A powerful conscious living and leadership movement is now emerging in many parts of the world. It’s a movement built on the conviction that, in any initiative, all stakeholders can be served, all people and the environment can be honored and respected, and economic models can serve something greater than our individual selves.
Within this movement, there is also widespread agreement that, in order to lead the world forward in the most effective, impactful, and transformative ways, new skills and tools, as well as broader capacities for awareness and perception, will be required. These new skills and capacities require us to stretch far beyond the familiar, analytical, knowledge-based approaches found in traditional learning environments into more creative, discovery-based, transformational approaches. And this is what Transformational Presence is all about.
Going forward, we need leaders who know how to be present with “what is” – to feel, sense, and listen to the energy and discover what is next. Leaders who can be comfortable in not knowing the answers – and maybe not even knowing yet which questions to ask. Curious, imaginative leaders who are willing to explore without knowing what they will find, yet trust that clues for next steps will appear. Leaders who, when they sense these next steps, are not afraid to take action.
We need leaders who are “at home in their own skin” – who are comfortable with who they are, and who fully embrace their own talents, skills, and gifts. At the same time, they thrive on continued learning through their leadership experience. They constantly seek to broaden their horizons of understanding and awareness. As they continue to learn and grow, they also create the best possible conditions for others to thrive and develop to their greatest potential – to experience their own breakthroughs in understanding, awareness, perception, and action.
We need leaders who recognize that everything is connected to everything else – who embody the understanding that the world is built on a matrix of relationships, and that everything that happens is a part of a larger flow. Nothing exists in isolation. Everything exists within a larger context.
This is the leadership that will transform our world. Transformational Presence provides a strong foundation for conscious living and leadership through a powerful yet practical set of skills that, when developed together, build capacities for awareness, understanding, perception, and effective action. At the core of our work is Whole-Mind Thinking and Whole-Being Awareness.
Whole-Mind Thinking is a result of full partnership between the intuitive and intellectual minds. This partnership actually exists within us already, but through our socialization and traditional education experiences, most of us have been conditioned that these are two separate minds, and that the intellect is the one that counts.
The first step in developing Whole-Mind Thinking is the understanding that the intuitive mind is actually the larger and more powerful mind. The intellectual mind is just one small part of the much larger intuitive mind. Both are essential for leadership in today’s rapidly changing and unpredictable world. They each play critical roles. Understanding those roles is an important first step in developing these new leadership skills and capacities.
Since 1991, the Institute of HeartMath in Boulder Creek, California, has been doing extensive research on the intelligence of the heart and the intuitive mind. Through their research, they have discovered that the electromagnetic field of the heart is 5,000 times greater than the electromagnetic field of the brain. The heart is the center of the intuitive mind, while the brain is the center of the intellectual mind. Taken another step, this research helps us to understand that the intuitive mind has access to a field of information that is 5,000 times greater than the field of information accessible by the intellect.
The highly developed intuitive mind is constantly gathering information. It picks up on signals from our emotions and feelings as well as from what is happening around us and what is waiting to unfold. In all kinds of circumstances and situations, the intuitive mind senses things that the rational-intellectual mind might miss – what is happening beneath the surface or things that are not so obvious. It senses “what wants to happen” in the big-picture view. It sees and understands things within a larger context. It’s our inner radar system, feeding us information on everything that is happening, both seen and unseen, and how it is all connected, all the time.
However, while the intuitive mind is very good at gathering information, it’s not so good at organizing it. For that, it needs a really sharp intellect. The well-developed intellect has an incredible mental filing system that allows us to access information from our knowledge, memory, and experience banks very quickly.
So to summarize, the intuitive mind is the explorer and information gatherer, and the intellectual mind is the organizer and cataloger. The Transformational Presence approach offers many simple yet powerful tools and exercises that help you become a master of Whole-Mind Thinking.
Whole-Being Awareness stretches Whole-Mind Thinking to include the incredible innate awareness, understanding, and wisdom available to us through our human energy system. Perhaps you’ve heard the saying, “The body knows,” or, “The body doesn’t lie.” The human energy system is an extraordinary technology that we’re just beginning to scratch the surface of. It is capable of guiding and supporting us far more than most people have imagined. Again, Transformational Presence offers many incredibly simple yet powerful tools and approaches for tapping into that guidance and accessing the information and wisdom within us and around us.
As Whole-Mind Thinking and Whole-Being Awareness become your default approach to life and leadership, you discover that you have a greater ability to “see the big picture” of what is happening and understand events and circumstances within a much larger context. You learn to recognize patterns and flows of energy and discover how to navigate complex situations.
When faced with challenges, difficulties, or confusion, Whole-Mind Thinking and Whole-Being Awareness reduce stress and foster resilience by transforming your relationship to what is happening. There are no magic pills, yet as your perception and understanding of what is happening expands and as you are able to see things within a larger context, clarity emerges. And you know what to do next.
Transformational Presence is the embodiment of Whole-Mind Thinking and Whole-Being Awareness. It’s the foundational skill set needed for the emerging conscious leadership movement. As individuals, organizations, and societies develop and refine this skill set, they begin to shape a transformational culture around them. As the culture transforms, people are more supported and encouraged to introduce transformational initiatives. And step-by-step, we begin to create a world that works.
P.S. If you have two more minutes for inspiration, watch this video, “What Does the Future Want From Us?” created by the students, teachers and staff of City of Lakes Waldorf School in Minneapolis, Minnesota, USA. It speaks so clearly to what today’s world is asking for from us!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y8ZSOmFMfIc
Related Blog Posts:
- Preparing For Life: A Whole-Being Approach to Education
- Are You a Multipotentialite?
- 12 Keys For Transformational Living
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