This is the beginning of a new year, a perfect time to turn on our light and let it shine brighter in the world. It is an ideal time to commit to our dreams, our highest potential, our most up-to-date self, also known as our entelechy.
I first heard the word entelechy (en.tell.a.key) in a workshop with Jean Houston, who told us that our “entelechy has to do with the possibilities encoded in each of us.” She said that the entelechy of an acorn is to be an oak, a caterpillar to be a butterfly, and a popcorn kernel to be completely popped. We are all charged and encoded with a dynamic purpose, a special gift and ability that comes naturally to us, so naturally that we may even take it for granted and not recognize it as our great innate purpose.
Sometimes, if we are not fulfilling our purpose, our entelechy lights a fire below us to help our potential fully explode. Adversity can shake our cage, shake us and awaken us to the great, bright, luminous light of our soul, our strength, and our special abilities, illuminating the dynamic purpose inherent in us. That’s when it all starts to make sense and we say, “Oh yeah, now I remember who I am and why I’m here!”
This new year, this new decade is the best time to shift into a higher gear, committing to total vitality and being our higher selves. TO CHANGE is simply to maintain the intention of transformation: to maintain the intention is to turn on the focus of our entelechy until we reach our full potential and purpose!
Some people have the special ability to see us and hold us at our highest potential, shedding their light on our magnificence, helping to bring that out of us. Masters of that in my life are Katie Hendricks, (co-author of Conscious Loving), Tom Biesanz (my husband), and Zeena, my cat, who inspires this sentence: “May I be half the person my cat thinks I am.” . .” It encourages me to know that if this is in my life, people who see themselves and others in all their magnificence, then that same potential capacity is in me.
Recently, I was talking with my husband Tom about some people we were meeting for dinner later that day, and he was listening to me criticize, imagining it would be a perfunctory encounter with them. Tom didn’t think that way, he doesn’t have that filter, he sees the best in people. However, sometimes I am caught in a filter where the ego in me sees and judges the ego in others; I call it my “Namaste Me” filter, as opposed to my “Namaste” filter. This year I intend to develop my Namaste filter. I imagine myself a year from now having fully integrated an approach that says, “I am a beautiful soul, and I see and honor the beautiful soul in others.” I am imagining myself feeling the joy and peace that comes with that perception, feeling it as if it already is…because it already IS in my entelechy.
I would like to share with you a powerful exercise that Jean Houston did with us (I have paraphrased and abbreviated it): Stand with your eyes closed and imagine in front of your entelechy, your higher self, your deep essence. Imagine your entelechy looking at you with deep love and appreciation for your journey, treasuring you and imparting wisdom, encouragement and inspiration. inspire it. Then imagine switching places with your entelechy and BEing that higher self, feeling what it would feel like to embody your highest potential. From that place feel great love and respect for your traveling self, sending you that self-empowerment, courage and strength. When you are ready, return to your traveling self and fully receive those messages of love and encouragement, let it in, feel it, fill yourself with the love and vitality of your higher self, knowing that this is who you really are.
Just as the acorn contains within itself the mighty oak, we have within us our mighty, magnificent and actualized self. The most majestic oak is just a little nut that stands its ground! Our challenge is to stand firm, committing ourselves to remembering who we really are and standing in the dynamic light of that knowing.
This is a new year, a perfect time to highlight our entelechy. Mike Dooley in Notes from the Universe wrote: “I have a feeling 2010 is going to be your kind of year. That you’ll be happier than ever, laughing harder, smiling wider, standing taller, walking faster, dancing crazier.” , hug longer, live better, love harder”. I imagine that is true, and it is.
And you? Do you know what your entelechy is, your special purpose, your most updated self? Is this the year to turn up the heat and exploit your full potential? I imagine everyone singing with glee: “This brilliant entelechy of mine, I’m going to let it shine! Let it shine, let it shine, let it shine!”