“Alice asked the Cheshire Cat, who was sitting in a tree, “What road do I take?”
The cat asked, “Where do you want to go?”
“I don’t know,” Alice answered.
“Then,” said the cat, “it really doesn’t matter, does it?”
Like Alice, most of us get up in the morning in Wonderland. We follow some routine without really thinking about it. We get dressed and go to work, school and start doing what we always do. We are on automatic, sleepwalking our way through our days and through our life.
If we don’t choose where we want to go, create a map and consult it regularly we spend our lives in this dreamlike state, helping others make their dreams come true while neglecting our own.
This is why Integral Deep Listening (IDL) has a Statement of Intent, to remind us, through its repetition, of where we want to go and to provide a map for getting there. Its explanation as well as suggestions for how to use it can be found here and in Waking Up. Use it as a source of ideas for creating your own.
I am asleep, dreaming, sleepwalking,
lost in the drama of my life script,
stuck in the perceptual reality of my physical, mental, cultural and social filters.
I wake up as I ask, “Is this a dream?”
see everything as a wake-up call
reframe my cognitive distortions
and act on my priorities and those of my life compass today,
moving me from delusion and mental fuzziness
to clarity and thence, to luminosity, cosmic humor and abundance.
I am addicted to the past and future,
to my feelings, thought and sense of self.
I move from anxiety, drama and depression
into the here and now
as I name the contents of my mind,
quit monkeying around in the five trees
(thoughts, feelings, imagery, sensations and states),
and become the seven octaves of the cycle of my breath,
moving me from personalization to cosmic humor, abundance and luminosity.
I have lost my way.
I find and follow my life compass
as I amplify my inner peace
and remember, become and listen deeply to emerging potentials and
act on their recommendations with triangulation today,
with respect, reciprocity, trustworthiness, and empathy,
integrating my inner and outer worlds and
moving me from fear-based scarcity
to trust-based abundance, luminosity and cosmic humor.
