Pivoting Into Peace, Connection & Our Gifts with Dr. Anita Sanchez
I’m blessed to know so many people who are sharing amazing gifts in the world and serving so many. Today’s guest, Dr. Anita Sanchez, is one of those people. Anita is a fellow TLC member and an inspiration to us all. She talks about her pivot story: from giving up hope after many years in corporate diversity and inclusion work, to the realization that we cannot just sit around complaining about the world. To create what we want…. we have to do MORE of it. Together, we talk about peace, connection, and the power of presence in receiving our gifts.
We also discuss Anita’s newest book, spurred by racial tensions in this country, The Four Sacred Gifts: Indigenous Wisdom for Modern Times by Simon & Schuster. When Anita is not advocating for women or leading her annual journey into the Amazon rainforest of Ecuador, Anita inspires and trains global corporate and non-profit leaders to discover and trust their gifts. Her belief is that through this, they become the life-giving connection to all. Anita is passionate about bridging indigenous wisdom and modern sciences to create thriving, caring and sustainable work places, communities, and homes around the world. Of Aztec and Mexican descent, she draws on the four sacred gifts given to her by indigenous Elders from around the world. An important commitment of Anita’s is that a percent of her book profits benefit the Pachamama Alliance, American Indian Science & Engineering Society and White Bison nonprofit organizations.
You can learn more about Anita at Anita-Sanchez.com. To download a free song that goes along with her new book, visit 4sacretgifts.com.
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Pivoting Into Peace, Connection & Our Gifts – Show #25 with Dr. Anita Sanchez
I’m so excited to have a wonderful person to join me in conversation about consciously pivoting in your life, in your business and creating just more of what it is that you want. We’ll start as we always do by taking a deep breath. Breathe into the fact that today has been a gift already. No matter where we are, it doesn’t matter whether we’re just getting our day started when you’re listening or whether you’re midway through a day. This breath right now is sacred just like the first one we took, that first conscious breath to start the day is sacred, was something holy even. Because in that moment, and I’m reminded of this and I get to remind other people which is a blessing in my own life that when we take that breath, there’s an awareness right then, just as it is right now that there are people taking their very last breath in this moment, so that makes this moment sacred. Whatever the things are that are going on and sometimes those things are challenging, sometimes we’re dealing with stuff, we got a lot of stuff happening; the good, the bad, the ugly at times. It’s a great reminder to all of us to be present to how magnificent our lives are just by reason of the fact that we are. That there’s an assignment, that’s there’s something here for us to do that’s really special.
The beautiful lady that I have in front of me that I get to see and that you guys hopefully can hear, I want her to say a little bit about herself. Her name is Anita Sanchez. Anita, it’s such a pleasure to have you on our podcast. I love for you to share just a little bit about yourself and your background and what you’re up to, things that you’re passionate about right now in your life. I know Anita through an organization that we both get to participate in called the Transformational Leadership Council; some beautiful beings that are part of that group. Anita and I connected, and my lovely, amazing wife, Randi, and Anita have connected. We’ve had some really great memories together in this space that we call TLC. Now, we’re going to extend that to the space here. Welcome, Anita.
Thank you. I’m honored to come to this sacred space that you opened with. I just love that because we’re always in that sacred space. I’m Dr. Anita Sanchez. Aztecan is my tribe and Mexican-America. I’ve been for now more than 40 years consulting, training, mainly in global corporations with global leaders and their teams but also non-profit global organizations as well. What I’m focused on right now is really about wisdom and this book that I’ve been called to bring forth as a messenger of indigenous elders from all over the world.
I love the title. Would you share the title of this book with us?
The Four Sacred Gifts: Indigenous Wisdom for Modern Times
If I recall, wasn’t part of that title at least being birthed or were you became aware of that title while we’re on one of the retreats, one of our get-togethers? Is that right or no?
The Four Sacred Gifts: Indigenous Wisdom for Modern Times
You’re absolutely right. It tells you when you just keep following when you are called. It did get birthed actually at one of our meetings. I pulled my courage together and decided I was going to present to this amazing group of people at TLC all screwed on by the racial things that were happening in the country. I thought, “You can’t sit around complaining. Just do more. Do more of creating what you want, which is peace and connection.”
I went and gave a talk. At the end of that talk, Adam, sitting and having lunch with a group of people and this woman, a new member, just kept asking me all these questions and I finally said, “Who are you?” She said, “I’m a publisher for Simon & Schuster and we want your book.” I was like, “What?” She goes, “The title you’ve been working on, it’s all wrong.” She just names the title and I went, “That’s right. That’s the title.”
Don’t you love it when you meet people like that and they see you even a little more clearly than you can see yourself sometimes?
Absolutely. It is important who we surround ourselves by because it does make a difference and it certainly has. As you talked about with pivots, that was a pivot because it took something that I have been working on for a number of years, a story. That actually was after my mom’s death; I was writing her story but her story wasn’t coming out. My story did so I said, “Sorry, mom. I’m going write your book later,” then I got in a block. Then when things started happening and I thought, “You need to make a difference. That’s why you’re here in the world, to give your gifts, to make a difference that brings you joy.” Lo and behold, it resulted in a publisher finding me.
You put yourself out there. That to me is part of the takeaway here in terms of pivot, to look at things through that pivot lens quite frequently these days, which is fun. It’s our brand and so it’s fun to be looking at it that way. I also see it as just this expansive context to see things, to see things that are happening that’s not negative or even positive for that matter. Just things neutral in and of themselves but where I think the joy of living and the art of living comes into play when we can integrate or look at where the connection points are between those things. We know on some level of higher wisdom, I’ll just say it for me, I don’t always live on that level of higher wisdom. On a deep knowing basis and even intellectually, I know that we’re all connected and everything is connected. To see the connection points and to even be able to play with those things for purposes of what you do in the world and how you want serve and how you want to give back and fulfill your heart’s desires, that’s just fun.
I agree with you. I really now say and more and more, “What is the gift in this?” Like you said, even in the difficult, “What is the gift in this?” One of things that I found actually, which was a huge pivot if I could say back in the 90s, was I was giving up hope. At that point, I’ve had eight years in corporate work. I just felt doing a lot of diversity inclusion all over the world, bringing people together and I just felt like I wasn’t doing it. These leaders were still asking me, “Why am I doing this? Why am I doing this extra work?” I was losing hope and then it was at an indigenous gathering where I was volunteering my time that I got these gifts. What I realized in the gifts, that the gifts are even stronger in the darkest times, that the light is brightest even when you’re having a really tough time. I ask myself, “What is the gift here?” and pause and take a breath like you had us do to begin today.
Randi’s language for me is always, “What is the creative opportunity?” which is very similar because there’s all this stuff that’s sometimes flying around and you go, “That sucks, right?” Yes, you could say it sucks and maybe on some levels, some things do suck. Yet still, what is that creative opportunity that’s presented by that thing? Oftentimes, you say that the greatest joy comes from when something that we think is a negative turns out to be this life-altering experience, this hugely transformational gift.
I want to dive in to your pivot story and/or stories. If you could just unpack the book a little bit for us because I would love for people to find out more at the end about how they can get your book and how we can support you in that. If you share a little bit about the book, that would be tremendous.
[Tweet “On a deep knowing basis and even intellectually, we’re all connected and everything is connected.”]
They are very much interconnected. In the mid-90s, I was losing hope. I was just like, “I’m going to stop doing this diversity inclusion work. I’ll work in corporations. I’ll do mergers and acquisitions. I’ll do executive coaching.” All of that seems so much easier than getting into the people’s core beliefs about other people and each other and biases and stuff. I went to this gathering where I volunteered and at that was this hoop and that’s where the four sacred gifts were given to me. That’s the basis of the book.
These elders came together back in ‘94 called by a spirit, 27 elders from around the world and together for a weekend, they built a hoop with a hundred eagle feathers and put four gifts in there for all humankind, not just indigenous people, indigenous and non-indigenous, all humankind to remember our connectedness to people, earth and spirit. When I received those, I realized that one of the gifts was exactly I wasn’t using, which was the gift of hope. Hope really is an energy source. These four gifts from that point in ’95 when I received them, I began using them in my own life. Over 21 years of using it in my own life, I began taking them into the corporate world; meeting with CEOs and C-Suite people and new entries, young people into the organizations. I would teach them to do different things, facilitating. These gifts will keep coming forward. The book basically is the stories of people from very well-known people, CEOs of major Fortune 100 corporations to people you would never known who just out of the bush and that and then all these elders. Not only the 27 at the beginning but the ones who come in at the end.
I know people are just going, “I’ve got to get this book. I’ve got to get this book.”
You can order now and all you have to do is go to FourSacredGifts.com and you’ll be able to see you can order and it’s in hardback, eBook, audio and there was a song created for the book. I actually sing in it. Luckily, there are a lot of professional singers who sing in it. It’s beautiful and you can get that download for free.
Just before we move into the next section, gift of hope is one of these four sacred gifts?
Yes.
What are the other three?
The four gifts that they put in there was the power to forgive the unforgivable. The second gift was the power of unity. The third gift is the power of healing and the fourth gift is the power of hope. There are many gifts. There are thousands of gifts the spirit gives us that we all have but it’s these four gifts, if we use these, they will help us to stand in that space knowing our connection, our beautiful, powerful connection to people, earth and spirit.
Pivoting Into Peace: It’s these four gifts, if we use these, they will help us to stand in that space knowing our beautiful, powerful connection to people, earth and spirit.
The power to forgive the unforgivable. I would think there are people right now going, “If I could just do that,” both on the side of people that have harmed us, harmed you and then the harm that we’ve caused that some of which we know and I think some of which we don’t know. That we’re not fully present to the harms that we’ve caused, so to forgive the unforgivable. It’s interesting because when that word comes up, unforgivable, it makes me go into a judgment, a place of, ”What would be unforgivable? What would rise to the level or wouldn’t rise to the level of unforgivable?” and I hope I’m not playing in semantics here but the next came up for me was anything that we won’t forgive is in the realm of unforgivable.
For whatever reason, it could be that that person took your job promotion. You were supposed to get a promotion, somebody swooped in and they did whatever they did to manipulate or maybe they’re just more bright and shiny at the moment, in front of whoever was making that decision or maybe they sabotaged you or whatever. Something like that that caused a harm and a hurt. On an intellectual level you’re going to say, “That is unforgivable. Nobody died, it didn’t kill me, it didn’t take one or it didn’t take my children or something yet, I’m holding on. I’m hanging on to that resentment and that feeling for 20 years. I still think of that guy and every time I think of how I’m not somehow where I ought to be, want to be, should be, I think of that person, that so and so.” It’s like non-unforgivable thing and yet you haven’t forgiven which makes it unforgivable. Is that remotely accurate do you think? Yes, totally. Look how much energy that you have because it’s not just the mind. Your whole spirit, your whole body gets caught in it and that’s what makes it such a powerful gift because it truly is a way to true freedom. A lot of times when I bring up that first gift, people are like, “Don’t go any further. I don’t think I can do this.” I will go, “You don’t know about that.” I’ll go to the unforgivable is, as you said, whatever it is for you.
Some people go immediately to the big, the huge things like the corporation who just laid off a whole section because they’re going to take it to another part of the world. Or a whole group of people, the holocaust or what’s happened to indigenous people all over the world, or for me, which people will go, “I’ll listen to you because I’ve gone through some pretty tough areas.” I’ll go, “I know something about this because first of all, my father was murdered and it was racially motivated when I was thirteen. I had a white man mistook him for a black man and killed him. I know what it means to forgive, to change everything.” I also endured sexual abuse for nine years of my early life. I know what that means to feel that; being Mexican, being indigenous, all the racial things I’ve seen. I have a sense of that so it’s not being a Pollyanna and go, “Just forget it.” What I’m saying is you are worth it and what we’re trying to create in the world, all that what we hold on to that we call unforgivable is taking up energy and causing us not to use our gifts, our energy for what we want to create.
What I have found is in forgiving the unforgivable and doing that process, which it is a process, it’s rarely an event. It can be. Thank goodness, they are miraculous, immediately turning it off and on. Generally, it is a process. Once you feel that sense of freedom, you are able to move forward in the world and you are able to be truly happy and joyful in a way that I can tell you, I didn’t know it that way before. Now, if I try to turn it off, if that unforgivable comes up again, I immediately feel it in my body, I feel it in my spirit, I feel it in my dreams and it’s like, “Okay shift,” and that’s a choice. We have choice. We’re pretty powerful beings.
I look at the choice that shifts that you just described as a pivot. Sometimes the smallest change or shift in our perception, that shift in the direction of our thoughts or the direction of our energy or the direction of our love can create something we can’t really even predict. It’s miraculous. It’s a miracle in and of itself, that shift in perception.
[Tweet “Something that didn’t work out the way you wanted it to, let go of that.”]
I think all the people around you do whether you believe in God or universal energy or consciousness or just what you physically are seeing, it all does shift around you. When you let go of something that didn’t work out the way you wanted it to, either you did it or they did or whatever, it lets go of that. I also want to say on that forgiveness, if I could add. People think when I share this from the elders, the power to forgive the unforgivable means like it’s gone. It’s done. It doesn’t necessarily work that way. It doesn’t mean that you forgot what happened. It doesn’t mean that you might even seek justice. It means you let go of all the hurt and stuff inside of you using that energy or the resentment or all that stuff. You let go of it and you are able to transform yourself into more of the whole human being that you always were meant to be without hanging on to that. That’s a huge difference.
I know this is a little bit different than business, but what blows me away is when I see on the news some young person being killed or a young police officer with a young family being killed. Then you hear the family member who says, “No, I don’t want writing. I don’t want destruction. I want justice but I want peace.” That’s power and when you hear that inside of companies, where we’ve seen that happen there too. We see some of these horrific kinds of anger and hatred happening that seem totally unforgivable then you have these business places, these executives who are speaking out and saying, “Not here. Here is a free zone in terms of everyone is embraced, acknowledged and treated with dignity. We do not allow that here,” and people coming forward that way. We need to create those environments. What I call it, Adam, is that it’s life-giving. It’s what I’m being in doing, thinking, feeling, life-giving or not and that’s my barometer.
Will you share one of your pivots and how it impacted your life and what you learned from it? This community loves and they live for that. The idea of how do you turn things around and what did it take and what you learned from it.
I didn’t know things we’re going to go south or not to go in the south but just not go well is that I was flying high in my business. It was in 2007. I could start seeing in the corporate world, they’re hanging on to more cash and I was like, “I’m an external consultant.” I can get the feeling like my business that was doing really well, this little business doing great, all of a sudden, three and a half years, I didn’t know it when it started, no work. I went from a little two-person million dollar company to no work. That showed me some muscle that I didn’t know I have. How that worked out for me and my husband’s business together was we would look for work for a couple of hours in the morning, calling clients, new, all that and then we volunteered our time. That’s when we found the Pachamama Alliance.
We just started volunteering our time. We decided to go to Ecuador to the rainforest and who did we meet in the rainforest? This is the very start of three and a half years and we meet Jack Canfield and Inga, his wife. We met all these authors, John Perkins, Confessions of an Economic Hit Man. Just amazing people, my two sons, eleven and sixteen, my husband and I. I will tell you what looked like disaster from anybody else’s viewpoint, no money, three and a half years was actually in hindsight now was one of the best things in my life.
Could you share even a little more on how it was one of the best things?
Yes. On a really personal level, a couple of things: One, I didn’t know it was the last couple of years of my mom’s life. Rather than going and being three and a half weeks on the road and squeezing her in a couple of times a year to see her, I spent a lot of time in the last two years of her life with her and I hospiced her. No one could give that back to me and I didn’t have to make a choice. My mom would say, “Go to your clients,” and I would be, “No. Thank you, I was with my mom.”
Two: Showing our sons how you can create happiness for yourself. That’s truly what you do. Others don’t create happiness, you create your happiness. We stopped buying video games, eating out, all that kind of stuff. When one of my son’s friends came over and I listened walking by, I heard him talking and he said, “My mom and dad got laid off too and they’re fighting all the time.” My little son says, all of thirteen, “Where are they volunteering?” This little boy goes, “My mom and dad are fighting all the time. They’re laid off.” “Yes, where are they volunteering? He was like, “No, my mom and dad don’t have any work either and they just go and volunteer and they’re so happy. Maybe they need to volunteer. Maybe they need to think about somebody else.” I was like, “Wow, he got that gift.”
The third thing I want to say in terms of the corporate work, it rejuvenated me. It had me in those three and a half years decide what really did matter to me? What were the gifts I wanted to bring forth? Those four sacred gifts that are in my book, I began using them in a deeper, deeper, deeper level. Not only in waking time but in dream. Before I go to sleep at night, I’d ask, “Please let me understand how hope is playing in my life. Please help me understand what other healing. Please let me understand the unity. Who else do I need to be in unity with?”
That’s one of the best pivots in my life. It came out of the point where people would have gone, “That’s just horrible.” I didn’t lose my house. My son, when he was ready to start college, we have the funds there. All the things that I imagined, actually, it was a great opening to us as a family and in terms of my relationship to myself, my husband but also to my work. It totally changed. My clients could tell it. They’re like, “Something really has shifted for you,” and I’m, “Yes, so thank you for allowing me to remember and share that with everyone.”
[Tweet “In the darkest time, remember that’s when the light is the brightest.”]
In the darkest time, remember that’s when the light is the brightest. The light isn’t as bright when you’re in this beautiful room that you are in. It’s when things are just so looking bleak that even at that time it is working to give you what you need to be able to bring forth. I would not trade. It sounds crazy.
It’s compelling more than it is crazy because I think a lot of people right now are thinking of themselves, “Maybe I just want to have more of something.” Maybe it’s more happiness or more health or wealth or whatever it is. The volunteering piece, that piece where you took that opportunity not only to hospice your mother and be with your mom and to also give in other ways is a bit counterintuitive that the kid that you described, his parents are fighting because they don’t have enough. If they don’t have enough, how is it that they’re giving anything away? How could they be giving at a time when they’re in need of receiving?
It sounds counterintuitive but remember we create our reality. I was getting something back. First of all, during those three and a half years, there was not a time I wasn’t training people. The Pachamama Alliance is a global non-profit organization. I was training people all over. I even did symposiums and train trainers in Thailand, Mexico, in the Northern parts of Canada. All my skills were still being used, at the same time it was the indigenous part of me and the corporate science, business part of me, I got so much more intimately interconnected and not separated. Then I understood that business doing good in the world, individuals being who they’re meant to be in the world is all possible. I was getting lots of benefits. By giving, I was receiving. I think for most people, even though it sounds counterintuitive, they think about it. Think about when you’ve truly given not expecting anything back, just truly giving. You always get more back. You always get more back.
It seems like that moment, that coming together as you say, something deep and personal within you in terms of your identity, which was this indigenous identity and culture and all of that coming together with the business side and that corporate side. That integration created more wholeness. That you were able to have that wholeness because you weren’t just working one side of yourself and let’s call it the side that you had to make money.
People know there’s a side to you that knows how to make money. For me, my story was eighteen years of practicing law. That was a side of me that knew how to make a lot of money. It was also at a cost, at a price, which was to my heart because I didn’t love the work and I didn’t feel it was bringing out the best in me. It had nothing to do with being a lawyer. There are lots of people who practice law and do wonderful things and they’re fulfilled everyday and it’s their dream. They’re working in their dream job and all that kind of thing. It just wasn’t for me. To do that just for the money was the opposite of wholeness. It was disintegrating to my soul. You can’t do that forever unless you want to get sick or die or be a miserable angry person, which is where I can feel myself moving in the direction of just more and more anger.
When you look at 88% of people are disengaged at work. That’s horrible. So much part of our life is spent at the workplace. Even if you work virtually, you are connecting with all those folks. This should be life-giving. This should bring me happiness. If it’s not, then there needs to be some time to assess. What I found is that assessing, first of all, is not just a body thing. It’s a body and spirit thing. It is about breathing, meditating, I chant too, walking, some people it’s hiking. For me once a year, I also go to the Amazon rainforest. I take leaders of businesses and their families and we go there and they learn about the power of nature and connection to culture. Any of those things that you use, it could be staring out of the window at a tree. They don’t have to be huge things. They don’t have to be little things. They just have to be things that give you centering so that we don’t just get this caught up constantly in what is happening out here when really whether it’s healing wholeness, it’s from the inside out.
Actually, Adam, I was able to start not only modeling that but teaching that in a much better way with my corporate clients. It shifts that what was happening in their lives became bigger and bigger. In some ways someone said, “You’re still doing the same work you did before that three and a half years of not having any work,” but it’s not. It’s very different.
Would you share something that’s an example of how it is that you incorporated or brought this into the corporate space because that’s intriguing to me?
Pivoting Into Peace: Assessing, first of all, is not just a body thing. It’s a body and spirit thing.
Part of it now is that in any of the work I’m doing, I do have people make a commitment to some meditation. That’s a big piece because it’s important. Your physical body, your exercise and eating is an important part but just that quiet space, quiet time. Really, I insist if they’re going to work with me, they have to create that quiet time. I’m talking about it can be just two minutes every couple hours. It’s just truly quiet like turn off everything, quiet. The mind can still be racing but just quiet. Just that process.
The other thing is I do speak of the spiritual part of us now not in terms of religious sense. I’m talking about not something that we were born and someone selected for us or whatever or later maybe we chose it. I’m talking about a greater sense. I start those radio shows, I start with a couple of minutes of meditation. First it was only one minute and people loved it, “It was like going to a spa.” Then it went to two minutes. People are like, “That’s too long.” After a while what happens is people begin to realize this is what they need. They need this and what we get to do is not telling people what to do, it’s more modeling and then they get to choose what’s right for them in their lives. I think that’s a big difference where before I was like, “Is this the right thing? Is this the right presentation?” Some of it just aged, some of it is from just being in that big pivot is to say, “No, it’s about really showing up and being present. When people know you really are present and acknowledging and there with them, not with the answer, not trying to talk but just being present, then it opens up the magic.
The last part of this interview is really about rituals and practices. You’re already there, we are there. That’s what I was feeling that we’re right on the cusp of something that you do that brings you that centeredness or that peace, something that you do that’s a ritual for your own success or ritual for resilience. It was the importance of resilience, which is a pivot principle that with everything, in order to be successful in any pivot, whether it’s a health-related one or relationships or something to do with money and business, resilience, the ability to bounce back and bounce back even stronger, with that wisdom, with that guidance, with that strength and centeredness is so key and we have to practice that. Resilience isn’t something that we can just assume will be there when we want it or sometimes even need it.
How I started some of my clients’ beginning steps, and I know your listeners are probably beyond that but I think it’s always good for us to remember, is being conscious that we’re already doing it. First of all, we don’t just inhale. We would die. We have to inhale and we have to exhale. It’s in action, rest, in action, rest. What I start with is every morning, first just wiggling my toes, bring my feet on the floor and I don’t get out of bed fast. I just sit there and just start acknowledging everything here and giving gratitude. Giving gratitude, that’s key. Then I do get up because I walk my dog, then I chant. I walk my dog and I chant down my mountain road. People can hear me chanting to the four directions. It’s a little short Seneca chant that I do. It just reminds me, I visualize being connected to everyone and everything.
Then when I get back, I sit. I do a meditation with my husband. This is all sounding very long but it doesn’t take very long at all. Then finally, I generally will read something. Not picking up the paper or something but something that I know will be rejuvenating. I’ve been picking up my Four Sacred Gifts and reading from one of the 43 elders’ wisdom that’s in that book.
One of the elders, Ilarion Merculieff, he is from just off the Bering Strait, he is off of Alaska. He is an amazing messenger and elder, Unangan tribe. When I was getting all frazzled last fall just gathering all these elders and trying to work with my clients and get everything done, I was a lot like putting my hair to the side. I know some of you can relate. I do this in front of CEOs and they go, “Oh yeah.” My hair was longer and you would see that I’m doing that all the time.
What Ilarion said to me when I finally stopped for a moment, he said, “Anita, remember, we human beings created time when we forgot how to be present. Everything is here that we need.” There hasn’t been a day that’s gone by since he said that on the phone, that quote is in my book. When I just start letting it all twirl and stuff and my hair and just be present. I think that’s the biggest practice of all is just sitting and being present. How do you know that? You can start first with the physical world like, “What are the colors on the screen here? Is my breath fast, slow? Not judgment. Just getting very descriptive about everything. Am I hearing not only the words that Adam is saying to me but in between the words, the silence?” It gets fun where you’re being present to where people said, “It’s always hard to be present.” It’s hard not be present. It’s crazy making to not be present. I love when I can be present and that’s when everything opens up.
[Tweet “We don’t just inhale. We would die. We have to inhale and we have to exhale.”]
It’s something that just dropped in for me which got me smiling really because it seems that presence has a lot to do with observance. Do you agree with that?
Yes. All the senses are observance. Sight comes in that. People think observe meaning seeing, but it’s actually all the senses; hearing, listening. Am I listening to myself? Am I listening to you? Am I listening to what’s happening in this room? Smell, this is the closest sense right to the brain. Paying attention to even what you are smelling. People go, “I can smell fear.” Believe me, if you are starting to swell up or something, you’ll be able to. You’ll notice that these senses are becoming stronger. It really is observing in the sense of all the senses alive. We can learn this from most I think little children, little kids.
We can learn breathing from a little baby. Look how the baby breathes. Their whole body moves. Their stomach, their chest goes up and down where we always try to hold everything tight. It’s like breathe fully. The frontal cortex comes on line, the amygdala, so you’ll have more clarity, planning function and all of that.
However, we know that when we are present, we’re just so much aware. Our awareness goes from this to a huge expanse and then go back and forth like that. Your business will do great, your family will do better because you’re better with yourself and then with everyone around you. You can either be a good medicine or a bad medicine. A good medicine is life-giving, a bad medicine, not so good.
Anita, thank you so much. What a pleasure this has been. Have you enjoyed our conversation?
You know that. I can’t wait to see you and your wife again. I just love it. I do want to say thank you, you honor me on having you on the show and entrusting me with this time with your audience. I know you spoke of them in the past and I know how much you care about them. I hope that I was able to bring a little bit of joy and wisdom being a messenger for the elders and from my experience. Thank you so much. Truly, it was a wonderful part of my day.
Please share again the name of your book and where people can find it.
It’s called The Four Sacred Gifts: Indigenous Wisdom for Modern Times and you can find it at FourSacredGifts.com. You can order it on Amazon and of course on all the bookstores as well. Go to FourSacredGifts.com because what you’ll find there that you can’t in the other places is you can download my free song that goes with the book.
Anita, thank you so much. What a blessing it always is to spend some time together. Perhaps you’re on the treadmill of life at the moment or literally on the treadmill maybe exercising, taking care of your body or perhaps you’re driving or doing something else. Wherever it is that you’ve been watching or listening or both, thank you for your time. Thank you for sharing your energy with us. What a blessing it has been. As we started, we’ll end with a breath and the acknowledgment of something that is so important that we’ll be reminded of and that is love for ourselves. We cannot give anything that we don’t personally possess. It’s very difficult to love others any differently than we love ourselves. That’s why to me, I love to remind myself as many people as I can to practice self-care because self-care is an act of self-love.
When you wake tomorrow morning, I wish you that. I wish that you wake up because that in and of itself will be a huge blessing. An affirmation, it’s a confirmation that the universe, gods, spirit, source, whatever you may believe in or don’t believe in but that you are given another day for a really good reason. That there’s an assignment, there’s something important for you to be aware of, to be observant of, to be present to tomorrow as you wake up.
If nothing else, be present to the fact that as you take that first waking conscious breath, there are people that will be taking their last and that’s a reason to be in gratitude, as Anita reminded us to be gratitude right then. Put your feet on the floor, stand up and if you’re inclined to say these words, say, “I love my life. I love my life. I love my life.” Have a beautiful and blessed day. We’ll see you very, very soon.
If you’ve not yet subscribed to The Conscious PIVOT Podcast, go ahead and subscribe and come and see us at Start My PIVOT Community on Facebook. Some really incredible folks sharing their stories, sharing their successes and their challenges in such a vulnerable and authentic way. There’s a great deal of support for you and your startup. Whatever it is you’re starting up, if you’re starting up a new relationship, you’re starting up a new health ritual, if you’re starting up a new business, you’re an entrepreneur, there’s so many resources there, Start My PIVOT Community on Facebook. We’ll see you there. You have a wonderful, wonderful rest of your day.
