Whisper
A whisper is a voice, a feeling or thought that we can just faintly hear or feel, like a caressing breeze. It is usually a sharing of something meant for your heart only, and perhaps with a hint of the unknown associated with it. Perhaps an adventure or an awakening.
To capture the essence of a "whisper" we've distilled it down to a core set of values that we use as the foundation for our programs.
"The very longest swell in the ocean, I suspect, carries the deepest memory"
A. R. Ammons
Wisdom
Only when a leader has acquired education, experience and knowledge, with an awareness of the potentials and consequences of their decisions, is it possible for wisdom to be attained.
"Wisdom can be learned, but it cannot be taught"
It is a life long acquisition of education and experience that leads to the evolution of judgement and self-knowledge, which is the basis of wisdom.
Heart
The heart is the place of oneness with others.
To speak of the heart is not to speak of vaguely defined emotions but to speak of the very core of our being.
The science of the heart gives inner strength to put truth, flowing from experience, over the need for approval. The science of the heart permits us to be vulnerable with others, not to fear them, but to listen to them, to see their beauty and their value, to understand them in all their fears, needs and hopes, even to challenge them if need be. It permits us to accept others just as they are and to believe that they can grow to greater beauty. It is a heart that calls us to grow, to change, to evolve, and to become more fully human.
We need to lead with an open heart balanced with the intellect of the mind.
"It is only with the heart that one can see rightly; what is essential is invisible to the eye."
The Little Prince
Intuition
"You think of truth as it were a formula that you can pick up from a book. Truth is purchased at the price of loneliness. If you wish to follow truth, you must learn to walk alone."
Follow the truth of the way.
Reflect upon it.
Make it your own.
It will always sustain you.
Lao Tzu
Inside yourself you always know; it is a matter of being honest with oneself, and from there is the beginning of being honest with others.
Intuition is basing your knowledge on the rhythms of the natural world.
Intuition is really a sudden immersion of the soul into the universal current of life, where the histories of all people are connected, and are able to know everything because it is all written there.
The power of the collective conscious, and vibrational energy.
Stillness
"And when you can no longer dwell in the solitude of your heart you live in your lips, and sound is a diversion and a pastime."
"You talk when you cease to be at peace with your thoughts."
His thoughts are still.
His words are still.
His work is stillness.
He sees his freedom and he is free.
Lao Tzu
"Happiness is the butterfly said the master. Chase it, and it eludes you. Sit down quietly, and it alights upon your shoulder."
Perspective
"I learned the Alchemist's secrets in my travels. I have inside me the winds, the deserts, the oceans, the stars, and everything created in the universe. The same hand makes us all, and we have the same soul."
Paulo Coelho
"Life is interdependent, everything is connected, and nothing is greater than anything else, which leads us to humility."
Jean Vanier
"To be free is to put justice, truth, and service to others over and above our own personal gain or our need for recognition, power, honor and success."
Jean vanier
"Know thyself"
Socrates
As we begin to know ourselves, with our gifts and our flaws, our yearnings for truth and for justice, our compulsions and our blockages, we begin to take our places in society; each of us just as we are.
We need to have an awareness that our perception of the world is distorted by what we want to see, as opposed to what it really is.
Energy
Aristotle talks of our passions as being like a horse which has a life of its own. We are riders who have to take into account the life of the horse in order to guide it where we want it to go. We are not asked to suppress our passions or compulsions, nor to confront them head on, nor to be governed by them, but to orientate them in the direction that we want to go.
To be free is to know who we are, with all that is beautiful, all the brokenness in us; it is to love our own values, to embrace them, and to develop them; it is to be anchored in a vision and a truth but also to be open to others and so, to change. Freedom lies in discovering that the truth is not a fixed set of certitudes, but a mystery that we enter into one step at a time.
Energy is tapping into something that is bigger than you are, and because of this, lights the fires of your passion.
Responsibility
I always think of the principle used by the Native Americans, that in all important decisions, we must reflect upon the consequences for the following generations.
"For every right that we assume there is a corresponding responsibility to others, our environment and ourselves. We are not alone in the consequences of our actions, and for this we must be accountable."
Paul Hawken
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