Surrender and Let go

 ‘To hold, you must first open your hand. Let go.’ – Lao Tzu

Dear friends,

Last week was marked with a series of interesting talks, mainly dealing with a perennial challenge of not having enough time to do things we want to do, ignoring the things we ought to do and a fear of letting go and surrender.

And precisely this last stance is something I am willing to explore more and allow more space for… As it is only in the moments of absolute surrender, that great ideas are born, that things get done and the fear disappears.

In the process of surrender we are spontaneously led to a place where no fear resides and struggle is replaced by non-doing that is actually all-doing. Real strength and power come from truly and fully giving up, asking for help, surrender to our ‘weaknesses’ rather than frantically and desperately looking for quick fix solutions just so we could feel ‘safe’.

This doesn’t mean that by letting go we let go of all responsibility. On the contrary, we are more open and ready to listen to our inner voice, embrace the stillness and mindfulness that open the door to greater things and solutions.

With this in mind, I invite you to let go and surrender and let your inner voice and your true being guide you…notice what happens!

I wish you a weekend filled with light, love and serenity.

Sending you oceans of love,
Lidija

©Momentum Strategies Ltd, 2011

To be or Just Be

'You were born with wings, why prefer to crawl through life?' - Rumi

Dear Friends,

And so to Serbia…

I arrived last night, and enjoyed London to Belgrade flight enormously, partly because my Godmother was on it and we had a blast…Laughing, joking, enjoying the NOW, we got to the gate…I couldn’t help but notice long, sad, serious faces of the airline crew, and some of the passengers...It was definitely Belgrade bound flight;-)!

You see, in some cultures, generally, it is ‘fashionable’ to be serious, it is frowned upon when you smile, when you are happy...When you show these two qualities, you are considered ‘easy’, not to be taken seriously…And it is precisely out of these two qualities-happiness and easiness-that our true personality comes to the fore, and we shineJ!

It made me think, of all those times when situations called for seriousness, and yet I managed to rise above them, and see the other side, the side that is not that bad…it is all in our perception, and in our focus. Energy follows thought, and if we focus on negative, we attract negative, and vice versa.

And so, together with my godmother, we started, at least to us, an interesting topic, of being trapped in the role, wanting to meet the demands and expectations of your environment. Let’s face it, we all want to be loved, we all want to be good enough, we all want to be thought of highly, we all want to be respected…And we don’t want to disappoint!

When I say disappoint, I mean disappoint those who judge us, who put heavy demands on us, who expect us to be what we are not. We are, however, not concerned about disappointing ourselves, living that what we are not, regardless of how painful that might be. I believe that we are perfect as we are, we are beautiful as we are, we are God’s creation and as such flawless, so why the need to be something we are not?!

As I write this the lines from the movie ‘Talented Mr. Ripley’ come to mind, when he (Mr. Ripley) says: ‘It’s better to be fake somebody, than the real nobody!’ It is sad, lonely, isolated existence, and I invite you, if you haven’t already seen the movie, to see it. I’ll let you imagine though, what the final outcome is when you don’t leave your truth, when you live your life according to someone else’s values…

And, needless to say, neither my godmother, my close friends, people I surround myself with, are not pretending that this is the most righteous way to live; however, we are confident that those we come across to, those whose lives we touch, are encouraged to see the other side, the side where smile, laughter, happiness, positive energy and outlook overflow… It is easy to be happy, anyone can do, and yet the perennial question hovers above us: ‘Why all those serious, grumpy people don’t do it, why are they afraid to contribute to the joy of life?!’

With this in mind, I invite you to contemplate which side you belong to? Meditate, chant, do yoga, play chess, Be...you'll find the answer! And if it is anything than the ‘right’ side, change itJ! It costs nothing to be you and embrace your awesomeness!
I wish you a joyful weekend and ocean of love,
Lidija x

© Momentum Strategies 2011

Weekly Food for Thought - Simplicity vs. Complexity

Dear friends,

I hope this email finds you in great health and great spirits!

I am back from Russia, where I've had a chance to see some of my old friends, and meet some amazing new ones! The Russian experience, albeit work related, was the most amazing 40th birthday gift I could've ever asked for. The energy, vision, cooperation, collaboration was amazing, and before I had a chance to take it all in, I was invited to speak at next year's conference in St. Petersburg! How awesome is that;-)?!

As you may havebgathered, these past few weeks have been magical, filled with Junghian synchronicities, amazing opportunites and a chance to expand and grow! I was once again reminded of how unique and incredible my life is and how important the power of focus, the power of acknowledging the present moment, the power of childlike spontaneity and curiousity is.

As I was contemplating this, earlier today, a scene from the movie 'Forest Gump' came to mind...It is the scene when Forest, in his childlike naivete, explains why he is running...And just when everyone expects him to say something 'big', he turns around and says 'I just felt like running'!

So when Forest said that he just felt like running, you could see the jaws of those around him drop. There were stories of instant inspiration, creativity and so on, as when you follow your instinct and let go, everything else starts to fit in perfectly where it is supposed to fit in.

'Big' things in life are usually very simple at their core, and it is their very simplicity that confuses the Ego, who always expects things to be complex and difficult if they are to be treated with seriousness and respect:-)!

This is because we, as human beings, like to delve deep into a story, to go deep into 'why' in order to gain credibility and respect. The
more you go into 'why', the more you get into your story, further away you'll be from the real reason why you feel compelled to do something. Simple truths don't need complex and winding 'whys'! They just are!

With this in mind, this weekend, open yourself for simple things that will bring you joy...Trust and watch the Universe unfold its magic before your very eyes! I certainly will;-)!

Sending you oceans of love, light and playfulness!
Lidija
Lidija Markovic Rosati
CEO Momentum Strategies

Are you prepared to follow you?

Dear friends,

It has been interesting few weeks! Rome, Rimini, London, Belgrade, Nis, Planet Earth…

So many interesting, inspiring, people, brave people, people who defy the odds, people who set new standards and move things forward, people with a vision for the society and for themselves, giving people, loving people, people with a clear idea why there are here and what their mission is! And exactly this very thing about mission and the perennial question of how can one make a difference has been circling around, and my Unconscious couldn’t help but notice it, as it has come up in conversations way too many times;-)!

So here goes…Just over a week ago, a dear friend called me, and asked me if I wanted to come along to Eve Branson’s book launch! For those of you not reading daily papers, and I don’t blame you;-), Eve Branson is Sir Richard Branson’s mother, the very same lady who Kate Winslet saved from the fire that caught Richard’s Necker Island villa this summer! Sure, I responded, and went along!

We arrived in plenty of time for the drinks, nibbles and a chit chat, and what caught my attention was Eve’s spontaneity, openness, curiosity and cheekiness. True, it was a family affair, with sons, daughters, grandchildren, to whom her book was dedicated, young European royals with their children, and in such circumstances one can be nothing else, but spontaneous, open, cheeky…The difference though, is that Eve has lived her whole life being herself. Speaking with her, was like taking a trip down memory lane, and listening to her adventures, was something else! The woman has guts! Courageous, bold, decisive, not taking no for an answer type woman…She learned to fly a plane at a very early age, and what influence was she to her young children…Sir Richard Branson is the owner of Virgin airlines.

It is obvious that she was prepared to follow herself from a very early age. Unafraid, resolute, present and aware, she boldly went where few have even dared dream about! And guess what?! She got the results. She lived and is still living a very full life. And it just goes to show, that if you follow your gut instinct, if you are prepared to follow you, you can get far, very far! One key ingredient though is do it yourself, and don’t expect others to dream your dreams! They can’t! You can’t be a good lawyer, doctor, economist, if your heart isn’t at it, if you struggle and if others help you get your grades. It is wrong, unethical, and you are not being true to yourself. You are not following you!

So this weekend, I invite you to take a moment and jot down what it would take to follow you, and experience, even just for a short period, the bliss of being, breathing, enjoying, studying, YOU! Yes YOU!

Have a great weekend, and remember, that everything is an example of something!

Sending you oceans of love,
Lidija

© Momentum Strategies Ltd. 2011

Expansion vs. Constriction

Yesterday I send an email, content of which was, to some people, confusing :-)! Given that my natural state is that of curiosity and playfulness, two of the best states for learning, I am attaching the email again (see end of this note);-) and sincerely hope you’ll give it a couple of seconds of your time;-)!

Anyway, having read some to the emails, I couldn’t help but notice how those emails and responses I got in them matched the mental make up of people who sent them;-)!

I, on purpose chose to send it to a wide and different spectrum of people from my distribution list, as I was curious to see what responses I’ll get!

Sure enough, they were different, and yet they proved how we deal with things that are not linear and familiar to us.

People who predominantly used their left brain (logical), were quick to brush off the email and said that a virus might have entered the message I sent and that the message was therefore corrupt, and I should seek to fix my computer; that the message didn’t make any sense, and the font I use might not be compatible with the email format I use…

Interestingly enough, the predominantly right brain (creative) users understood the email straight away and 98% of them replied to me using the same format in which I sent the email. This was also the case with those who use both parts of the brain in relatively equal measures; and also the response of those who regularly meditate and whose brains work more or less as a whole;-)! The above responses were only some of the many I got, and they got me thinking…

If we only rely on one part of the brain, no matter how well it serves us, inevitably it will constrict our expansion in more ways than one, and we will continue to get the same results. Even if those results are good, great, magnificent, please know, that deep within us, we have potential to go higher!

Because if we always do what we’ve always done, we will always get what we always got, and we’ll always be where we’ve always been  and you’ll agree that there isn’t much progress and expansion in this way of thinking and doing.

And so I wonder, if we want to expand our vision, talents, potential, lives, can we afford to be selective and do only that which is within our comfort zone, that which we are familiar with?!

I believe that life begins at the end of our comfort zone, so once you get something you are not familiar with, decide not to push it away, and rationalize why it is ‘wrong’, ‘useless’, ‘confusing’…

Instead, embrace it, give yourself a task to tackle it, to look it at from a different angle, from an angle you’ve never dared to look at it before, as true progress and expansion happen exactly at the point when we abandon the old, stagnant, constricting, safe patterns of thinking and doing, and embrace the new, dynamic, expansive and different ways.

On that note, may I invite you to consider the email below, and approach it with fresh eyes and from a different angle;-)!

Have an unusually different weekend!

7H15 M355463 53RV35 70 PR0V3 H0W 0UR M1ND5 C4N D0 4M4Z1N6 7H1N65! 1MPR3551V3 7H1N65! 1N 7H3 B361NN1NG 17 W45 H4RD BU7 N0W, 0N 7H15 L1N3 Y0UR M1ND 15 R34D1N6 17 4U70M471C411Y W17H 0UT 3V3N 7H1NK1N6 4B0U7 17, B3 PR0UD! 0N1Y C34R741N P30PL3 C4N R34D 7H15

© Momentum Strategies

Choices, choices, choices...

Choices, choices, choices…

These past few days, I've been thinking about choices - those we make, those that are offered to us and those that, on the surface, fall under neither of these two categories;-)!

Almost everywhere we go nowadays, we are met by gazillion of choices-coffee shops (latte, frappuccino, de-caff short, extra foam easy-on-the-caffeine- soya latte), crisps (no salt, sea salt & balsamic vinegar, sweet'n'sour), the choices are endless and equally bizzarre. It seems as if, nothing can be simple anymore-no simple choices that once used to bring a look of utter and sheer joy to our faces. I get a feeling that once things started to make us happy, we chose to jazz them up, to experiment, make them complicated, only to satisfy the good old ego.

I'd like to clarify something here...I am all for experimenting, for trying out new things, for looking beyond, and I absolutely propagate a 'what if' and 'how about' attitude, however, the buck stops when we, in our quest to satisfy the 'almighty self proclaimed master' ego, create choices that have very little to do with simplifying and making our lives easier.

Without a clear intention at the onset, it stops being about experimenting, and the outcome can then be absolutely anything. And if at the outset of our creation there's no clarity as to why we want (to create) something, anything can happen...And it is precisely this 'anything' that I'd like to explore, as I feel it might be the very thing that, if avoided, can improve the quality of our lives and helps us make better choices.

So, given that choices that are always available to us, and given the fact that they are more often than not, clearly defined to us, how on earth do some some people complain about the lack of choices available to them and also about making the wrong ones?! 

What could be the driving force behind this attitude?!

I've thought long and hard about this, and the two things that keep coming up are Intention and Fear or the lack of the former and abundance of the latter!

If we go about making important life choices, like they don't matter, without a clear intention as to what we expect and what the higher purpose and the outcome behind our choosing is, we are inevitably going to be disappointed and complain that life has  served us lemons...It would not occur to us, that we could use those lemons to make a lemonade;-)! Oh no, that would appear too easy, too simple and there will be no room for complaining!!! Instead, we would allow our fears to come up and lead the way! With intention absent, fear can do what it does best-it can paralyze us and cripple our choice making process! Why does it do that, one may ask?!

Well, it's simple! We allow it! Because most of our choices are made in the moment of fear and loaded with lower, fear based emotions. When choices are made under these kinds of circumstances, the lack of intention is apparent, as is the lack of grounding. 

These two, are some of the most important factors that influence our decisions, and subsequently, our choices.

On the basis of this, I'd like to invite you to think of the times when you were faced with choices and made the right/wrong ones! What state were you in, was there a clear intention, were you grounded, how did the choices you made then, affect your life now!

Remember that our lives are defined by the decisions and choices we make!

Choose wisely and have a weekend of your choice!

© Momentum Strategies 2011

Lidija Markovic Rosati


CEO Momentum Strategies


Tel: +44 (0) 7887 984 894


        +381 (0) 64 38 55 255


www.momentum-strategies.com


'Find your life's purpose!'

Committed vs. Interested

Those of you, who have had a chance to work with me, have noticed that I pay attention not just to what is said, but how it is said. You will have seen that I ask for congruency in everything, and that I take words that, I feel and know are light, weak and incongruent, with a pinch of salt! I don’t give them attention and don’t encourage them. Why? Because they are stories, that have very little to do with a real commitment to change!

It has been an interesting week…After a month of sheer delight and learning, exchanging knowledge and learnings; after a month spent in the presence of some of the greatest minds of our time, and having had a chance to learn from them, it was refreshing to see, the total absence of ego, and a pure unadulterated desire to give and share. It was, needless to say, pure bliss.

Given that I believe in balance and perfect cosmic order, upon landing in Serbia, I was greeted with a giant ball of various ego driven people and situations;-). These, observed from a distance, may appear strong, together, in control… However, the moment you scratch the surface, you can see fear, anxiety, no substance, behind the strong veneer! This, sadly, is Serbian reality. Excuses, stories, inflated sense of self, confidence on steroids, need for external verification, need for feeding the almighty ego…And then, a huge bang and crash and emptiness! Painful state of realization that long- term investment in the external part of ourselves, bears very little fruit! For as long, as someone’s sense of true identity and self-confidence depends on the external factors, there’s very little hope for anything else and almost no ingredients left to build a compelling future.

Unhappy people are a regular feature wherever you go. They seem to be spending their lives focusing on choosing what doesn’t work, and what is the ‘wrong’ formula for their wellbeing, happiness, health, relationships… This is where the fear of change, real change is buried and where it resides. In the very fact, that if they find a solution for their challenges, they will almost certainly loose their identity and the meaning of life. For they find the meaning of life in telling people their story, without any desire whatsoever to find a formula that works. Their intention is non-existent and we know that where intention goes, attention follows. That is why, you will often hear these very people telling you that they’ve ‘tried everything’ and ‘seen everyone’ and ‘nothing works’! And they are right!!! Why? Because they are not interested in getting their lives sorted out, they just like to talk about it. In short, they like to talk about themselves. It is a great paradox, people who like talking about themselves, are the least interested in hearing out other people’s stories, they are so wrapped up in their own world, that other people exist only as a sounding board for them.

They are not truly committed to finding a solution for whatever their challenge at the present moment might be.

True commitment is shown in real time action, when one is prepared to do whatever it takes to find a solution. Most people are only interested. They let the moment influence whether they will do what they promise themselves or not.

Real, true commitment starts when the element of fun disappears!

This coming weekend, I invite you go through the things, the dreams, the desires and plans you really want to commit to, knowing that no matter what happens, you will follow through?

Enjoy your weekend and please remember that:

Everything is an example of something!!!

© Momentum Strategies 2011

--
Lidija Markovic Rosati
CEO Momentum Strategies
Tel: +44 (0) 7887 984 894
+381 (0) 64 38 55 255
www.momentum-strategies.com
'Find your life's purpose!'

Welcome to Momentum Strategies Blog!