LionHeart Consulting, Inc.

The Remembrance

Investing Time in Reflection

The most important tool and asset that a leader possesses is the ability to access wisdom and guidance directly from their own heart. If you invest yourself in this practice, you will undoubtedly experience the benefits we’ve seen with hundreds of people in business, including those who began their “experiment” as skeptics. The most common benefits include:

You will reduce your stress level on all levels (mental, emotional, physical and spiritual)
You will develop more awareness of your highest character values and expand your internal strength to become bigger than your worries and vulnerabilities
You will develop a greater capacity to work effectively with different types of people, including those you’ve formerly found difficult
You will become more effective in fulfilling your highest intentions and working through the obstacles that have traditionally thwarted your efforts
You will expand your contribution to the world beyond what you thought was possible

The practice of remembrance, in form, is a simple one: The repeating of a phrase or word that is sacred to you and connects you to your source of creativity, courage, inspiration and wisdom. Although simple, this practice reawakens and nourishes your innate sense of knowing, and opens us to the spiritual mystery of our human existence.

The remembrance is an experience of connection or centeredness, as opposed to a belief system. It opens our hearts to truth and provides guidance for whatever challenges and circumstances we face. This practice is called remembrance because our life journey, at the deepest level, is to learn what we have forgotten: that all of what we seek and all of the answers we need are “treasures” buried in our own hearts. The remembrance offers a path to inner peace and freedom from the ego struggles that are at the root of human suffering, personal ineffectiveness, and many business failures.

To learn the practice of remembrance, we encourage you to try a simple experiment for 30 days:

Choose a word or phrase that represents the Highest Source of goodness in your world view. Depending upon your cultural background, spiritual orientation, and personal history, you will come up with something that resonates in your heart. Examples include the Name of the One in a sacred language (Elohim: Hebrew, Alaha: Aramaic, or Allah: Arabic), I Am One with Everything, Infinite Peace, Divine Light and Universal Love. It is crucial you choose something that works for you. People who have no spiritual orientation get value from this practice by choosing a word that represents or symbolizes whatever they hold as most precious in their lives (i.e. Gramma’s Love, Awesome Beauty, Peaceful Ocean, Truthful Living etc).
Sit quietly with your eyes closed and bring your awareness to your heart area. Breathe in and out naturally, and quietly repeat your remembrance as if it is coming into and out of your heart. We recommend spending 30 minutes per day with this practice (some people prefer one sitting and others do it 5 times for a few minutes). We have found that even beginning with a sincere effort of 5-10 minutes per day will begin to make a significant difference.
Each time you do the practice, do a brief inventory of your experience of yourself before and after your practice. Take note of your physical sensations, emotions and thought patterns. If you like keeping a journal, it will help you deepen your awareness and understanding of the issues you are working with and the progress that you are making as you go.
During your practice, allow your mind to be quiet or chatter away. Each time you discover your mind becoming a distraction, return your attention to your heart without judgment, and continue to repeat your remembrance word or phrase.
Allow yourself to receive guidance or insights that help you find what you need. If slowing down for reflection causes you more discomfort than you had been aware of, allow yourself to feel what is there and continue with your remembrance. It is counter intuitive to “lean into” what’s painful, but that is the most effective way to find the wisdom and peace you’re looking for. The remembrance will eventually clear your heart of what’s troubling you. Depending upon the issue and your openness to receiving guidance, it may be minutes or months until you experience the clarity, peace and wisdom you need to work through your situation. Trust that you will, as you continue your practice.
As you discover the possibilities and profound satisfaction that comes from the practice of remembrance, you will naturally want to incorporate it into your daily experience of life. We encourage you to experiment while working, sitting in meetings, when you prepare for a difficult conversation or when you wake up at night. It is the prevention and the cure for stress, as well as the tool that best opens your heart to inner wisdom.

A practical example:
An executive is faced with a business challenge that is causing stress. Rather than charging into action, or collapsing into inaction, she:

Takes time to notice how she is feeling in her body. Is she tense or tight? Worried with a fluttering stomach? Feeling heavy and burdened? Realizing that none of these responses mean anything in and of themselves, she has come to learn that these feelings merely point to something significant, and any discomfort in her body is a signal that she does not yet have the complete perspective about what is troubling her.
She examines what emotion has caused this reaction. Fear? Anger? Jealousy? Emotions, too, are not the source of the problem, but merely indicators of what is brewing inside. Making a decision from an emotional basis is not wisdom - it is reaction that often makes matters worse. To find wisdom, she must go deeper inside than her emotions.
She takes a minute to examine what the emotion is about. If she is angry, what is she angry about? If she is afraid, what is she afraid of? If she is sad, what is she sad about? All emotions point to what is causing them. Once she is aware of what she believes is causing the emotion, she takes the next step to bring her inner wisdom into play.
Her ability to access her heart has been fostered and developed through her practice of remembrance. She trusts that by connecting to the place in her heart where everything feels as if it is in its right place, things will be OK, everything is part of a larger plan, and she will be able to access the deeper voice of inner wisdom in her heart.
Then, as her connection opens, she looks at what she believes is going on, and in doing so the reality of the situation begins to be revealed. She is now beyond her personal version of the situation, and instead is with the insight of her inner wisdom.
Lastly, following the connection in her heart, she asks what is needed, and allows an answer to arise. By following this guidance, she will be able to take inspired action and make the most wise and effective decision.

The real key to this wisdom-based leadership model is that every time we are not seeing a situation clearly, our bodies react in an uncomfortable manner…. And when we resolve our issue, we feel a genuine sense of relief. Here is an actual example:
“During a run through the mountains, the magic of LionHeart's inner wisdom came alive to me. I realized I'd been living my favorite metaphor, Star Trek as Scotty - the miracle working “go to guy” who would do everything for everyone. I was worn out! I suddenly saw myself as captain Kirk: my oath - integrity to myself, my ship - center for health research, and my crew - my department. I felt a rush of energy and freedom as the weight of the world lifted from my shoulders. In one moment, I had a whole new outlook on work.”

Pierre-Andre LaChance
Information Systems Director
Center for Health Research
Kaiser Permanente NW / Hawaii

Most of us have learned to live with some level of stress or discomfort, whether physical or emotional. We have become masters at compromising our own signals that something is wrong. We deny our feelings or bury them through various forms of 'self-medication': addictions to sugar, alcohol, television, and other means of distraction are common examples. Our suppressed reactions are not what we judge them to be; they are the indicators that our inner wisdom is missing.

The fact that we do not know what to do does not point to our not having the answer, but rather to our inability to see it from a cloudy, disconnected, and often illusory perception. Once our heart becomes clear and reconnected, what we need to do becomes obvious and holistically correct. The stronger and more clear our connection and heart's perception becomes, the less our bodies and emotions will need to show us the stress of not being connected, and our lives and businesses will begin to flow more effortlessly.

Everyone has had moments of 'being in the flow', when everything feels right and decisions seem obvious and effortless. Think back to a time when you were in the flow. You probably felt different in your body, you felt different emotions, and you certainly had a different experience of life. The remembrance and wisdom-based decision-making offer not only a path back to this experience of flow, but the ability to cultivate and produce it consistently.

The remembrance becomes a part of our lives as we take time every day to reconnect to our experience of guidance, strength, love, and vitality. Our hearts are vessels that we fill up with either positive or negative energy. It is as if we are drinking clean or dirty water. Each time we repeat our sacred phrase of remembrance, we are putting another drop of pure water into our vessel and cleaning out a drop of dirty water. The more we fill our heart's vessel with positive energy, the better we feel, perform, look, and experience life. There is just no denying it!

The moment you recognize that you are struggling on any level,

Stop,
Return to the remembrance,
Increase your connection to your heart,
Receive guidance and insight, and then
Take inspired action.
This will return you to the flow.

And you will learn to achieve business success without compromising what really matters.