How can we stay inspired to work towards a sustainable future?

We are living in times of acute crisis. The world which we are used to living in is changing from day to day, virtually. The technological advancement has become so fast that there is no way to control things anymore in the way it worked so far. We are now living in a system which is self-organized. Nobody on the top can efficiently interfere and cause a fundamental change, no matter if they are presidents of a powerful state who believes he can make his country safe and secure, or social activists who believe that destruction will resolve everything, especially lead to their own future as dictators of the world.

WHAT CAN YOU DO AND BE WHEN EVERYTHING IS DESTROYED? AND WHAT IF YOU HAVE PUT IN PRISON OR ERADICATED THE LAST PRESUMED TERRORIST?

You probably will be dead yourself or live in total poverty. The least thing you can expect that the changes are totally unpredictable when you deliberately work against them in a restrictive and fearful way by claiming to be as powerful as God in guiding the movement of the world. You are not, we are not. No technology will substitute the intrinsic human values, the feelings and desires we all have and the responsibility to find the very best way for resolving our problems - and this is not by proclaiming the EASY BUTTON or the old and often proved unfunctional ways of MORE OF THE SAME.

We are at this point in life because of the power of the solar masculine abilities to go out into the world and search for knowledge and visions and find ways to achieve them. Nothing bad about that, not at all. But it has been too one-sided. The feminine energies have been neglected, eliminated or at least constrained to operate on a very limited terrain. Politics and Economics, science and technology, masculine domains and brought forth mainly by men. Women, who try to raise their voice have to take into account that the systems they are operating in, are masculine systems. No wonder that we women after the women's liberation tried to become men, better men, but certainly not embodiments of the feminine power and ways of doing. 

Actually, we women don't know how a feminine way could be. There are no role models yet.

As a consequence, we women have to do our best to find out what a feminine alternative could be to the present situation. You cannot tell yet that women in the main leadership positions would do better. Single examples in the world politics are not really convincing. But yes, those women are working within the masculine framework and not really interested in experimenting and finding out what a feminine framework could be. 

Probably we need to build that up from the bottom by coming together and explore things from our personal perspective - which hopefully is more "feminine" than "masculine" just by our own experience of being a woman in the world. We need to sort things out, find out what "feminine" means and uncover our hidden biases and conditionings. It is a process and needs many of us women to collaborate in finding out how we can create a better world from our "indigenous" perspective.

That's why we have founded the WOMEN MATTERS series in THE WISDOM FACTORY. Women from different places in the world are coming together to explore their perspectives and their experience, always focused on co-creating something new and good in the world.

The below talk is about an important question:

 Being surrounded by so many discouraging events and attitudes of other people: how can we stay inspired? 

How can we be motivated to go on with the little we actually can do - as opposed to just give up and resign in the face of the unfavorable environment of a superficial culture which ignores the dangers it is producing?

If you feel inspired to join a conversation group, in English, German or Italian, please connect with us via email to paradisointegrale@gmail.com

(Watch previous conversations here and let us know what you think about it)

What does burning your boat mean to you? by Heidi Hornlein

What does burning your boat mean? -- An example:

When your boat lands at an unknown shore and you burn that boat you’re making sure that you cannot choose  to sail back. You can only go forward and explore this new land.

In my life I have burnt a few boats, some unwillingly, but some consciously.  Today I will tell you about a time when I consciously took on that risk, knowing that I would have to undergo an uncomfortable period  – while also knowing, deep in my heart, that I would be able to find my way through it, that this difficult time would be transitory and not my final destiny.

In my house in Umbria, I lived with an Italian man. We were not married because he, as a “good Italian” had not divorced his first wife.  So, though separated for several years, he remained unwilling to ever divorce – which, in fact, he never did. He provided the money so that I could enjoy exploring farming and immersing myself deeply in nature. A very tiring but exciting time where I learned a lot about plants and animals – and along with that also a good deal about humans - and I began to understand the laws of nature in an intuitive way. But I didn’t earn money, except for the few eggs and chickens I sold, and I became ever more aware that I needed to take care of myself, to make sure that the money I had invested in our house wouldn’t be lost and that I would have a pension of my own – despite his reassurance that in case of his death I would get his pension. I doubted it – and in fact did die a short time ago and his pension does go to his first and only wife and not to his last mate.

I hadn’t been able then to talk with him clearly about my fears, about my need for safety. So what did I do? I fell in love with a younger man which sent my companion into a Mediterranean wrath, leaving me and trying to kick me out of the house. I didn’t leave as had been bought partly with my own money. Finally it was he who left me with a house to stay in, a freezer full of food, the vegetable garden in bloom, and a car - but with no money at all to buy gasoline!

What to do now? My mother lent me some money and I brainstormed what I could do to get some more: painting flats, translating, or – voice lessons!

Bam. That was it. In a few years I went from 1 initial student to about 30, from working with one choir to five choirs. I really got on well and I understood how brilliant I was as a voice teacher – which I never would have discovered if I had stayed with that man and lived off his money.

I burnt my boat again when I stopped leading the choir at the German Church in Rome. I feared that few students would find their way to work with me and that I would not be able to survive. All the old fears popped up again.

In fact, it did happen as I had feared, but it didn’t bother me much. I trusted deeply in myself that things would work out well. And I also realized that working with people in the way I had for the last twenty years was no longer igniting me as it once had when I had been driven by passion to find out how VOICE works.

That decision to stop teaching set me free for other things, enabling me to pursue training in counseling and coaching, into my deep interest in healing relationships - and in healing my own old patterns and conditionings.

In time, I got a small inheritance after my mothers death which allowed me not to be concerned if I earned any additional income. So not only did I survive but I really began to thrive – and I still do! I don’t yet have a reasonable income, but the fears about that are gone and I trust deeply that I am on the right path, that I will earn a living now doing the things I really feel called to bring into the world: love, relationships, our authentic voice in the world, our evolving growth into higher levels of consciousness.

How I got intersted and inspired about relationships (by Heidi Hornlein)

In this video I share my story about how I got inspired and attracted to do relationship work. My life taught me that the "normal" way of being in relationship didn't work although I really tried very hard. I needed to bang my head on the wall very strongly until I chose to find out why it doesn't work and who I needed to become for not to repeat the same old story again. Mark and I are now laying down grooves of new ways of being in relationship. We both feel strongly the urge to share with others what we have discovered - and are still discovering