Listen to conversations happening across the current cultural and political landscape and you might think you’re hearing a lot of disembodied talking heads—people trying to make sense of a changing world in a way that feels disconnected from any awareness or impulse of emerging evolutionary potential.
Transformation and co-creation mean more than living only in our heads with great ideas and esoteric knowledge. They require being able to embody and bring to life our inner alignments, feelings, values, and knowings; making the journey from mental concepts and knowledge to a living reality that demonstrates our deepest awareness and understanding. Living a continually unfolding truth.
Fortunately, there are many simple practices that can help us actualize the knowledge and new thinking that currently may live only in our minds as unrealized good ideas, either as individuals or as communities. A living practice is a broader, more holistic, whole-person way of thinking, being, and collaborating.
In this conversation, teacher and consultant Grace Boda joins Aviv Shahar to look at physical, mental, and spiritual practices that energize personal and collective development, the search for deeper meaning, and the mission to bring real change to humanity and the planet.
The powerful ponders and practices include:
- Forgiveness and absolution, beginning with ourselves; choosing to love the opportunities of today more than the pain and struggle of yesterday. To let go of the desire for a better past and instead accept the emergence of what is possible here and now
- Developing cultural architecture that supports the natural release of brilliance and creativity in people and groups, vs a heavy bureaucracy that sucks the life out of people and activity
- Learning to access all levels of self—physical body wisdom, energetic systems, and others—that awaken subtle perceptions about how we energetically affect the world around us
- Transcending any perceived separation between us and others and the larger universe
- Meditation and other practices that bring us into contact with the fundamental consciousness beyond our busy intellect
- "Tending the temple of self” by putting our individuality, personality, temperaments, and psychology in service of a more expansive, inclusive, and whole meaning of self
- Balancing and regulating practices that detect when we might be off-center and running a different ‘program’ in the background that could be parasitic and depleting our energy
- Practices in listening, observing, and being present to ourselves, and then to the people with us, as part of a collective or mutual life endeavor
- There is who we want to become and be together, and the inevitability that we become something different every time any one of us activates ourselves in a bigger way
- Ceremonies and rituals are an important part of how we serve each other in our relationships, families, and communities; it’s the stories we tell and memories we create and celebrate
This conversation is part of the continuing Portals discovery into what is emerging on the frontiers of human experience in this time of profound change. Information about upcoming special events can be found on the Events page. Also visit and subscribe to our YouTube channel.
My awareness, and that of the people I work with, is shifting to the moment-to-moment nature of how I live, how I make meaning, how I interact, and how I am in any situation, rather than a set of rigors and disciplines that I do every morning at 6 am, or skills that I develop over time and strategically implement.
Grace Boda
Grace is an executive coach and transformational guide working at the leading edge of consciousness. She guides leaders, entrepreneurs, creatives and others to work with the full creative power of awakened Presence.
Grace holds advanced degrees in public policy and physical therapy (neuroscience specialty), is a certified executive and systems coach and professional mediator, and has advanced training in energy work, subtle perception, and the development of consciousness.
Aviv Shahar
Aviv is the Founder of Aviv Consulting, helping leaders unleash strategic innovation, and is the author of Create New Futures: How Leaders Produce Breakthroughs and Transform the World Through Conversation.
