Wow.  I have just had my mind blown.  A book I received yesterday debunked the Serenity Prayer!  You know the prayer that says God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can and the wisdom to know the difference?  Just say this prayer and somehow it gets you through, right?

Well, in this book, called Influencer: The Power to Change Anything, by the same guys at VitalSmarts who wrote Crucial Conversations, they say…that’s the problem.  We tell ourselves we aren’t influencers and so we seek serenity…or complacency.  This would be a fine tactic if it weren’t for the list of challenges we face today.

Because of the amazing time we live on the planet, we get the chance to be people with the wisdom to MAKE a difference.  As they say in the introduction “We should be seeking to expand the list of things we can change so that we don’t need to seek serenity so often….Instead of owning up to our responsibility of beoming effective agents of change and then going about the task of improving our influence repertoire (much like an athlete funning laps or a chess player learning moves), we grumble, threaten, ridicule,and, more often than not, find ways to cope….we are wonderful at inventing ways to cope.”

And I would add, this is worth considering so we don’t have to settle for feeling helpless so often, whether it’s with our teenagers, our workplace or the political “process”.

Now, I’m only into the 2nd chapter so far, but I’ve got to say, this lights me up.  This feeds my soul.  It feels like hope and it feels like a guidebook on the path of meaningful existence that I’m here to take.

Three other books I’ve read lately are in this vein:  1)  Concious Evolution, by Barbara Marx Hubbard; 2)  Writing to Change the World, by Mary Pipher an 3)  The Art of Possibility, by Rosamund and Benjamin Zander.

Wake up and, as Ghandi says, be the change you wish to see in the world.

Happy Solstice!  The Sun returns, and so can we.

My colleague and I were discussing how we humans use only 10% of the capacity of our brains. She said she often asks God if she could please be granted an increase on that statistic — not to be able to use all 100% — just to be able to up it to, say, 25%. Imagine what it would be like if we all were using that much more of our potential for creativity and seeing possibilities — if we all doubled what we were truly capable of.

The next day, I got an insight into what that might really be like.

It started when my cat Smokey didn’t come home. Now, the Smokester is no ordinary pet for me, he is my familiar. My furry soul mate. My wild mountain kitty boy who I can literally feel looking at me when his food bowl is empty. I feel it. I go into the bathroom where his bowl is. And sure enough, there he is, looking at me next to an empty bowl. Got it, buddy. I “heard” you from the next room!

Smokey loves to hang out with the family. Talking in his meows and curious about what we’re up to. He goes off, but not for very long, like some kitties I’ve had who disappear for days. So when he was gone all day, into the wild windy night and all the next morning, I grieved his loss very hard. I know the deal about having outdoor pets here in the mountains of Colorado – they may go off on an adventure and become dinner for a family of coyotes. And Smokey loves his adventures – drinking from the glacial streams like a mountain lion.

At one point in the morning I had a pang of missing him and I closed my eyes intending to settle down inside myself and let him go, much like I had just done a few months ago when my father died. Instead, I got a very clear hit – an image and a sense of my neighbor’s garage. Huh. That’s funny. Maybe I’ll go check it out.

So I did. And there was Smokey. Stuck in the garage. Got it, buddy! I heard you from across town.

I felt a message in my gut from this experience — Trust Your Instincts! Maybe our expanding our brain capacity isn’t about gaining more analytical intelligence. Maybe it’s about expanding into our emotions and recognizing that our emotions are connected to our intuition. And our intuition can lead to communication with other species. A sort of collective intelligence.

What if our capacity and potential lies in our willingness to relax and open our minds, rather than work harder to process more and more bits of information.

Huh.