{"id":18,"date":"2010-09-09T16:28:56","date_gmt":"2010-09-09T16:28:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/insweetcompany\/2010\/09\/perseverance-ii.html"},"modified":"2010-09-09T16:28:56","modified_gmt":"2010-09-09T16:28:56","slug":"perseverance-ii","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/insweetcompany\/2010\/09\/perseverance-ii.html","title":{"rendered":"Perseverance II"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><i>&#8220;Ultimately, anything God wants you to do does not mean neglect of self; it fosters the development or expansion of your true Self, your soul.&#8221;<\/i> &#8212; Sri Daya Mata, IN SWEET COMPANY: CONVERSATIONS WITH EXTRAORDINARY WOMEN ABOUT LIVING A SPIRITUAL LIFE<\/p>\n<p>Reading Meg Wheatley&#8217;s new book, PERSEVERANCE, prompted a little self-reflection about what gets in my way when I must stay the course. I decided to make an &#8220;AntiGrave-ity&#8221; To Do list to lighten my load, to lessen my time on the battlefield and keep the carnage &#8212; the overwhelm, the resistance &#8212; from going deep.&nbsp; <\/p>\n<p>Here&#8217;s my &#8220;To Do&#8217;s&#8221;: <\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>&nbsp;Choose to engage, to move forward. Speed is not as important as momentum. Moving forward opens doors I would never discover if I stood still, drifted, or looked back. Why continually bang my head against a closed door?<\/li>\n<li>&nbsp;Get everything out of my head and onto paper where I can look at what&#8217;s happening more objectively. Determine what is valuable, then throw the paper away. Good riddance!<\/li>\n<li>&nbsp;Tell myself the Truth about what&#8217;s happening and about MY actions, desires, and rationales. No rose-colored glasses. No &#8220;should&#8217;s.&#8221; No &#8220;If only&#8217;s.&#8221; If I don&#8217;t know what I&#8217;m<i> really<\/i> up against, how can I effectively move ahead?<\/li>\n<li>&nbsp;&#8220;Romance the stone,&#8221; embrace not-knowing, create the space for &#8220;knowing&#8221; to occur. Mentally &#8220;borrow&#8221; the joy of my past successes in the same way I brood on the negative energy of past mistakes.<\/li>\n<li>&nbsp;Look at what confronts me with adventurer&#8217;s eyes. Focus on what I can learn, who I could meet, what strengths I can develop as a result of this experience. See things as being done for me rather than <i>to<\/i> me.<\/li>\n<li>&nbsp;Do the &#8220;Einstein Maneuver&#8221; &#8211; shift my consciousness to a new level beyond where it was when the problem was created. Consider different perspectives. Entertain new options. <\/li>\n<li>&nbsp;Cool my jets. Watch funny movies. Read a good book. Listen to Van Morrison or &#8220;Ode to Joy.&#8221; Plant flowers or cook a good meal. Buy myself a little present. <\/li>\n<li>&nbsp;Ask for help. Give others the happy opportunity to be of good use. This keeps me from feeling alone, from isolating, from feeling like I have do it all myself. It opens me to fresh perspectives.<\/li>\n<li>&nbsp;Talk to God. Get a little hot under the collar. Put my hands on my hips, maybe stamp a foot and say, &#8220;What&#8217;s the deal, here?&#8221; Ask for help vs. tell Her specifically what I think I need. Why limit Her help to just what my tiny little mind thinks would work? <\/li>\n<li>&nbsp;Count my blessings, what I&#8217;ve going for me, people in my corner, that things eventually change. Gratitude connects me to my joy. Joy energizes my efforts and makes me feel human.<\/li>\n<li>&nbsp;Call myself by my right name: &#8220;Omnipotent Soul Wolff.&#8221;&nbsp; Then, watch and see what wonderful ideas and strength will be expressed through me.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>&#8220;Ultimately, anything God wants you to do does not mean neglect of self; it fosters the development or expansion of your true Self, your soul.&#8221; &#8212; Sri Daya Mata, IN SWEET COMPANY: CONVERSATIONS WITH EXTRAORDINARY WOMEN ABOUT LIVING A SPIRITUAL LIFE Reading Meg Wheatley&#8217;s new book, PERSEVERANCE, prompted a little self-reflection about what gets in&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":231,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-18","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-personal-transformation"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Perseverance II - In Sweet Company<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/insweetcompany\/2010\/09\/perseverance-ii.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Perseverance II - In Sweet Company\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"&#8220;Ultimately, anything God wants you to do does not mean neglect of self; it fosters the development or expansion of your true Self, your soul.&#8221; &#8212; Sri Daya Mata, IN SWEET COMPANY: CONVERSATIONS WITH EXTRAORDINARY WOMEN ABOUT LIVING A SPIRITUAL LIFE Reading Meg Wheatley&#8217;s new book, PERSEVERANCE, prompted a little self-reflection about what gets in&hellip;\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/insweetcompany\/2010\/09\/perseverance-ii.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"In Sweet Company\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2010-09-09T16:28:56+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Margaret Wolff\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Perseverance II - In Sweet Company","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/insweetcompany\/2010\/09\/perseverance-ii.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Perseverance II - In Sweet Company","og_description":"&#8220;Ultimately, anything God wants you to do does not mean neglect of self; 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She speaks and writes about things women care about: how to make our lives and our work be about what we value most; how to navigate challenge and change; how to live with integrity and grace, to look at error in ourselves and others in a forgiving way and view life as an invitation to transform ourselves into instruments for the Greater Good. \"I laughed, I cried, I was silent, I cheered. Most of all, I loved.\" Spoken by a woman at In Sweet Company Retreat, these words express what women experience when Margaret engages them in dynamic, soul-searching conversations about their lives. Margaret holds degrees in art therapy, psychosynthesis, and leadership and human behavior. Her work takes her to universities, to conferences and retreat settings, to living rooms and board rooms -- wherever women gather. Her articles, essays, and stories are featured in numerous magazines; her women\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s spirituality retreats are held throughout the U.S. Margaret\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s last book, In \"Sweet Company: Conversations With Extraordinary Women About Living a Spiritual Life\" (Jossey Bass), is a collection of intimate conversations she had with 14 famous women of various ages, faiths, and backgrounds about how their spirituality nourishes them and serves as a steady compass for their decision-making. Olympia Dukakis, Riane Eisler, Zainab Salbi, Margaret Wheatley, Sri Daya Mata, Lauren Artress, and other women artists, activists, religious leaders, and visionary thinkers shared their lives with her. 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