Unlocking Our Totally Wise Power

Every day for the past ten years I have thought about how I can unify my life experience as an artist, teacher, yogi, explorer, marketer, and entrepreneur to help people craft their unique quality of life. 

On August 21, 2023, during the sixth day of my Camino de Santiago pilgrimage, a vision began to crystalize: I will share my wisdom and experiences in a framework so that people can apply the lessons and practices to their own lives. The intention is guidance for unlocking inner wisdom, and just maybe shortening the time span between awareness, embodiment, and even enlightenment. This work is my purpose and I call it:

Totally Wise

From awareness to embodiment: Unlocking inner wisdom to live in our full potential and power. 

 

What is Totally Wise?

The Merriam-Webster dictionary defines the word “totally” as: in a total manner – to a total or complete degree. Synonyms include: all, altogether, completely, enough, entirely, exactly, fully, perfectly, thoroughly, utterly, and wholly. 

It is also a word that is a natural part of my vernacular and a word I use often and for a variety of meanings:

Totally! → Yes! For sure! Definitely!

Oh, yeah, totally. → I know, I agree, I am with you. 

Totally. → Completely. Unequivocally. Absolutely. 

Through my natural sense of curiosity, along with studying yoga philosophy, I have become more attuned to my inner wisdom; a sense of “knowing” that has been with me my entire life, but elusive to tap into. I am not referring to knowledge, in the intellectual sense, I mean the deep sense of knowing, or wisdom, that is intrinsic to all of us. 

Totally Wise encompasses our true essence: each of us is entirely complete and by unlocking inner wisdom we have the opportunity to experience deeper knowing, clarity, and connection.

 

This is How We Do It

I’ve spent hundreds of hours reading, researching, learning, practicing, and experimenting on myself to develop the Totally Wise framework, which consists of three pillars and several practices. The pillars represent a linear path, however the practices are interconnected, intentional and personally unique, like a spider’s web.

Here is an overview: 

Pillar #1: Moments of Clarity: Awareness + Integrity

First is to build awareness about who you are through what matters most to you. Three pillars represent moments of clarity:

• First Principles: Your fundamental life commitments.
• Core Values: Tenets that drive your life and shape who you are. 
• Integrity: Ability to act in accordance with one’s values.*

*Martha Beck’s definition from her book: The Way of Integrity: Finding the Path to Your True Self. 

 

Pillar #2: One Small Thing: Actions + Discipline

I have a habit of overthinking things and as a result my thoughts are in overdrive, but I remain in a state of inaction due to wanting ideas to be perfect before putting them out into the world. I have been channeling this advice to bring Totally Wise to life:

Create the conditions for the thing you are working on to become real. Don’t hoard it until perfect. – Seth Godin, Entrepreneur, Author and Public Speaker

 

Pillar number two deals with small actions, done over time and with discipline, that become the levers to accessing our inner wisdom. Some of the practices in this pillar include: presence, unattachment, and tapas – a Sanskrit term meaning “to burn or create heat” as a way to produce change. 

 

Pillar #3: Deeply Connected: Embodiment + Interconnectedness 

In 2019 I began tracking my time everyday in a spreadsheet. I conducted this experiment for two reasons: I wanted to be very intentional about dedicating my time to what mattered most to me in life, and I was curious if these buckets of time would correlate with an overall higher emotional state of being. 

At the end of the first year, the data showed that days with the highest emotional ratings had something in common: an average of two hours tracked for Movement (including dog walks, gym workouts, yoga class, hiking, etc.). I now incorporate two hours daily (on average) of movement into my life. This significant shift is an example of how I embodied pillars one and two to create conditions to live in my full potential and power. 

 

On this path effort never goes to waste, and there is no failure. Even a little effort toward spiritual awareness will protect you from the greatest fear. – Krishna, The Bhagavad Gita (2:40)

 

From Eknath Easwaran’s Words to Live By: 

To be truly secure, we must begin to find a source of security within ourselves. Even the bravest among us have many fears. Behind the attachment to money or possessions, for example, you will always find the fear of loss. Every self-centered desire brings the fear that we may not get what we desire.

One could make a Sears catalog of these fears, but all stem from one fatal superstition: thinking of ourselves as merely physical creatures, separate from the rest of life. As our sense of oneness with the rest of life deepens, we step out of the world of fear to live in the world of love.

 

We are in this Together

You are an important part of helping to get the Totally Wise framework to people who are curious about harnessing their inner wisdom to live more deeply and with greater clarity and connection. Your feedback and comments help me steer the plan that supports the vision. Commenting on this blog, and/or subscribing to my emails, are ways you can share your thoughts and we can stay in touch. 

We are in this together, all of us. Our paths are unique, winding, and personal, but there is a oneness that connects us with the rest of life. By tapping into our inner wisdom, we create conditions for others to do the same – deepening our connection with ourselves and the world around us. 

 

I am totally grateful for you.