.

Of course, a leader may have self-serving or ugly intentions, and his or her thoughts may be mired in fear and "lower emotion," and he may still use his skill to manipulate others via skillfully delivered words. In fact, this is probably closer to the norm in the average corporate environment. But there are costs to operating this way, both personally and for the enterprise.

A truly inspired leader, one who is impeccable with his or her words — both before and after the words are spoken aloud — knows that the higher possibilities of individuals, organizations and cultures are liberated only when skillful speech stems from a pool of clear and conscious intention.

The impeccable word is born in the great Wisdom of the heart-center — the higher mind that finds its source in Spirit — and their effect is heart-lifting.

Skillful communication:
The high costs of "belief addiction"

In the practice of Dialogue — a form of conscious communication — you hear phrases such as "suspend your judgments" and "be mindful of your beliefs and intentions." Why? Because these are the influences that lurk in the unseen within us, and can and will wreak havoc on our communications until we shine the light on them.

Think about it — most people don't listen, so it's no wonder that miscommunication occurs so frequently. As a default, when it's our turn to listen, we too often find ourselves formulating our next point, waiting to speak, and wanting to convert the other to our beliefs.

I came across an interesting quote recently related to this last bit — how our beliefs control and limit us, not just in what we're able to create and open up to, but also in how skillful and successful we can be with our communication. The person spoke of "belief addiction." In other words, many people, when asked to challenge or transform an old belief act like addicts, and react as an addict would act in order to rationalize, justify, and protect the old beliefs.

Many of us too often speak from a place of woundedness, where old hurts that have festered into simmering anger and resentment, and the resulting "hardened beliefs" color our intentions and seep into our communication.

By opening ourselves to healing, and by releasing some of the "old stories" which we may hold too dear — and to which we may even be addicted to — we also make ourselves ripe for more skillful and compassionate communication.

Wisdom and Mastery:
Using visualization to liberate your truth

There is great energy and inspiration available to us when we see the possibility in our own truth. Not gazing at a distant horizon of future events and accomplishments, but honestly stepping into the grist and grace of our own truth, right here and now, and accepting the wholeness of what is.

We often associate possibility with a self-created fabric of extending dreams and compelling yearnings, which is a wonderful exercise for our imagination. But what if we could suspend our judgment, tear down the stage sets within which we are accustomed to actualizing our daily stories, and see with clear discernment the possibility and potential inherent in the present, in heart of our own truth?

Energetic healing at its heart is about attending to what is possible in the present. We begin by consciously acknowledging how we feel in the heart of this moment, in the heart of our days, and in the heart of our lives. We affirm how much of our energy is in the present, how much has been left in forgotten corners of our lives, and how much we have let slip and spill away into fantasies and wishes of some far-off future.

Too often, we are anywhere but "here and now," yet now is where the greatest power and possibility can be found.

What is the resonance of our energy as we engage in our days and with each other? What is happening with our energy right now, and how can we refocus, shift, and recalibrate our intention, ease our tension, and clarify our truth?

Let’s open to what is possible.

Tele-Consultations and E-Workshops:
Inspiring you to succeed … your way

What possibilities are lurking beneath the surface of your consciousness? Let's liberate your highest potential, plant and tend your possibilities, so that they (and you) can spring into full bloom in the coming year.

If you'd like to explore how we can assist you as you tap into your vision and possibilities, deepen skillfulness, explore self-employment, envision (or rejuvenate) an existing enterprise, or market your group or business authentically, connect with us for a dialogue about what might work best for you.

Want to explore the possibilities? Give us a call, or send along an email. We welcome your inquiry.

Wise Words for the Journey

** "If you don't like where you are in life, there comes a point when you must give up the part of you that's keeping you back." ~ Dr. Sonya Friedman

** "The ideals which have lighted my way, and time after time have given me new courage to face life cheerfully, have been Kindness, Beauty, and Truth." ~ Albert Einstein

** "Imagination has always had powers of resurrection that no science can match." ~ Ingrid Bengis

** "There is a soul force in the universe, which, if we permit it, will flow through us and produce miraculous results." ~ Mahatma Gandhi

** "This is the time of a Great Beginning. It is time to die to who we used to be and to become instead who we are capable of being. That is the gift that awaits us now: the chance to become who we really are." ~ Marianne Williamson

Until next month...

Thank you for reading with us. May an abundance of possibility seeds and light-sparks lead you on your path into a fabulous month — and year — ahead.

Sincerely,
Jamie S. Walters
Founder, Ivy Sea, Inc.
Publisher & Editor-in-Chief, Ivy Sea Online &
Author, Big Vision, Small Business

This Ivy SeaZine is protected by copyright, though we're happy to consider reprint requests, and welcome you to link to this page and share your Ivy SeaZine issues with others.

As always, this information is offered as food-for-thought and dialogue rather than customized counsel. The most effective strategy is one that's specifically tailored to your unique organizational culture, group personality, and individual needs. Have questions? We welcome your email inquiry.

Make your quantum-leap with Ivy Sea's Inspired-Leadership and Conscious-Enterprise resources and consultations: We can help you: (1) discover how to define your inspired-leadership and conscious-enterprise principles, (2) clarify and make progress towards your vision, (3) make the most of your individual and organizational strengths, (4) identify ways to "get there from here," including effective communication and change-management strategies, (5) rise to greater levels of mastery, success and meaningfulness as an individual, group or organization; and/or (6) benefit from having a "thought-and-idea partner" with whom to evaluate options and challenges, and from whom you can gain ideas, a fresh perspective, and inspiration. We welcome your inquiry.