22 Sep, 2020

Falling Forward

Welcome to Fall 2020! We made it! Normally when I think of the fall season, I think of falling backward as time falls back during the fall solstice.  This year, instead, what resonated was a sense of falling forward.

The fall forward is a trip, no pun intended.  Our plans and action steps to move forward at a time when so much of our life seems to shift on a continual basis feels more like a fall going in a forward stance.  Truthfully, it feels as though life may have nudged me on the back, pushing me forward while I was attempting to hold my current space.  Can you relate?

It reminds me of being a young child in Northeast DC at my grandmother’s house.  If you did not know how to jump Double Dutch, well you could get your Black card revoked!  I remember being so afraid of these opposing ropes, usually fashioned out of cord because of the weight.  If you jumped between these fast turning cords and  did not get the rhythm  of those cords and they hit, wow they would sting!

To find the rhythm, I would move my body back and forth to get the flow because the trick is the catch the moment when the cord closest to you is down.  That is your invitation to jump in.  Once you are in, just keep the flow going with your body and jump.  Well I would stall. YOU DO  NOT stall in Double Dutch because someone is always waiting for a turn to jump.  It just goes against the rules.

Once I was swaying and testing the patience of everyone and I felt a nudge on my back.  I fell forward into the opposing force of the Double Dutch cords.  I cannot imagine how awkward I looked. Surprisingly, I kept the rhythm! I wish I had a picture of the smile my whole being experienced.

The more I kept the rhythm the rope turners increased the speed of the turns.  This tested the strength of the way I was in relationship with the turning ropes.  What worked? Paying attention to the rhythm of the turn and going with it. 

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Eventually, I got tired or the dance shifted with the rope turners and the rope hit my ankles.  It stung but it did not take me out. I lived and was happy to do my part in creating the experience for the next person. It was like a rite of passage that I clumsily got through.

As I reflect on the experience of falling forward it was the scariest thing to fall toward uncertainty, ambiguity, opposing forces, and fear.  Falling forward was also the most freeing thing instead of the dread of the wait.  Honestly, carrying the wait was heavier and more stressful to my body than being in the moment of action.

The moment of action was filled with wonder, curiosity and fear.  No one could explain the wind that you feel as the rope whips through the air that is the invitation to jump.  No one could explain how it felt for my body to move with instinct before my brain could tell my body to move.  No one could explain the mystery of how the shift in order of operations is everything to this craft.  No one could explain the unleash of creativity and possibility in the moment. It was a lived experience.

You know the life pushers; they get on your nerves until you act.  You do not want to call them when you are trying to find the perfect way or the perfect time, and yet you do because you know you need them.   Sometimes life is the pusher.  When life pushes us, it comes without warning.  We do not feel the footsteps of the approach or sense that someone is near us.  Life pushes us with a gentle nudge, perhaps an inner voice that says, “now, go,” or an event or series of events that turn up the discomfort with staying put.  Sometimes the life push feels like my childhood friend that pushed me in the face of opposing forces, unknown, uncertainty, publicly on display with nowhere to hide, and the only option is to fall forward and do something or face certain pain.

What if I fell, or got hit by the cords during my fall forward?  I did!  Jumping Double Dutch was not my thing as I learned from many times when I fell forward and caught the wrath of the cords.  I also caught the laughs of my friends and watchers; sometimes I laughed too.  What happened over time is that I was known as someone who had the heart of a tryer and eventually the person who cheered everyone on.  Cheering everyone on and sharing what I knew to help; that is my thing.  Now I understand learning to trust my body, spirit and brain is my jam.

There are some life lessons that we fall into.  Some life lessons that require courageous risk.  Some life lessons are experiential only, divinely orchestrated courses.  Some life lessons require switching from one rhythm and falling into another that introduces you to parts of yourself did not know and the bonus of life stoking your sparks of curiosity and wonder.

Happy Fall Forward to each of you.

Dena Wiggins (she/her) is a Best-Selling Transformational Author and MBA informed Purpose Doula. She wholeheartedly believes that purpose is the birthright of humanity and intentionally refers to all of humanity as Purpose Peeps.  Dena’s sweet spot of service is to transform the many ways of living survival as a lifestyle into the many ways of living thriving lives of purpose.  This shift is vital to members of BIPOC communities who have experienced systemic oppression as well as doing our individual and collective parts to the end intentional oppression that is the antithesis of thriving lives of purpose.  Her style is to be a voice of shared experience meeting clients where they are on their sacred path to purpose journeys with empowering frameworks reflective of her lived experiences, Divine guidance, and learnings in–spirituality, facilitation, purpose, and strategy–all working in service of clients delivering their purposeful expression into the world.  Learn more and grow in connection at www.denawiggins.com.

20 Mar, 2020

EP 15 The #Sparked Life Podcast: Shifted By Divine Storm

Bio_PhotoHey Purpose Peeps!

How are you doing?  This podcast is number 2 of  the “late posts.”The beginning of the year was a doozy, or so I thought before the Coronavirus Pandemic!  And yet, we know while living the sparked life that late is a relative term in the realm of Divine timing.

Episode 15 was recorded in late-February when several aspects of life that were stable were shaken.  It’s like being in the middle of an earthquake and holding a potted plant or some valuable when everything is shaking.  These events felt as though they were uprooting plans and grounding I felt through years of unlocking and inner work. Think about the times we agree with sayings like, “bloom where planted,” or “shift happens.” These times are at the intersection of what we believe and the life tests that transition what we believe into our being. Episodes 14 and 15 of The #Sparked Life Podcast will bring all types of juiciness to episode 16 The #Sparked Life Meets The Elephant In The Room.

Back to episode 15, Shifted By Divine Storm…  This episode reveals a pattern that exists among Purpose Peeps like you and me who are invested in our sparked life now and tend to guard the sparked life against the “other stuff” that appears dim the spark. Do Divine storm events put out our spark or do they act counterintuitively as conduits to strengthen our spark? Hmmmm…

This episode of The #Sparked Life explores the gifts of our purpose mindset coupled with how we build our faith muscles.  Travel with me to unlocking the power of our mantra, “the junk of life, the difficult things of life are fueling my spark.”  It’s interesting the different catalysts that birth our shifts and how the things that seem to derail our timing and our plans are actually on time.  Listen on Apple here and other platforms here.

Dena Wiggins is a Transformational Author, Consultant, Certified Purpose Coach & MBA. She takes an unwavering stand for your purpose. Dena unlocks purpose in sparked Purpose Peeps facilitating businesses and organizations to transform into lighthouses that shine solutions into the marketplace, no matter what. As a Purposed Resultant, she combines her experiences and passion for spark, purpose, and strategy to create impactful solutions that deliver your results that matter. Learn more about her Unlock The Keys To Your Success And Turn Them Into Results® programs and A Life of Purpose® Products that shift your sparks (or ahas) into action at www.denawiggins.com.

IKIGAI As A Purposed Resultant Program

Freemiums For Your Purpose

The Purpose Place: Activating Purpose In Younger Purpose Peeps

A Life of Purpose Products

3 May, 2019

EP 9: The #Sparked Life: How Distractions Serve Your Sparked Life

The #Sparked Life Podcast
The #Sparked Life Podcast with Dena Wiggins

Hey Purpose Peeps!

In this episode of The #Sparked Life, we have a real-life experience of how April showers bring May flowers! You know how we say things so frequently that they lose their impact?  Today, at the beginning of May we will have a purposed resultant experience to revive to the power of processes that are for us!

What’s required for this revival? Great question.

What is required is a mindset shift about our relationship with the distractions in our lives.  In this episode, we will have a Cross Pollination Key To Success experience.  Cross Pollination occurs when we combine things that do not seemingly go together to create something new. This is the secret sauce process of good strategy and we are applying it to our personal strategy to leverage everything living the sparked life has to offer!

Discover:

  • The process to unlock distractions
  • Mindset shift about distractions
  • How to integrate distractions into our Sparked Life toolkit
  • To fully realize the purpose of distractions

Our exercise is a carryover from episode 8, What Are You Graced For. It’s powerful and will allow you to see how April showers brought forth May flowers in your life, repeatedly through evidence of your life story.  This element of The #Sparked Life toolkit does not replace faith, which activates by believing before you see it; instead, it activates bigger faith through your story until now! Bigger faith allows you to take bigger inspired action steps towards your results that matter.

Pay it forward and share with other Purpose Peeps who need a sparked life aha quickly followed with some steps and exploration to make the aha stick and integrate into their lives! Don’t forget to subscribe!

Dena Wiggins is a Transformational Author, Consultant, Certified Purpose Coach & MBA. She takes an unwavering stand for your purpose. Dena unlocks purpose in sparked Purpose Peeps facilitating businesses and organizations to transform into lighthouses that shine solutions into the marketplace, no matter what. As a Purposed Resultant, she combines her experiences and passion for spark, purpose, and strategy to create impactful solutions that deliver your results that matter. Learn more about her Unlock The Keys To Your Success And Turn Them Into Results® programs and A Life of Purpose® Products that shift your sparks (or ahas) into action at www.denawiggins.com.

Freemiums For Your Purpose

The Purpose Place: Activating Purpose In Younger Purpose Peeps

Questions? or Comments

26 Apr, 2019

What Do Possums, Storms, Glitches, Outages & Bees Have In Common?

Last week was something–actually, the entire month was something.  From car breakdowns to weird stuff happening around the house, to creating entire posts that just disappeared like how socks disappear from the dryer to the laundry basket–something was up. The question is what is the something that was happening? What’s the story I would create around the something?

How we relate to the issue, is the issue. – Tori Hartman

Do you go into autopilot when the expectant happens? Do you have a strong fight or flight response?  That was my survival hack for most of my life and in a good way until I realized sometimes my survival gets in the way of my becoming.

There are benefits to “keepin’ it moving.” We meet with Divine timing.  We show up in boldness, understanding what it really took to get there, you know the things we often do not reveal until the Goalcast Story We also meet with kairos opportunities that we experience through the lens of synchronicity.  Man, those are great elements of a good purpose story.

And then there are times when a bunch of seemingly unrelated things occurs in rapid-fire sequence that cause us to pause.  It’s not that the things are necessarily huge, but because of the speed and timing of the events, our survival mode failsafe switch is not activated. This is especially true if we are already a little tired because of recent events, workarounds or unexpected interruptions.

What do possums, computer and software glitches, bees burrowing into external doors, major flooding and outages have in common? Yep, they are events that are distractions.  They are distractions from life, our plans, and what we were focused on before they come.

The thing about distractions is that they all have expiration dates.  When distractions jump you or pile onto you at one time and at a time when you are already outside of your normal rhythm, thecan seem like giants. When this happens, I usually recognize it when I feel that déjà vu knot in my stomach. I learned this is a signal to check out of survival mode and into check-in mode because something beyond distractions is happening.

Prior to adding Pause and Check-in to my path to purpose toolkit, when bombarded with distractions, my old story or scripting would kick in. They sound like, “this always happens when I am on a roll.” “That’s it. I must be on the wrong path.” Or quietly think, “maybe the universe does not have my back or maybe things work out for other people.” Recognizing and healing this script is how I discovered I am passionately for our purposes.

Bombarding distractions reveal our old stories and scripting that are ready to be faced and released. Distractions power up when they plug into our old stuff and commiserate with our old stories or false proof of limitations,  Distractions have no power unless we empower them through our responses.

Five days with no internet, cable and limited cell coverage offered the space to witness my old responses to disruptions and decide to unplug.  Unplugging took place with a different response.  It did not happen immediately.  Truthfully, I wore myself out resisting and trying to draw on survival hacks.  But when all options failed, I was left with my thoughts. At that point, a squeaky door to myself quietly opened and revealed a new awareness to be with before clarity began to reveal herself.

The next time your version of possums, glitches, outages, storms, and bees comes your way, consider a Pause and Check-in response.  See what is really coming up.  Distractions are going to happen. Try this analogy when distractions feel like flood and overwhelm to you:

  • Flip Over – Switch Up Your Auto-Pilot Survival Programming
  • Float On Your Back – Recalibrate & Meet Possibility
  • Give Yourself the Space to Recognize What Part of You The Distraction is Attempting To Plug Into
  • Free Yourself – Unplug And Take Your Power Back
  • Swim on in Freedom – Rejuvenated & Recharged

Dena Wiggins is a Transformational Author, MBA Resultant, and Certified Purpose Coach.  She takes an unwavering stand for your purpose. Dena unlocks purpose in sparked Purpose Peeps who transform businesses and organizations into lighthouses that shine solutions that transform our world.  Stay connected, join the conversation, take inspired action.

Learn more at www.denawiggins.com. Check out our Unlocking Programs for adults or children’s products at The Purpose Place.  Get your Purposed Resultant freemiums here!