Unleash, Focus, Align - A Model of Sustainability For Rapidly Evolving Times

Everywhere we look, change is happening at ever-increasing rates.  This is not new news.  However, what is not so broadly reported in the mass media, or acknowledged in our mainstream culture, is that the collective consciousness-the sum total of our collective thoughts, attitudes, behaviors, perspectives, actions, and choices-is also rapidly evolving.  From where you stand in any particular moment looking at the current challenges facing our world on so many levels, this evolution may not seem so obvious.  Yet if we pull back and look at the big picture of what has shifted in our world over the last few decades, not to mention the last several hundred years, there is clear evidence of evolution in technology, knowledge, and yes, even higher awareness and an expanding consciousness.

This is not to say that we don't still have a long way to go.  When compared to the arc of the life cycle, many leading thinkers in the realm of human development and consciousness studies say that we as a western culture are right in the middle of our adolescence.  The questions become:  How do we continue our forward evolution with clear intention and awareness? How do we recognize the potentials that are rapidly emerging in all areas of our lives-home and family, community, business, and government-partner with them, and become stewards for their continued forward and rapid evolution? What is our part, both individually and collectively, in creating sustainability for a positive evolutionary process?

Three words have been rolling around in my awareness for some time now:  unleash, focus, align.  I've talked about them in keynote lectures and am now recognizing that perhaps they represent a simple three-step formula for ongoing sustainability, regardless of the project or potential at hand, especially in times of rapid evolution and change.

Let's take these three words one at a time to explore what each of them means as a part of the formula.

Unleash

Regardless of where you are in the world, if you ask people to point to themselves, almost without fail they point to the center of their chest-to their heart center.  We have an instinctive knowledge that the essence of who we are lives somewhere in the core of our being, not in our intellect.  It is very rare that someone points to their head.  The Institute of HeartMath in Boulder Creek, CA, has shown through their research that the electromagnetic field of the heart is 5,000 times greater than the electromagnetic field of the brain.  In their research on coherence between the heart and the brain, they have shown a number of physiological processes in which the brain actually takes its direction from the heart rather than the other way around as we have been conditioned to think.  We access our true wisdom and deep knowledge through the heart much more than through the intellect.  The intellect then takes that information gathered through the heart and organizes it.  But that's getting ahead of ourselves-we'll get to that when we talk about "focus" in a moment.

Unleash as the first part of the formula is about unleashing the wisdom, truth, intuition, and understanding of the heart.  As an individual, it's about unleashing the essence of who you are, of your soul.  It's about unleashing your soul mission, the reason why you are here, your life purpose, so that it can be free to reach its greatest potential-your greatest potential-the greatest gifts you came into this life to give.  For a project, it's about unleashing the greatest potential for that project-what's really wanting to happen through this project in service of something bigger.  For organizations and governments, it's about being clear about its soul and soul mission, and unleashing the potential of what is wanting to unfold for the greater good through policy, legislation, or projects.

Unleash means paying attention to dormant or emerging potential, asking "What wants to happen?" and becoming one of its allies or stewards to help it cross the bridge from idea to reality.  It takes courage to truly unleash potential.  Once it's unleashed it will begin to take on a life of its own.  The greater the potential, the greater the wave of energy behind it.  When it is first unleashed, the energy can be overwhelming.  It may feel like you don't know how to harness this huge energy, much less be able to control it, organize it or know what to do with it.

Here is where, whether in our personal lives, business or government, we too often abandon the potential or try to contain it in some way that allows us to put it neatly in a box where we can feel safe, comfortable and in control.  Here's where we get caught up in "fixing" something, solving a problem or trying to make everything be okay again, instead of paying attention to what is trying to happen and ushering in a new reality.  Admittedly, everyone may breathe a sigh of relief when that happens-crisis averted, problem solved, or so it seems-yet in truth we've just patched something up and slowed down the forward evolutionary process.  We've chosen comfortability and convenience for the short term over transformation and evolution.

To unleash something implies that whatever it is we are unleashing was being held back, trapped, subdued in some way.  The word itself carries a lot of energy.  As the first step of our sustainability formula, "unleash" calls us to set free that which is wanting to happen and see what happens next.

Focus

As soon as we have unleashed the potential and given it freedom to fly, the next step of the formula is to focus on that energy-to pay attention to it, listen to it, follow it, see what it has to tell us about how it can be realized in form for the best possible outcome for all.  This part of the process begins by focusing our intuition-entering into constant intuitive dialogue with the potential, and letting it show us the way.  From there we take the information we have gathered and focus our intellect in service of that potential.  Intellect is the great organizer.  It knows how to get things done.  The heart isn't so good at the organizing and action part, yet without its big picture awareness and intuitive guidance, the intellect will not necessarily be in touch with the great potential trying to emerge.  Without that awareness, the intellect can get caught up in the individual steps or pieces of the puzzle and lose sight of the bigger picture.  The intellect by default will often attach itself to smaller waves of energy that seem more manageable, safe, less  threatening or unpredictable and more comfortable, and lose the momentum and inspiration of the big energy wave.

So focus is all about listening, observing, and responding to what the potential is asking of us as each step continues to unfold.

Align

The third step of our sustainability formula is "align".  This step asks us to align our thoughts, feelings, emotions, perspectives, habits, decisions, actions, and practices with the greater potential that is emerging.  Something big is trying to happen here.  When we are not in alignment with that big energy, chaos can reign supreme because we are "out of sync" with what is trying to happen.  The more quickly we focus on what the potential is asking of us and on what is trying to happen and then align ourselves on every level with that emerging potential, the faster we move from chaos into order, the faster synergy and synchronicity come into place, and the smoother the ride all the way around.

Alignment is all about creating congruence-about all the parts of who we are and of how we think and act being congruent with the emerging potential.  Through this process, we live in service to our continuing forward evolution.  We serve the evolution of our collective consciousness, and continue to move humanity forward in its evolutionary process.

A non-linear process

Unleash, focus, align as a formula is initially a linear process: unleash the potential, focus intuition and intellect, and then align all energies in service of the emerging potential.  However, the more facile you become in using the formula, the faster it moves from being a linear to a non-linear process.  With some practice, as soon as you unleash the potential you find yourself immediately focusing and aligning.  And as you focus and align, you continue to unleash the potential even as the potential itself continues to evolve and unfold.

Unleash, focus, align join together to become three things happening at the same time.  In full practice, unleash, focus, align is a simultaneous and ongoing process.  And precisely because it is ongoing and simultaneous, it becomes a powerful model for evolutionary sustainability.  Sustainability comes from growth, evolution, and a constant flow of energy feeding all elements of the project or idea.  Things cease to be sustainable when there is no growth and evolution-when we try to impose limitations, conditions, or restrictions on the flow of energy in an effort to control or manipulate an outcome.  Because life is energy in motion and therefore constantly changing and evolving, it can only be sustainable if we live in such a way that supports and serves that ongoing natural change, transformation, and evolution.   Unleash, focus, align as a sustainability model is about serving the greater good.  This formula will not work when applied to something that is in service of only one person or a select group, organization, or society.  Energy and potential do not recognize hierarchy of one group over another, one person over another.  Energy and potential do not work selectively.  Whether in businesses, governments, or family systems, anything that is in service of a select few will ultimately not be sustainable.  While anyone can focus and align energy in a certain direction and successfully manipulate outcomes for a period of time, in the long term only forward and positive evolution for the greater good is sustainable.  We can see this as we look back in human history.

Systems of abusive power, dictatorship, and manipulative control ultimately do not survive, nor has there ever been an ongoing mass desire for such systems. Yet the yearning, call, and actions for peace among the human race have never ceased to exist.    We are learning.  We are evolving.  When we can let go of our personal ideas of what we want to happen, how we think things should look, or what we want because it would best serve our particular family, country, or lifestyle-when we can instead tune in on a higher level of awareness to what wants to happen for the greater good of all-we will move forward with much greater grace, ease, and flow.  Will there be missteps, discouragements, disappointments?  Yes.  Yet if we keep unleashing the potential and listening to the deeper message within the missteps, discouragements, and disappointments; if we continue to focus on that greater potential and what it is asking of us as the next step and respond accordingly; if we align our thoughts, feelings, emotions, actions, habits, and decisions with that unfolding potential we will be in service of the increasingly rapid evolution of the mass consciousness that is trying to happen.