Awakening To The Wisdom Within:
The Relevance of Spiritual Understanding for a Professional Practice
The Online Self-Guided Course
Created from a fundraiser for our friend and colleague Shannon Lloyd
featuring
Angus and Rohini Ross
Dr. William Pettit
Dr. Linda Pettit
Carolyn Freyer-Jones
Jonny Roman
Stephen McGhee
Kirk Souder
Dr. Amy Johnson
and Aila Coats
For Giving Tuesday, Shannon has worked overtime to provide this wonderful live fundraising event as a self-guided course.
If you enjoy this, please explore how you can support Shannon with ongoing health and medical expenses.
UPDATE: Shannon will begin a regimen of chemotherapy and possibly Pluvicto starting January 7th, 2025. Throughout the years, his numbers and health has been profoundly supported by a regimen of vitamin infusions and supplements, as well as other treatments, that have allowed him to survive so long. Shannon is now raising money to continue these treatments.
Additionally, an even more win/win approach to supporting Shannon is to schedule a conversation with him and yourself or a loved one about healing from cancer. As a certified Radical Remissions coach, Shannon is uniquely skilled and able to support those with a chronic diagnosis or prognosis with a life-enhancing method of health and wellness trainings, which you can read all about on this website.
Shannon can also support your tech needs and live events as he has always done!
Spending the last day editing and creating this mastercourse on Awakening The Wisdom Within: The Relevance of Spiritual Understanding for a Professional Practice from the live fundraising event, I had the opportunity to finally take it all in as a participant. I had been in a meditation retreat at the Hidden Valley Ashram the day of the actual live event.
I felt inspired to share my own introduction, and to celebrate December 3rd Giving Tuesday by sending this out to all those who have supported me and who may receive value from it.
I feel these teachings represent the pinnacle of coaching and transformational teaching in my own life, as expressed by each of the coaches and teachers who came together to support me in raising funds for my cancer treatments. Organized and led by Aila Coats, we hear from masters of the Three Principles, University of Santa Monica and various coaching communities. These awe-inspiring teachers powerfully exemplify exceptional mastery, growth and transcendental wisdom, and I invite you into their world.
Aila opens the event and calls in a blessing and invocation.
Sheer chance allowed me to attend the first hour of this event; I had committed to a meditation retreat that weekend, and Aila invited me to “just receive”.
I had just had a profound spiritual catharsis right beforehand in the ashram of the retreat. That morning, I was terrified of the pains I was feeling in my body, and had thrown myself at the feet of my master, Guru Paramahansa Yogananda.
I found respite and a deep surrender. When, by chance, I was able to join the meeting, it all came apart - as tears of joy!
The visualization Aila creates here, to me, is the heart and Soul of healing. I am honored and deeply inspired.
Aila shares from the heart. This introductory share goes so deep and so profound so quickly; I am just in awe.
When I think of Aila, the first thing that comes to mind is her family. Her husband Dhiraj, and her unbelievably beautiful and sweet children. I have come to think of Aila’s presence in my life as a spectacular expression of Grace. Hearing her share, with a genuineness and presence that shines, and with a dazzling authenticity and mastery, I simply connect with gratitude and simple joy.
Aila will forever model heart and generosity, but also a deep and intuitive mastery in the deep mystery of the Three Principles teachings. Later, Angus shares about “sharing from the heart.” Aila is an avatar of Presence and Love.
“What does the whisper say?”
So Stephen McGhee inquires, and invites us to inquire. Presence, the coherence of nature, the value of our lives and our missions. This gentle but insistent stream of mastery - from someone I love so much - is truly an inspiration and food for my Soul.
I remember, as I watched Stephen deliver a presentation for the CFJ Coaching School several years ago, thinking “This guy is for me!”. My love for Stephen and the work he does has endured, my Colorado confederate with the deep love of nature, creating a Presence that is a beacon for leaders and all who wish to gift themselves with his wisdom.
Remember what Stephen says…when time in the Silence brings wisdom, take action. Listen, Hear and Step! Spirit meets us at the point of action.
”Intuition has come with humility and with deep quiet”
“Those perfect answers are occurring for every single one of us in every single moment.”
Her sharing here touches our Awakening (to!) The Wisdom Within theme in a truly intriguing and heartfelt way…through Story.
Linda’s observed that “I am devoted to honoring intuitive wisdom.” I am so amazed and humbled that Linda picked up my love of learning, and my new discovery of the power of intuition in healing. “It just so happens that right now, his teacher is cancer”. Yes, Linda, and the learnings are truly profound.
Love is indeed “a living, breathing essence”, and you, Linda embody that magnificently.
I go so deep with Dr. Bill.
Besides having the incredible opportunity to witness his mastery and courage in action, my beloved friend and mentor Dr. William Pettit has shown me a vast freedom beyond previous habitual identity with my thought patterns.
As I experience this share, I am reminded that Dr. Bill truly knows that you really can only “point” in the direction of ultimate truth. This esteemed and extraordinary man has delivered both highly developed (his CV is as long as my arm) and deceptively simple trainings, which I have had the privilege to support. Being present with this kind, patient man as he shares his decades long path of wisdom with the world, often acting as a fearless maverick, has been a transcendent blessing in my own life.
Oh, and we have some wonderful common friends. How I love you, Bill!
“Love is a frequency where…wisdom in constantly in flow” reminds me so much of Mary Hulnick’s conceptual radion station KLOVE! Of course, because Kirk and I met through the love and wisdom fields of USM, and through shared acquaintances going back to my 12 step days.
What Kirk is sharing gives me pause. It could well be that I have excruciating pain ahead of me (yeah, deflect). But we are in a world where this occurs. What will my experience of love be in those moments?
“90% of my suffering wasn’t my pain, it was my ‘againstness’ to it. And in loving, there is no againstness.” Incredible.
And how about the woman who committed to focus on self-love? “Magic happened.” Oh boy…yes. This one is challenging for me…I feel sometimes, still, I need to earn love. Seeing where this woman’s decision led her…powerful.
I remember that time Angus speaks of in the beginning of this differently; judging myself for imperfections, severe in my mind, and my effectiveness in running our event. In retrospect, I believe I needed to experience the pain of this - and it’s possible connection to my failing health - to realize so fully the value of self-love.
“I was there every step of the way.” When we find that calling, how often is that our experience, when we find our community. For me, I feel like I am there every step of the way when I listen to Angus. I was grinning ear to ear thinking about John Hruby “It’s so exciting!” - if you know John, you get it - and that’s what I aspire to be. How perfect Angus is who he is - “trusting that intuition, trusting that part of himself that is wise.” - and how I love him for it.
“Wisdom and Love are in this dance together; maybe they’re the same thing”. I’ll remember that. This share has taught me so much, and to “Let that part of me that is Universal do the heavy lifting.”
“That overflow is available at every moment”. “I love the ordinary reminders of common sense, day to day” Rohini reveals and shares such a beauty in the ordinary.
I also feel that “that knowing” can really be a challenge and a source of discomfort. I love how Rohini demonstrates, through her own experience, the courage that can inspire. Knowing a “real yes” is a profound opportunity. And: no “wrongness” no matter which way you go.
How grateful I was to have been part of the “yes” that evolved into the Soul-Centered Series Rohini speaks of here. Being in the same room and space with Rohini is a form of magnificence, and so beautifully enhanced by the powerful Angus, working with her as a team.
A powerful personal sharing from Aila.
This really landed for me personally, especially the “worth based on doing” insight she shares.
Her heroic challenges reflect my own experience post-surgery when I was incapacitated. I remember a dear friend of mine, Claudia Flores, ordered Mexican food sent to me, and is was my first experience of receiving, a journey that would flower in coming years.
When I experience Aila’s joyful family images she generously shares on social media, I reflect on her courage. She lives into the Divine Unknown in the most exquisite way.
Who am I? Am I a body that gets sick and dies? This character, this personality, these stories?
What happens when these stories, this character, all the time and space related aspects we believe to be our reality fade away?
Amy Johnson relates, there is no core self that the mind can conjure up. This is a “stone dropped in the well” phrase that I experience as an invitation to deep truth. Pointing as only a master can point. I love Amy.
What is true and real? That which does not change.
I breathe into this. I invite you to see me, and others whose soft pink mortal underbelly may be showing, as eternal, ineffable, mysterious and infinite.
It’s all here right now. And my heart is aflame with gratitude for this sublime teacher. This share is such a gift.
A personal word about Carolyn. My experience of her is that I relate to her in the context of “I want what she has” in a very particular way.
I’ve always experienced Carolyn’s work as an invitation for me to wake up to the adult Shannon that has, perhaps, historically wanted to hide. I also experience her as a steel hand of wisdom inside a velvet glove of compassion.
Whenever I speak of her school, I glow, because the work I do there is an opportunity for me to show up at a difficult job I love. It calls forward every quality that is my heart’s desire to move towards mastery to enhance and develop that quality.
At USM, where we both served on staff, the mantra of “this or something better for the highest good off all concerned” is a calling into Spirit, surrender, and a great freedom that manifests as powerful service consciousness. Carolyn lives this, and teaches others to as well.
Jonny certainly shares my awe and admiration of Aila, and “how did she put this all together?” given the dimensions of her own life. Well, as they say, “time warps in our favor…”
Jonny steps forward also as a hero. Having the absolute honor of witnessing the dimensions of his heroism has been a process of true admiration, as we connected as Soul buddies at the University of Santa Monica, where we both completed our Master’s Degrees in Spiritual Psychology, and later professionally at the CFJ Coaching School, where Jonny serves as the Director.
“As we grow, life comes at us…and we build barriers of protection”. The wisdom and mastery of Jonny as a coach is how to “dissolve those barriers to discover who we are”. Rarely has a coach as intrepid and committed as Jonny offered to take us on this exhalted, and somehow delightfully ordinary, journey.
Questions and answers, appreciation and conclusion