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 By Stephen Dinan, founder and CEO of The Shift Network
We're dedicating this issue to awakening a deeper level of loving embodiment.
That's because tomorrow at Shift, we begin a groundbreaking new conference: The Body Intelligence Summit, featuring scientists, dancers, healers, and health professionals, all helping us becoming more deeply and deliciously embodied.
In the last decade, we've expanded from IQ to EQ (Emotional Intelligence) and it's now time for BQ, where we begin to really understand, integrate, and honor the vast intelligence operating in our bodies. 30 leaders like Dean Ornish, Gay & Katie Hendricks, Bruce Lipton, and Anat Baniel are all participating for free this week to show us the way. More here.
Summit co-hosts Katie Hendricks and Lamara Heartwell offer you a powerful article on "Body Intelligence" to lead the Articles section, followed by Mark Metz, another co-host, on "Looking at Love Through the Body's Lens" and an excerpt from Mirabai Starr's book God of Love.
We also thought it would be fun (and relevant) to this topic to share some interesting backstory about last weekend's Super Bowl in the "Lotus Pose on Two," revealing how head coach Pete Carroll has been working to pioneer a new model for training football players to maximize their potential.
In fact, this activation of a deeper body intelligence might have been the "secret sauce" to why the Seattle Seahawks triumphed last week in the Super Bowl: they do more mindfulness, embodiment, and positive psychology practices than any other team. Pete Carroll spoke during last year's Summer of Peace (gifted to you again below) and we have been intrigued by the Seahawks' extensive use of meditation, yoga, and human potential techniques.
On other fronts, we're also VERY excited by Marianne Williamson's run for Congress in the Los Angeles area, a great chance for us to put our spiritual values into political action. With the surprise retirement of Henry Waxman, the field is wide open and we encourage those called to support her independent, reform-focused candidacy. Article below!
Finally, a bow of gratitude to Shift team member Nadirah Gooden who provided a sensual meditation on love for our member profiles and to Rabbi Melinda for her powerfully vulnerable profile!
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Featured Audio
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Super Bowl and Urban Peace
The Seattle Seahawks just won their first Super Bowl. Their head coach, Pete Carroll, was featured in the Summer of Peace in 2012 when he talked about A Better LA, a project that he helped to create that promotes urban peace in Los Angeles. We thought you would enjoy listening to that interview. To listen – click here. |
Featured Videos
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  Why Body Intelligence (BQ) and Why Now?
By Kathlyn (Katie) Hendricks and Lamara Heartwell – featured in The Body Intelligence Summit
Humans have the opportunity to make the shift now from fear-focused, adrenaline-fueled living to full-body-intelligent living. Body intelligence expands our perspective beyond fear to the rich, millennia-long wisdom we carry in our cells. BQ includes all feelings and inner experience, informs responsive choices, heightens well-being, and opens perception based on curiosity and possibility rather than scarcity and prejudice. BQ allows us to connect deeply with our essence and the flow of life that sparks genuine appreciation and collaboration with others . . . [read more]
 Looking at Love through the Body's Lens
By Mark Metz – featured in The Body Intelligence Summit
Have you ever been stuck in a moment of indecision? Or worse yet, completely paralyzed in the face of an emotional or metaphysical quandary? Often the default behavior in these situations is to search for the answer, hunt for information, or look for a clue outside ourselves that will point the proper way. Some people think that even the big questions like "What is love?" or "How can I find happiness?" can be answered externally, as if life came with a Google search box . . . [read more]
 Lotus Pose on Two
The Super Bowl Champion Seattle Seahawks believe their kinder, gentler philosophy is the future of football
By Alyssa Roenigk
This story appeared in ESPN The Magazine's Sept. 2 NFL Preview.
"IT'S DIFFERENT HERE," Pete Carroll says. "Have you noticed?" It's hard not to. At 9 a.m. on the first Sunday of training camp in Renton, Wash., high-performance sports psychologist Mike Gervais, dressed in a navy Seahawks hoodie and white baseball cap and flashing more enthusiasm than is rational at this hour, welcomes players into a meeting room at the Virginia Mason Athletic Center. This place used to be the site of a coal tar refinery; now it's the happiest, greenest campsite in the history of the NFL. Gervais is about to lead a meditation session and, as he always does, instructs the players to hit record on their phone voice-recorder apps and to close their eyes. Then he starts guiding them: "Quiet your minds," "Focus your attention inwardly" and "Visualize success" . . . [read more]
 Statement On The Retirement of Congressman Henry Waxman
By Marianne Williamson
The political world was atwitter January 30 over the retirement of Congressman Henry Waxman, who announced he will not run for reelection. Mr. Waxman has had a long and illustrious careet as a Congressman, and I join with others in my sincere best wishes for the next phase of his life and career.
Almost as soon as Mr. Waxman's announcement was made, a great wave of speculation began as to who else will run for his seat. New Candidacies have already emerged. And all that is good. Democracy is at its best when a lot of us want to play . . . [read more]
 The Nameless Has a Thousand Names
By Mirabai Starr (Photo by Lisa Law)
You have the urge (yet are unable) to catch hold of the One and tether it to the altar, where you have been taught to believe the One belongs. You cannot name the One (though you try, calling it God or Goddess, Allah or Cristo, Mother or Lord). You discover that the One cannot rightfully be referred to as He (though tradition requires that you assign a symbolic gender to the formless). You are incapable of wrapping up the Holy One and presenting it to yourself like a toy or a sandwich, a list of rules or a reward . . . [read more]
For submissions and recommendations, email editor@theshiftnetwork.com.
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 Ecstatic Reunion of Rabbi Melinda
When I was a child, I knew there had to be a presence bigger than that which was taught to me. I was sure life didn't revolve around "staying safe" and it would take me years to discover the purpose of soul. For I needed to learn to trust life, to trust myself in life… My birth family taught me the world wasn't safe. My father was a policeman and my mother worried incessantly that my dad might not come home one day . . . A lesson in faith and trust (emunah) has been my journey . . . [read more]
 The Sacred Sensualist's Guide—Make.Love.Magick
By Nadirah Adeye, Shift Network's Production Team – Goddess of all Goodness
I've been in the midst of a passionate love affair in recent months, taken over by everything rose. I have images of roses as my screensaver. I've been buying roses for myself as a treat to add to my home altar. I have a special rose-blend oil that I wear only in the company of my Beloved or when I want to remind myself of him. Just last month, I purchased a bottle of potable rose water to add to the water and beverages I drink throughout the day. I have so thoroughly infused myself that I have started to smell roses in dark and empty rooms. The spirit of the rose seems ever present in the space around me. All I have to do is close my eyes and she's there—tangible, sensuous, needing only my focused awareness to appear . . . [read more]
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Proclamation of Latin America and Caribbean as a zone of peace – 31 Heads of State from Latin American and Caribbean States signed a peace proclamation in Havana, Cuba on January 29, 2014. To learn more – click here.
The Gandhi King Season for Nonviolence (SNV) commences for the 17th consecutive year on January 30, 2014 in cities across the globe. The annual 64 day campaign, co-founded in 1998 by Dr. Arun Gandhi and The Association for Global New Thought (AGNT), is an educational, media and grassroots awareness campaign spanning the January 30th and April 4th memorial anniversaries of Mahatma Gandhi and Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. This year the celebration has a new program honoring Nelson Mandela. To learn more – click here.
The Girl Declaration – Help create a better future for girls and help stop poverty before it starts. Girls were left out of the Original Millennium Development Goals.The Girl Declaration is bringing together 508 girls living in poverty across the globe with the expertise of more than 25 of the world's leading development organizations. It's a call to action to put girls at the heart of the post-2015 development agenda. To learn about how you can support the Girl Declaration – click here.
The Wonderbag was developed to ease the social, economic and environmental impacts of the current global circumstances. The Wonderbag is a non-electric, heat-retention cooker that allows food that has been brought to a boil, to continue cooking after it has been removed from the fuel source. Over 600,000 Wonderbags have been sold or donated throughout Africa. The Wonderbag is now available through Amazon, with the goal of selling one million to people worldwide. For every bag sold, one is donated to a family in need. To learn more – click here.
Meditation Museum hopes to help Congress chill out. The Meditation Museum (because with roughly 75 museums in Washington, D.C., why wouldn't there be one for meditation?) has been holding free, regular workshops for overstressed, over-agitated politicians and their staffers. To learn more – click here.
Secrets of Love is a feature length tapestry of information shedding light on new and old models for love, relationship and partnership for the 21st century. Viewers are treated to new perspectives from modern luminaries Deepak Chopra, M.D., Marianne Williamson, Dr. John Gray, Katie & Gay Hendricks, Dannion Brinkley, Dr.Greg Baer, Rabbi Shmuley, Savitri & Aadil Palkhivala, Mimi Guarneri, M.D. and others. To learn more – click here.
The Institute of Global Education is sponsoring a conference "Focus on the Future: Empowering Agents of Change" in San Jose, Costa Rica on March 3–4, 2014. An afternoon of the conference is co-sponsored by the United Nations mandated University for Peace and the Earth Charter International Secretariat at their campus in San Jose. To learn more – click here.
On Tuesday, March 11, Idealist will launch a new network—online and on the ground—that will help people everywhere connect and take action on any issue that concerns them, locally or globally, online and in person. "We will start with a live online presentation, take your questions, and then start building this network with you." To learn more – click here.
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2014 Catalyst: (#3, 2/8) (#2, 1/26) (#1, 1/12)
2013 Catalyst: (#22, 12/14) (#21, 11/30) (#20, 11/16) (#19, 11/3) (#18, 10/20) (#17, 10/6) (#16, 9/21) (#15, 9/8) (#14, 8/25) (#13, 8/4) (#12, 7/21), (#11, 7/7), (#10, 6/16) (#9, 6/2) (#8, 5/12) (#7, 4/28) (#6, 4/14) (#5, 3/24) (#4, 2/24) (#3, 2/9) (#2, 1/26) (#1, 1/13)
Birth 2012 Catalyst: (#15, 12/9) (#14, 12/1) (#13, 11/22) (#12, 11/10) (#11, 11/3) (#10, 10/20) (#9, 10/6) (#8, 9/16) (#7, 9/8) (#6, 8/25) (#5, 8/16) (#4, 8/4) (#3, 7/28) (#2, 7/21) (#1, 7/14)
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| Why not take 30 minutes to exchange a backrub with a friend? In your journey into body wisdom, pleasure is a potent guide and mutual stress-relief can be a doorway into deeper friendship. And then DANCE!
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| The Foundation for Conscious Living is a non-profit organization committed to embodied Authenticity, Response-Ability, and Appreciation in partnership, community, politics, society, and the planet. To learn more – click here.
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Beautiful Chorus: A Divine 12-Woman Galaxy of Sound
By Eleanor Tara
Harmonizing together as one gorgeous voice, Florida-based Beautiful Chorus takes its listeners on a meditative journey of love-infused, Divine-Self affirming mantras. Imagine having phrases like "I am a being of love" and "I reach up, feel love, and bring it to my heart" echoing in your subconscious and singing in your mind as you move through your day. Their most recent album, Mantras in Love, will make that your inspired reality after you listen to it once or twice. You could even catch them on tour, where they facilitate meditations and work with crystal bowls and other high vibrational tones with the aim of infusing you with ease, relief and release. Experience them for yourself and listen to Mantras in Love – click here.
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