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In This Edition Of Mystical Scuttlebutt:
Upcoming Events
Practical Tip
Dilemma Of The Month
Reflection Of The Month
Clues For When You're Stressing Out
Testimonial
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2007 Calendar – If you haven’t already downloaded your copy of Confessions Of A Marketplace Mystic, please click here to do so now.
Beautiful images combined with original sweet sharings from Ragini’s personality, revealing the conundrums and questions of a Marketplace Mystic learning how to be both Human and Divine. Designed for an acrylic or plastic stand-up picture holder. Works best if cut down to 8 by 10 size. Enjoy and may each of the days to come be filled with awareness, increasing inner peace, and many moments of joy.
May 29th - No More This Or That
This workshop is required for all participants in the Paradox Management Certification Training – as an introduction to the model and/or as a review – and is covered by the Certification Training fee. This one-day seminar is also open to others who wish to get a basic understanding of Facticity as the missing link in practical spirituality before enrolling in the Certification program. Fee: for Non-Certification Training Participants: $160 – Early Bird Discount: $130 if paid in full by May 1, 2007. Time: 9 to 5:30 – Location: Seattle , Washington , USA. To register, click here.
May 29th through June 4th 2007 Paradox Management Practitioner Certification Training - for Therapists, Coaches, and Organizational Development Consultants.
Polarized thinking is but a stage in the evolution of human understanding. Paradox Management delivers you to the next stage for your personal and professional growth. This training fills an important gap in the professional and spiritual training of Coaches, Corporate Consultants, Business Leaders, Educators, Therapists, and Spiritual Teachers. An absolute must for anyone interested in the conscious co-creation of a different kind of world. Please visit our website for additional information - Led by Ragini Elizabeth Michaels, Consciousness Teacher, Marketplace Mystic, and originator of Paradox Management. - 7 Days – Fee: $2,700 – Early Bird Discount: $2,400 if paid in full by March 1, 2007 - $2,550 if paid in full by April 1, 2007. Location: Seattle, Washington, USA – Times: 9 to 5:30. Registration closes on May 1st, 2007. Click here to register.
“I learned more truly practical and useful information in this program than in my entire training as a contemplative psychotherapist. Fantastic!”
Carl Baccellieri, Colorado.
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Continually revisiting the notion that you may actually be a Marketplace Mystic can be very helpful. Here are some of the criteria that appeared in our first newsletter to help you determine if indeed this pathless path is your path.
Being a Marketplace Mystic means at least three things:
Being concerned with how to consciously live in the moment's mystery, with understanding and acceptance of your role in it.
Being concerned with how to be both a human being and a divine being simultaneously - at the office, at home, and in the privacy of your mind.
Being concerned with how to practically manage the conundrum of letting life be what it is and going with the flow, while also manifesting and making your dreams come true.
If spiritual commitment defined by dedication to monastic living or surrender to a guru is not of interest to you, you may well be on this pathless path. If you desire to bring your spiritual life into your daily life through conscious living, understanding from the heart, and participation in the co-creation of a different kind of world, you may well be an emerging Marketplace Mystic.
Make no mistake – this is not an easy road to find yourself traversing. You may not have even been aware that this is indeed your way. As you become more aware that this pathless path is yours to explore, you will be glad to know that you are not alone, and you are not crazy. You are among many kindred souls for whom believing by itself is not enough. You need to know as much about God, the universe, and the nature of reality as you can uncover – as crazy and embarrassing as that may seem to your probably well-educated, cynical, western sophisticated mind. If this still speaks to you, once again, welcome to the growing community of Marketplace Mystics living and working all over the globe. You are needed and your time to emerge is now.
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Dilemma of the Month: Special Vs. Ordinary
Whether it is our culture or the natural bent of the personality, most of us are plagued by an almost unquenchable thirst for being deemed special. We strive in some way to make a mark in the world that will make others, and ourselves, see us as above the crowd, unusual, extraordinary, singular, or unique. We openly, or secretly, long to feel, and be perceived as, exceptional, distinctive, matchless, great, remarkable, original, inimitable, irreplaceable, or rare. The last thing we want to feel, or be seen as, is ordinary, a part of the crowd, commonplace, regular, everyday, run of the mill, average, mundane, mediocre, undistinguished, unremarkable, humdrum, pedestrian, dull, or unoriginal.
The positive benefits of being special and of being ordinary are often lost in the game of striving for the one you think is better than the other. The difficulty with being special is that once achieved, it does indeed set you apart from others. Specialness by its nature deems you different from everyone else. However, being special often generates envy, and frequently misunderstanding to the point of evoking jealousy and animosity. People deemed special often end up feeling alone, removed, poles apart from everyone else, and disconnected.
Ordinariness by its nature deems you the same as everyone else –an everyman, free to live easy and slow. Yet, people deemed ordinary often end up feeling unseen, unrecognized, lonely, frustrated and discarded, or just one more body in a crowd. Whichever position you choose, strive for, or find yourself in, can leave you feeling separated and set apart from the whole – perhaps a surprising but definitely unsatisfying situation.
Managing The Dilemma
How to manage this conundrum? The heart yearns to simply be an ordinary human being – to lay down the drive to be special and to just have fun, relax, be carefree and happy. Yet, the heart also craves to express itself in its own way – to paint a unique and purposeful brushstroke across the sky. Once we cease to set up one way of Being as better than the other, we can embrace the full circle of both desires beating in our heart – the desire to rest and to act – to be and to do – to stand out as individual and to also be embraced as an equal member of a larger whole.
To accomplish this feat, simply remember special and ordinary are two sides of the same coin. When you find yourself clinging to either side, find the edge or the rim of this coin, and set up housekeeping there. From that vantage point, you can watch and feel the movement back and forth between the two – enjoying the wonder of your uniqueness and the comfort of your ordinariness. Give it a try. When you tire of being different, relax into being commonplace. When you’re bored with being one of the whole, slip inside the urge to express yourself as no-one else can. Special and ordinary are like the in-breath and the out-breath. You can’t have one without the other. Enjoy exploring the organic unity of these two complementary needs that are designed to unfold in harmony, again and again.
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To visit this month’s new Reflection highlighting Joel and Michelle Levey, please click here.
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1) When you find you are angry with yourself
2) When you discover that you are disappointed in yourself
3) When you are feeling unworthy and without value
Remedy:
In these kinds of moments, the task of the Marketplace Mystic is to be present to and conscious of whatever is unfolding in the moment – even when it’s unpleasant and uncomfortable. Whatever your story is about the cause of these feelings, it is not as important as how you greet your experience as it unfolds in your body.
Shift your attention from the story to the sensation of the anger or disappointment in your body and feel directly what that experience actually is. With your awareness, not your intellect, explore. Is it tight? Dense? Hard? Hot? Cold? Rigid? Burning? Icy? Whatever it is, it is your moment of life happening right now. It is your path and your journey unfolding in this moment of NOW.
Being present to the experience of this moment of your life as it moves through your body simply means consciously feeling it. It doesn’t mean throwing it out at another, or grabbing it and turning it inward toward yourself, or changing it. Easier said than done? Yes, I know. Yet, this is a direct route to the return of your heart into the foreground and the freeing of compassion for this difficult and challenging experience of being in human form. I invite you to check it out for yourself and see what happens. May your heart open and release the fragrance of its kindness and love through all the difficult times of your journey.
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"Ragini's work helped me see that to truly access the higher spiritual realms I have been so focused on, I have to learn how to truly live in this material realm - in this body. Only then can the two realms communicate and interact with one another and provide me the fullness of life's experience. This has really turned my life upside down in a very good way. I am deeply grateful.”
Michael Iaquinta, Artist
To visit this month’s new Reflection, please click here.
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All material (C) 2006 Ragini Elizabeth Michaels, www.facticity.com or ragini@facticity.com |
