The Top 10 Big Ideas 1Commit to Yourself At the end of the day, what is your life about? It’s helpful to get clear on our underlying agreements with ourselves. Committing to an authentic experience of life will, guaranteed, take you into areas of discomfort as you face limitations that appear astonishingly real. However, if you’re here to be your true self, bring it on, right?! Going deeper into the truth of who we are and acting from that space requires courage, but will be the most freeing thing you ever do. 2Connection and Presence Living in the now is our foundation for entering everyday flow. Connection to the present moment is connection with our true selves. When we continually bring our attention back to the now, we cultivate authenticity and open up access to our intuition and to true joy in our lives. When we’re coming from SAM (Standard American Mindset), we’re often focused primarily on the future, and realigning ourselves with the now can be quite a paradigm shift! We don’t need to throw out all of our possessions, cash in our 401K’s and move to a commune to live intuitively, however. We simply start where we are and train ourselves to be here, realizing our security is in who we are being in the present moment. 3Question Your Thoughts Not only can we train our attention to focus on the present moment rather than on the chatter in our minds, we can question the thoughts that have become our jailers. Following the tenets outlined in Byron Katie’s The Work, I encourage you to begin to investigate those thoughts that keep you stuck (“there’s not enough money,” “I’m too old” etc.) and find out if they are really true before you believe them and allow them to run your life! 4Give Space to Emotions Like thoughts, emotions come and go, and fighting or otherwise attempting to avoid them doesn’t work in the long run. Embracing and experiencing our emotions in an environment of acceptance allows them to process and dissipate rather than festering and draining into other areas of our lives. In this class, I’ll share a tried and true method for embracing emotion in our lives on a day-to-day basis. 5What’s Your Problem? Realizing that problems are only in our minds is such a relief! It’s only a problem if you think it is! Addressing situations within which you would like to see change starts with accepting and acknowledging what’s there and then taking a step from inspiration—here is where true transformation takes place. Reacting in anger or frustration only leads to more anger and frustration, which isn’t the best space to negotiate from! Calm presence, on the other hand, can be a powerful platform. Let’s break it down and see that there are no problems, there are only situations with corresponding actions to take or not take. 6Mind Your Own Beeswax So many of the situations we deal with in life are not really our business and can suck up so much of our time and energy! Often our actions in these circumstances masquerade as “helping” or “being nice.” When we are in judgment of what others should do or be, we’re mucking around in someone else’s beeswax. This distracts us from our own lives. When we can begin to get a feel for what is “ours” and what isn’t, we’re doing ourselves and everyone else a huge favor! 7Let the Chips Fall We often act from an underlying need for acceptance or approval, which poisons otherwise authentic actions and relationships. Learning to let others experience their own lives without our “management” can feel uncomfortable at first, but is actually an act of love. This allowing is both freeing and necessary if we want to act freely from intuition. 8Plans Shmans Does living intuitively require scrapping all plans and living moment-by-moment? Yes! And no! When our actions and inspirations arise from our true selves rather than from ego identity, we often “download” entire visions for projects, actions and adventures. When we’re following those feelings and living out those visions, our brains can be very useful tools as we’re enacting whatever we’re inspired to do. “Plans” may very well emerge in that context. However, we can only plan from what we already know, and life has a way, especially when we’re living intuitively, of bringing about circumstances that blow our small-minded plans out of the water. Plan for openness! 9Show Up How many times have you heard the mantra, “Just show up”? It’s key! When your intuition calls you to write, sit down at your laptop! If it inspires you to make a U-turn, whip the car around ASAP! Showing up means following the feeling without thinking about the “how” or “why” of it. It’s very common to have an intuition and then to smash it right out of the gate because it doesn’t make any logical sense or you can’t imagine how it will ever happen. Your expanded self will guide you! By showing up and taking one small step after another, guided by your inspiration, voilà! You’ll soon find yourself in a world of opportunity you could never have dreamed up. 10Reflections and Synchronicity Many spiritual leaders remind us that the outside world is merely a reflection of our internal experience. Following your intuition on a daily basis will give you a supercharged experience of this phenomenon! Additionally, you’ll start to notice odd, joyful and almost magical “signposts” showing up in your life. Carl Jung noticed this, and coined the term “synchronicity.” Indeed, when we’re following our inner wisdom, synchronicity happens, doors open and support appears all around us. So much fun! Living from intuition is not for everyone. It’s not inherently inferior or superior to living any other way. However, those of us who feel drawn to and choose the path of waking up to ourselves will face some specific and universal challenges. This class will introduce some ideas for addressing those challenges and sprinting ahead into a truly authentic life!