Whether you’ve been consciously on your journey for a lifetime, you’re just starting out, or you are giving it another try; whether this all makes perfect sense or you think it’s all a crock-of-crap—great! Start there. If this is your first time at bat with the whole idea of changing your mind and changing the world, do not worry; At-One-Ment: Reclaiming Our Humanity is presented with gentle guidance. As is the case with any jour- ney, to be effective, it’s always best to start at the beginning.
The first steps are the most important as they give us the opportunity to establish our balance, build our strength, and find our rhythm. If this isn’t your first time at the self-improvement rodeo, and you fancy yourself well beyond the contents of the first chapters, I invite you to try a more challenging process by starting with the last chapter and working your way in reverse order to the first chapter. Sometimes, in our expanded spiritual awareness, we can lose touch with our humanness and become ungrounded in the daily business of our physical world experience. Taking a reverse-order approach to these chapters and Action Points can be a great reminder of what you already know and an opportunity to remember to hold yourself accountable for modeling what you already know.
With any process, we are best suited to start with the obvi- ous, the things right in front of us, the things that, to most, would seem too simple and insignificant to be effective. Again, do not be deceived by the perceived simplicity of the power tools the Action Points suggested in this process provide. If you experience resistance to implementing the Action Points (and, trust me, you will experience resistance), I invite you to lean into it rather than pulling back from it. Allow yourself to move through the resistance, knowing that, in doing so, you set yourself up to claim the gold-medal prize that the opportunity holds for you on the other side of the experience.
This effort can seem overwhelming at first if we think it is our job to save the world, fix our community, or manage someone else on their path with the hope that, in doing so, we can prove ourselves worthy of reclaiming our humanity. So let’s dispel that delusion of grandeur right off the bat. There is nothing noble about suffering for the greater good of humanity, as suffering is a state of mind requiring a belief that things are hopeless. If we’re going to make a difference and contribute to the health and wellness of humanity, it will require us to be at the top of our game with a clear head, an open heart, fearless in faith, and armed with the strength of grace. Remember, this isn’t about solving world hunger, finding a cure for cancer, or establishing world peace. Not yet. One miracle at a time. For now, let’s focus on being the change we wish to see in the world.
As a stage director and stage/production manager, I have been professionally guiding people through the creative process since 1984. I have been facilitating mind-shift, life-changing, and life-enhancing workshops as my vocation since 2004. In that time, I have had the opportunity to work with partici- pants on a full spectrum of issues—as basic as finding a new job, as intricate as manifesting a life-partner, and as intense as bringing clarity to grieving parents. In all of these situations and every one in between and beyond, we had to find a place to connect, regroup, and launch. No one-size-fits-all formula works for everyone in every situation. That’s just the reality of being human. We are works in progress, ever-evolving, on an infinite array of paths. All roads lead to Rome, as the saying goes, and I believe all paths lead home to our Source. In this, I have found our common ground.
The At-One-Ment: Reclaiming Our Humanity journey represents a lifetime of personal growth, formal training, and on-the-court application. I offer it here as an outline, a series of touchstones, action points, and performance-enhancement tools to be implemented and developed. I encourage you to think of this process as “Couture for your Soul,” an invitation to try it on, see how it fits, then be inspired to make appropriate alterations. In my experience, in order for these ideas and Action Points to work, you have to work with them. Likewise, for these ideas and Action Points to be sustainable, you’ll need to work consciously and habitually with them rather than unconsciously and habitually against them.
At-One-Ment: Reclaiming Our Humanity is a journey in reclaiming our individual and collective humanity. Our humanity didn’t go anywhere, it didn’t disappear, and we didn’t displace it. We just forgot to remember it is at the core of who we are as human beings navigating a human experience. The state of our humanity is informed by who we think we are and how we nurture who we believe we are. When we are surviving our humanity, we are doing so on an “empty tank,” so to speak. When we are having a thriving experience of ourselves, we breathe thriving life-force into our humanity. Both are appro- priate expressions of our individual and collective thoughts, words, and actions. Our thriving humanity is our birthright; the degree to which we choose to thrive is our free will.
So, let’s get to work. We’ve got a journey to take, a process to implement, and our humanity to reclaim.
Onward!
