ChoicePoints July 2004

"As long as we hide the truth of who we are, we perpetuate the illusion of who we're not."  _{Louise LeBrun}

This issue released: Wednesday July 7, 2004

Spotlight On - people, products and pronouncements
Today's Thought
Coming Attractions!
Quick Updates
Thought Waves

Spotlight On — You!

It's summertime and advertisements everywhere are inviting us to kick back, grab a cool refreshing drink and enjoy ourselves around the pool, at the lake or on a sunny sidewalk patio. But how many of us actually give ourselves permission to slow down and enjoy the promise that relaxation offers?

There was a time in my life when I, too, knew better than to ever slow down. Because I knew that if, for one day, I let myself take the pressure off the gas that was my career I'd have to come face to face with the fact that it was mostly facade ...the big salary, the important title, the high-powered friends ...none of it satisfied me beyond a thin, superficial, veneer called "successful". Underneath I was uncertain, lonely, afraid and most troubling, often in psychic and spiritual pain at the choices I was making and the decisions I was implementing. Part of the game I played with myself was to take regular vacations that were no vacation at all. Time away from work equally filled with activities that were 'good for me' ...museum visits, cultural explorations, gastronomic excursions.

And then someone invited me to a cottage for a weekend. I had forgotten the paradox of "cottage time". On the one hand it seems to flow endlessly, seamlessly, languidly. And at the same time it is over in the blink of an eye. And while it was far too short, that brief re-introduction to just hanging out, becoming too mesmerized to move by the gentle sway of a hammock, staring endlessly at the flicker of light on water, was just the wake-up call I required to begin to focus on the 'real' me ...whatever that was.

So as summer unfolds around us, our invitation to You is to allow it to envelop you in its softness and warmth, even if only for an afternoon. Allow yourself to re-discover some essential part of You that knows how to delight in life. Allow yourself to re-discover the pleasure that comes from not knowing what's next. Invite yourself to consider that for this day, for this hour, for this moment ... You are absolutely perfect just the way you are!

Gwen McCauley

Today's Thought

"The problem with people who have no vices is that generally you can be pretty sure
they're going to have some pretty annoying virtues "

Elizabeth Taylor

Coming Attractions!

We are pleased to offer you the following seminars, workshops and programs. Each one designed to provide thought-provoking and life altering experiences for your on-going personal and professional development.

WEL-Systems Experiences: July to September

The listing above only shows the first scheduled date. For more details and the complete program schedule, see www.WEL-Systems.com/schedule.htm

Quick Updates

Quick Updates

New Books available through Amazon.com

Our new WEL-Systems Institute publications The Alchemy of Energy and When the Horse Dies Get Off... and Stop Dragging It Around! are now available for purchase through Amazon.com as well as directly from the WEL-Systems Institute.

We know that many of our clients, like us, are voracious readers. If you are looking for some interesting summer reading and have already read both of these books, you might want to browse through our listing of suggested reading material at www.WEL-Systems.com/readings.htm

If you already own one of our WEL-Systems books and you would like to submit a book review, we invite you to submit a review on Amazon.com; review The Alchemy of Energy or review When the Horse Dies, Get Off...

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CANLP Conference - April 2005

Louise has now been confirmed as the keynote speaker for the April 2005 CANLP (Canadian Association of NLP) Conference, with the theme of 'Human Evolution and NLP'. If you would like to speak at this conference, proposals to offer workshops must be received by the Conference Chair Carol Ann Brazier, by July 15, 2004 to be considered. For more information, go to www.CANLP.ca

We encourage our WEL-Systems:NLP Practitioners, Master Facilitators and Catalysts to consider this opportunity to offer a new and powerful perspective on issues relating to human evolution, in all fields. Whether your interests are related to work, family or community; whether they are about building teams, healing the body or exploring life through play, your unique way of moving through the world will offer conference attendees a new window on the meaning of possibility and potential. Those attending this conference are choosing mindfully to press the edges of their own awareness in search of accelerated consciousness and generative change. How good can it get!

Thought Waves

Balance: Bogus or Bounty?

In our high-tech, high-stress environments with our fast-paced, high-demand lifestyles, much attention seems to be focused on the notion of finding balance in our lives. That mythical place where all unfolds with grace and ease; time and attention equally apportioned to family, friends, work and - if you're lucky - self, with a minimum of bumps along the road. Books, audio tapes, workshops proliferate, offering roadmaps to ease the burden of the quest to find this seemingly ever-elusive place to stand where the pull between opposing forces is neutralized and we can exhale.

Let your attention wander back to another place and time, and consider the experience of the seesaw. Our sense of play, delight in and enthusiasm for the next time did not come from those moments when the instrument was in balance and, as a result, unmoving but from that erratic and effusive movement, knowing fully and trusting completely in our ability to surf the experience and ride the crest of that wave! It is from these highs and lows ... from these perturbations ... that we discover the sense of freedom of that continuous flow and the sheer joy of knowing that we can ride high and not only survive but feel engaged in and revitalized by that magical moment of being fully alive!

Perhaps what we seek is not balance but our rediscovered capacity to ride high and delight in the trip. Without the highs, we would never get to know the extent of our own ability to soar. Without the lows, we would never discover the strength of our ability to set things in motion. Without those swings, we would neither notice nor welcome the stillness that sits between them ... and the invitation to simply observe.

For many of us, our lives have become manifestations of mediocrity and the mundane. We strive to make life predictable and stable, giving us the illusion of being in control and having a sense of what's to come and, hopefully, the ability to cope. However, the price that we often pay for this is a sense of feeling frozen ... robotic in thought and movement ... repetitious ... lives lived from one day to the next with yesterday as the pattern for tomorrow.

In our search to find the stability of solid ground, we've lost our sense of the familiar with the fire of our passion for life! We've forgotten that we are not intended to walk everywhere, but to soar and to create and to invent. To make up each new day as it comes along ... and breathe into it the life that only each of us can express. Without that passion ... without that Fire coursing through our veins ... we lose interest in the life that unfolds around us. But more importantly, we lose interest in ourselves and our desire for life begins to fade.

When that happens, we need things outside of us to make us keep moving. We fill our lives with things and escalate our need to consume in an often frantic need to gratify ... something! ... and we may not even be sure what that is. When the source inside us ceases to flow, we look outside of ourselves for sustenance and a reason to continue, often discovering instead not the things that feed us but the things that will silence the hunger and distract us from its intense gnawing at our bellies.

What if what we seek is not balance but to reclaim our passion for living? What if the magic of living does not rest in making life predictable but in rediscovering our ability not only to move with the flow ... in its subtle and volatile expression ... but to find deep joy and exhilaration in trusting our ability to ride the crest of those waves of life? What if we are not intended to hold our breath but to continue to breathe in and out ... sometimes in long, slow, deep inhalations and sometimes in rapid, panting bursts? Maybe if we could remember how to be alive, living would be much more fun.

Look around as you go. Although we will each carve out the path that we will walk, we will not be alone.

Louise LeBrun

The WEL-Systems® Institute
260 Hearst Way, Suite 210
Ottawa, Ontario, Canada  K2L 3H1
Tel: (613) 254-7218
info@WEL-Systems.com