By Dr. Kirk Prine

Liberationists like Martin Luther King, Jr., Mahatma Ghandi, Audre Lorde, Bayard Rustin, and Jesus all defied convention, not just to act out some wound about power, but to actually set people free.

So as you are creating your business, your message and your mission, ask yourself, what old ideas of being appropriate are keeping you from being fully free?  Some “ideas” are the attachment to a philosophy that no longer serves you.  Things you believed as the truth and you may have staked your life on.  Remember “the truth sets you free”.

A man, Gene Sharp, is one of those people who has already changed the world.  Little known to most people, he is one of the world’s foremost non-violent revolutionary strategists alive.  His writings are credited with the strategy used in the ongoing toppling of the Egyptian government.  Democratic movements in Serbia took back power from Milosevic and in Ukraine freedom from Yankovych was inspired by Dr. Gene Sharp.

The Albert Einstein Institute he runs is made up of him and an executive assistant, Jamila Raqib, out of his home in Boston.  Yet the impact of his work has empowered liberationists around the world and has world leaders who suppress the voices of people scared of him.  Without violence, Sharp’s writings have helped millions achieve freedom.  ”As soon as you choose to fight with violence you’re choosing to fight against your opponents best weapons and you have to be smarter than that,” Sharp says.

Here are some of his keys:

• Develop a strategy for winning freedom and a vision of the society you want.
• Overcome fear by small acts of resistance.
• Use colors and symbols to demonstrate unity of resistance.
• Learn from historical examples of the successes of non-violent movements.
• Use non-violent “weapons”.
• Identify the dictatorship’s pillars of support and develop a strategy for undermining each.
• Use oppressive or brutal acts by the regime as a recruiting tool for your movement.
• Isolate or remove from the movement people who use or advocate violence.

These words by Sharp could just as easily be translated to your life, business and your contribution to a peaceful revolution of love trying to be born.

Pause.  As you read this, what happened in your body, in your self talk and especially how did “being appropriate” show up?

These are important times beloved.  Money is a rallying symptom for a bigger picture and the path to healing needs us all.

Pause again.  What heroes or heroines do you want to honor and reflect upon to strengthen you in these times?  Call on them and the energy they knew to strengthen your heart.  Together as conscious people we can heal ourselves and our world.

By Dr. Kirk Prine

Those of you who know Donny and I well have heard us say repeatedly, “your body never lies”.  We we work with listening to the stories and messages found in their bodies, incredible transformations take place in health, wealth, business, and purpose.

Our bodies often tell us about “Failed Systems” — ways in which we are energetically operating in a world that perpetuates results of pain, stress, and disease.

The same is true in lives and in our businesses.  There are often gaping tender spots and even diseases eating away at our effectiveness, profits, and satisfaction.

Donny and I are offering an Advanced Body Story Expert training next year that will teach practitioners to listen to the stories that block folks from their desired results by using rituals as tools to assist liveration

So you ask, “How does this help me?”  In the next couple of Body Story Ezines we want to draw your attention to simple but powerful ways to listen to your business in searching for the transformation you desire.  These ways come from shamanism and alchemy.  Transformation will come when there is integration of four elements:  earth, fire, water, and air.

So much struggle is being experienced right now with “Failed Systems” that do not deliver desired outcomes because there is an emphasis on one element or another rather than in integration.  Let me explain.  Some of you are strongly gifted with one element style and resist or limit yourself by trying to create your business from that one element.

Here are some broad concepts about elements:

Earth
Earth businesses are focused on heatlh, money, products, and business.  Earth element folks can be grounded by lacking in creativity, spontaneity, fluidity, communication promotions, passion to sell, envision for the bigger picture.

Fire
Fire businesses are filled with passion; often unfocused, lacking grounding, undisciplined intention and solid strategy.

Water
Water businesses are constantly creating something new or getting lost in integration and personal process, needing to be completed before they can take action steps.

Air
Air businesses are masterful with information sharing and critical assessment, yet they may miss the stability of a grounded foundation, they may lack passion and spontaneity to excite themselves and their customers to see the need for a product and they may overlook the emerging vision being presented.
So without judgment, which of these elements most describes you?  This is the starting point for more intuitively crafting your business, your business strategies, your business team, and your own mindset work to be more effective.

Failed systems need new eyes and ears to access a new plan of success that comes from integration (rather than resistance).  A new alchemy will guide you to your heart’s desire in your life and in your business.

More on this juicy topic in our next Body Story Ezine.

By Dr. Kirk Prine

In these articles, Donny and I are exploring the notion we all know something bigger is going on in our world than what is apparent.

Try this exercise to tap into your own wisdom about what is happening in the world:  Take a piece of paper and write down what you’ve been needing to express.  Something like, “I’m blank about blank.”  Now commit to releasing those feelings in a safe way.  Now start again.  Write out a sign that you would carry in an Occupy Wall Street movement demonstration.  Let go of, “I would never walk in a demonstration”, or any judgments you may have about the Occupy movement.

This exercise is about you learning something about yourself.

Consider these stories as a way to connect some dots.  Powerful healing can come when that which has been squelched is expressed.  For example, in our work with a woman whose business was doing just okay, Donny and I found that she had a story from childhood that kept her from expressing herself.  Now that she has found her voice, her business is now flourishing at a much higher level.  By breaking her childhood contract of silence, she is becoming powerful and sought out by clients she loves working with.

Similarly, another client recently also had squelched her voice from a traumatic past experience.  Her true feelings were secrets manifesting themselves in a chronic, physically limiting disease.  In freeing her voice her symptoms have disappeared.

The Occupy Wall Street movement is filled with voices of feelings trying to be expressed.  Expression can bring the first stage of healing, yet without clear intention the desired freedom and results may never manifest.

Donny and I have lost money and made a lot of money.  We also know what having and not having money feels like.  We also know that wealth is available to all of us from the inside out and as we do our work.  Prosperity is just one manifestation.  Yet the Wealth Creation movement among entrepreneurs can be used to liberate or shame those who have or don’t have.  Remember that the principles of wealth creation are meant to empower us much like the principles of healing Louise Hay taught in the metaphysical healing movement.  But the wisdom Louise Hay taught can be used to judge others.  So, for example, if the soul chose to be sick, maybe somehow the person didn’t “do it right”.  On a spiritual plane, this may be true, yet blaming the sick is not the way to recovery.

Donny and I spoke recently to a powerful thought leader in the entrepreneurial Wealth Creation movement.  When we spoke of the Occupy Wall Street movement he quickly jumped in to say the rich don’t have a problem.  My heart broke again as a wisdom keeper for wealth creation did not appear to grasp the bigger picture.  We all know that there are conscious and unconscious people who are rich, poor, and in all spectrums of money.  We also know that the systems and cultures around wealth are often broken.  There is pain to be expressed in the one percent as well as the 99 percent.  In fact, to find a new way of business that many of us conscious entrepreneurs espouse will require the pain of 100 percent to be expressed.

A new voice of power and compassion is what Donny and I have seen heal our clients.  Just like the client who found her voice and is now at a higher level, and just like the client whose disease was healed, your voice is awaiting to be expressed.  A new voice with the intention to heal will make a powerful difference in the world.  Go back to the exercise.  What does your sign need to say?  What is your conscious voice to be seen and heard?  What you write is what you bring to the way you do business, so write with compassion and intention.

By Dr. Kirk Prine

Spirit gave me a dream in 2005 where I heard a voice saying, “Tell everyone they are ‘Citizens of the Reconstruction’.”  I had no idea what that meant although it seems to get clearer to me with each passing day.

In ancient wisdom and in the wisdom of tribal peoples, the principal of “what’s up now” is central.  ”What’s up now” represents what is available for healing now.  ”What’s up now” is the principal that guides Donny and me in our work of The Missing Thread. What is showing up now, especially through the body, reveals a deeper truth that seeks to come through.  The question, “What’s up now?” can also be asked of the body of the earth.  What is happening right now on the planet represents the earth trying to speak to us.

One of the things that’s up now is the new movement called Occupy Wall Street.  This phenomenon of Occupy Wall Street is part of the pulse of “What’s up now” that you take as an entrepreneur, healer, or change agent wishing to express your purpose through your work.

Spiritual teacher Deepak Chopra led a 30-second meditation with a mass of people on Wall Street the other day.  He asked them to put their hands over their heart and ask themselves internally, “What kind of world do you want?”.

The disparity between the rich and the other 99 percent of the population in the United States needs to be on the hearts of 100 percent of us.  Among the Occupy Wall Street protesters seen recently was a woman with a sign saying, “I work here.  Please increase my taxes.”  The energy of this movement no matter what you may feel about it can be a call to consciousness.  We are all being called to new dialogue about wealth.

For entrepreneurs who have been on a wealth creation path to be of greater service in the world, our ears are being called to be attentive and our hands are being called to share our gifts.  This is good business.  This is the kind of business that spiritual masters like Jesus understood.  Wealth is available to all from the inside out and the oppressed must be given a vision and tools to be free.  There is a concept from liberation theology that says, “God is on the side of the poor.”  That means the poor inside all of us no matter which street we live on — Wall St., Main St., or any other street.

Donny and I will be creating a telesummit to explore wealth creation as it supports you in being in greater service.  We will continue this conversation.  For now, we would encourage you to listen to your body as you see the images of Occupy Wall Street.  What is trying to be expressed?  How are you as an entrepreneur, healer, and change agent a part of this emerging voice of consciousness?

by Dr. Kirk Prine

“The body is sacred.”
–Walt Whitman—

Years ago, I came up with a little formula for healing: “Attention Plus Intention Equals Healing” or AIH.  Of course, the attention and the intention meant loving attention and intention.  Most of us have received very mixed attention and intention around our bodies.  We all have been saturated with societal, religious and family expectations, abuse and disregard for the sacredness of our bodies.  Thus, saturating ourselves with loving our bodies is the antidote.

A woman I knew tattooed the image of a bold beautiful butterfly where her breast had been after having a mastectomy.  She did this with gratitude for having moved beyond her cancer. She wore the tattoo proudly as a symbol of her transformation.

Once, a very large man came to see me for bodywork.  As I began the massage, his body contracted.  I stopped and asked what he was feeling as he began to cry, “I am so ashamed of my body,” he said.  Caring for him to release the shame, I continued the massage.  Then I became aware of a pressure in my ear that told me he was probably experiencing something in his own ear.  When I asked about his ear, he couldn’t believe I sensed his pain.  “I’ve had an earache for a week and nothing will make it go away,” he reported.  I told him I became aware of it  which probably meant he was ready to heal.   As he ran some loving energy to his ear the pain completely left and he was healed.

What you say to your body and how you say it through your words, self talk, actions and behaviors can be loving attention and intention resulting in more wholeness.

The impact of loving your body not only can have ripple effects in your health and well being, but in wealth and success. Just like my client who first dropped his shame about his body was then available to receive a physical healing.

A woman who did body story work with Donny and I had been sexually abused as a girl.  As she became more loving towards her body in releasing old stories, she was able to drop her fear of not having enough money.

Whether it’s a bubble bath , a yoga class, an intimate  connection with a partner, singing, Tai Chi, good food, breathing exercises, offer your body messages that you love yourself.

Saturate yourself with ways of loving your body.  Your health, wealth and success will be amplified with remembering your body is sacred.

Namaste

Laughter 

By Dr. Kirk Prine

Here is an excerpt from my upcoming book, “The Missing Thread to an Abundant Life.”

You know those times when you know you need to laugh and you need to cry?  There is a biblical saying, ”those who sow in tears shall reep in joy”.  Joy and pain are right next to each other and laughter is the bridge to release the pressure valve.  Here I talk of laughter as part of the ecstatic path to success and activating your purpose.

Laughter seems like the perfect closure to a chapter on the Simple Steps for the Missing Thread to an Abundant Life. Laughter has often been the closing experience to a profound journey with Spirit.  After a 13- day fast, I broke into full belly-laughter with a group of people praying.  Waves of kundalini washed through each of us as we laughed for over an hour. Following many rebirthing breath-work experiences and ecstatic massage experiences, I have burst into moments of laughter, joy, ecstasy, grief and Samadhi.

In the heart of the AIDS years, I brought together a national conference called AIDS: Living in Recovery.  Elisabeth Kübler- Ross spoke, stirring people’s stories of grief, unfinished business and then laughter.  One of the speakers, Therapist JoAnn Loulan, spoke on sexual healing, awakening participants’ consciousnesses while getting them laughing.  Presenter after presenter whose words were not funny seemed to well up waves of laughter.  The presenter who evoked the direct path was Annette Goodheart, Laughter Therapist.  She pulled people up on stage with her who were very sick, who had almost died or were caregivers of very ill people.  Annette’s whole teaching was to laugh for no reason.  Not because something was funny, but just to laugh.  Moments after having people on stage with her, she would ask a few questions about their health and before you knew it, they were laughing uncontrollably.

Another story she told was of the tradition of an African tribe during a funeral.  Painting the picture Annette shared, these people believe the spirit is no longer in the body of the deceased, but have traveled on.  So a part of the ceremony of the dead as he/she is being carried away off through the hills to the cremation site, is to drop the body along the way.  Of course, the crowd who had lost many friends and lovers roared with laughter as she told the story.  The playfulness of approaching the body as in the African tribe story seemed to uncork the grief in the room with joyful relief.

In some of the work Donny and I have done is a retreat called Ecstatic Gatekeepers: Conversations with our Ancestors.  It is a weekend to celebrate our connection to the dead.  In the weekend, we construct a manikin-like figure called “the friend” to represent our ancestors.  As we carry the “the friend,” we make sure we drop him along the way to the fire.  Annette’s own story was she has a chronic condition of low blood pressure and she could easily die if her blood pressure was not  raised regularly.

So, she began using laughter as a way to raise her blood pressure and give her energy to live.

Laughter, as Annette and people like Norman Cousins reported over the years, changes the body chemistry.  It acts as an internal organ massage with many benefits.  It is an emotional balancer and I believe clears our energy fields of clutter momentarily.

In my years of being a psychotherapist, I spent a number of years doing sex therapy with couples.  So much of the work had to do with getting couples to find what pleasured them without a performance expectation.  Although I don’t know of any studies to validate this, I was aware couples who had fun, played together and laughed together seemed to enter into increased functioning more easily.  Laughter clears the pathways in the physical and energetic bodies so the erotic experience flows without struggle.

In summary, I would say laughter is allowing oneself to lose control.  Ecstasy is not a controlled experience. Pleasure is not a controlled experience.  Healing is not a controlled experience.  When laughter flavors your journey, you may be praying your most authentic prayer.  It is a prayer through the body that lubricates your joy and potential for your creative juices to flow.

Laugh hardily and heartily!

Dream Dangerously 

By Dr. Kirk Prine

We’ve been sharing a lot about this grass-roots movement of entrepreneurs, healers and change agents embodied in the phrase “We Are The Ones. (See www.WeAreTheOnesEvent.com). It is clear there are people waking up to the desire to make a difference through their lives, their businesses, their service and philanthropies.

This grass-roots movement of change, like all liberation movements, seems to have some common values even though they may not have been previously articulated by any single leader.

One of these values shared by leaders of change movements is a call to dream dangerously.  Donny and I just got to hear an inspiring talk by Reggie Odom (see www.ReggieOdom.com) about the big dream.  In Reggie’s talk, she noted that when Martin Luther King gave his famous “I Have a Dream” speech in front of the masses, it was the gospel singer, Mahalia Jackson who called out to him onstage, “Tell them about the dream.”  It was Mahalia’s shout that influenced Martin to share about his dream.  You know the rest of the story.  However, Martin’s dream was a dangerous dream, a dream that was not welcomed by some and could have had him killed or imprisoned.

As I was reminded of this story about both Mahalia Jackson and Martin Luther King, my body tingled.  The Divine is ever calling us to put our bodies on the line for our dreams. 

No matter what the circumstances of abundance you are experiencing right now, the dream is your guide.  The dream to help others is like a compass to focus your commitment to be abundant so you can offer your impact of change.

In these times of great change, all of our dreams are the tapestry of a new way of being.  Our commitment to what calls us may feel like a dangerous dream.  The current circumstances and empirical evidence may tell us to play small.

If Mahalia Jackson had not prompted Dr. Martin Luther King, he would not have given the speech that changed history.  If he had not expressed his dream, masses of people would still be enslaved.

Your dream is necessary–not only for you–but to bring the change all of us desire.