DOWNLOAD THE MP3 | LISTEN ON iTUNES
Doctor Neha: Hi everybody and welcome. Today I have a special guest. Hi Gina!
Gina Murdock: Hi Neha, good to see you.
Doctor Neha: Great to see you too. We’re in Aspen and I met Gina last year, when she invited me to speak at a Lead with Love event. I’m going to let her tell you a little bit about that and she’s got a couple interesting things going on that I think you might be interested in. So Gina, could you tell us a little bit about Lead with Love?
Gina Murdock: Yes, of course! I love that we’re both in Aspen and looking out over these beautiful mountains together. And I love knowing that we can broadcast to people all over the world. I just want to send a little bit of the beauty of nature to anybody who’s watching right now. Lead with Lead with Love in Aspen, Colorado and that’s a beautiful thing but I’ve discovered that we’re in a bubble. We are in a place that is wealthy and privileged, and I think it takes more of an effort right now to make sure we’re tuned in and engaged with what’s happening in the world. It’s easy to check out when you live in a place like this.
Lead with Love is a nonprofit organization which was born from the idea that we are all connected. While Lead with Love is based here Aspen, we work digitally and all over the world doing events that are meant to raise consciousness, bringing our body, mind and spirit from a place of fear into love, so that we can truly lead with love. Through the studies I’ve done with spiritual psychology, yoga and meditation, and some work with you and Raj Sisodia on Conscious Capitalism, I believe that no matter what the circumstances are, we all have a choice to lead from a higher place. We used to do tons of in-person live events, and I’m excited that we now have shifted to this digital platform.
Doctor Neha: It was hard enough to be vulnerable in person. Now the challenge has elevated to creating authentic conversations online. For the next generation and the millennials that grew up on technology, this is their norm. For us older folks it’s probably a bigger deal to not be connected in-person.
What I love about Lead with Love and your mission is that you’re offering programs that anybody can access. As we move forward, I definitely want to hear about how you’re doing that, but right now let’s start with setting our intention. What would our intention be right now for this experience?
Gina Murdock: I think that’s such a beautiful tool when you were talking about how to connect digitally to make sure that we take a pause before we dive in and connect—even though it’s virtual. For those of you reading this, please just take a moment and put away the distractions and be with us for this moment.
The intention that I have is to be fully present in this space, and to open my mind and heart to hear things that I need to hear, and to speak things that may be of service to others.
Doctor Neha: That’s so beautiful. My intention is to be present. To speak to anything that arises. To be authentic. To be curious. Those four things together always create magic for me, so I want to stay true to those. No matter how many of these videos I’ve done, each one illuminates blind spots and I want to be present to discover them.
Gina Murdock: Well, every time I talk to you, I learn so much. Just to take a moment to really connect and listen, that power of presence is incredible, and it brings me into my heart.
Doctor Neha: Absolutely. We run really quickly in our physical worlds and in our mind, but when we slow down we can drop into our heart space and calm down.
People are currently experiencing a lot of anxiety and stress, but I find that it’s the pace and the amount of change that is causing a disruptive energy that paralyzes people and makes them feel powerless. There’s an opportunity in this crumbling of our world, but we don’t often think of that because it feels so overwhelming.
What are you doing to help take care of yourself in order to serve and do things like Lead with Love and put on programs for other people?
Gina Murdock: You and I have talked about this concept of “ME—WE—WORLD.” Neha can you please talk about that?
Doctor Neha: Here is the “ME—WE—WORLD” diagram (shows diagram on video). A lot of times people want things to be simple because they want to move on to the next thing. People say, “Just tell me what it is,” because they view the world through single vision. The corporate equivalent of single vision would be a focus on money: “How do we make next quarter’s budget?” That’s all that matters. Somebody who’s thinking in triple vision would be focused on profits, yes, but much bigger than that—purpose, people, AND profits. At this time in our lives it is really important to expand from single vision to triple vision.
If you’re struggling and if your basic needs are not met, you need to stay at the ME level—don’t try to help other people. If you’re drowning, don’t try to save other people, you need to help yourself first. This idea of healing ME is a foundational piece where you learn your physical boundaries. Here are some questions that follow:
- Do you understand how you think and what people, situations and topics trigger you?
- Do you know how to navigate your anxiety, stress, and emotions?
- Do you feel that your life has purpose and meaning?
In the ME section, you are building a strong foundation for yourself. When I previously asked Gina, “What are you doing for yourself,” I’m talking about the ME section. Once you do that, you garner the ability to create a sustained impact for WE—your partner, your family, your community, and your country—and ultimately for the world. But you cannot get to those levels without a strong personal foundation.
Gina Murdock: I loved seeing the visual (in video above). It’s such an enlivening feeling because what you’re saying is practically the basis of Lead with Love. It’s that same adage, “you have to put the oxygen mask on yourself first.” I have some friends out there fighting the good fight, but they are just so depleted energetically. Still today we are stuck in this paradigm that taking care of yourself is selfish, and the martyr archetype with women in particular is so pervasive.
I’m an advocate just like you in the sense that it is so important to take care of oneself and one’s basic needs. It’s similar to Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs and in the Vedanta (yoga) tradition where we talk about the chakra energy centers in our bodies. It’s important that these basic needs are addressed and one of the things we focus on at Lead with Love is one’s well being—encompassing physical, emotional, and communal aspects. You must be physically well, emotionally well, and have a loving and supportive group surrounding you.
Doctor Neha: It’s also necessary to ask yourself if you have outgrown the circles that you’re in—your relationships, friends, work, community, and your job.
Gina Murdock: Purpose and meaning are very important to me. And I’ve found that it’s healthy and rewarding to surround myself with other people that are in that same level of purpose as myself.
Doctor Neha: Here’s an example of what you are talking about. When I was in my 20s, I wanted to drink and go to the bar and thus I attracted people who wanted to do that as well. There was nothing wrong with that. I had a lot of fun. But by the time I was in my 30s, I started to become much more introspective and began asking myself—what life do I want to build? So, naturally I ended up seeing my friends from my 20s less frequently and only for the times when I wanted to partake in the things that they liked to do. When you begin to realize that going out isn’t as fun as it used to be, a sense of restlessness builds inside you. Oftentimes, I have glossed over when I’ve grown out of our friend groups—because it can feel uncomfortable or painful.
Now we have this global timeout that Mother Nature put us in. We have been using up the planet and its resources, moving too fast in our lives, and abusing our own bodies. We’ve been put in this global timeout for good reason. This time is sacred—if we use it to reflect. What gifts might it give us?
During this time a lot of people are floundering—they don’t feel supported because the people that surround them are reacting in a way that doesn’t resonate with them. The same tools we have been using for so long just aren’t working. The chaos of the world has exceeded the tools in our toolbox.
I understand that part of what you do in the world is to help people. I do too. I’d love to talk a little bit about some opportunities that our viewers, listeners, and readers might be able to utilize to get a little help.
Something that I just started a couple weeks ago is called Conscious Community Café Online. Our main goal is to create authentic community and conversation. We recently talked about anxiety and how to heal it. We had open dialogue and a Q&A. I’ve created this experience with Alise Cortez—she’s an incredible purposologist, corporate consultant and dear friend. For 2020, our sessions are free, and you’re invited! Please check it out!
Gina, what are some resources you have that may help our viewers, listeners, and readers move from ME to WE to WORLD?
Gina Murdock: One awesome resource is your doctotneha.com website! You have a bunch of free videos, blogs, and other resources that I enjoy.
Like I mentioned earlier, I head a program called Lead with Love, and we have this amazing offering that we just started two weeks ago. We have a great community that is super-engaged and I’m excited to be hosting you on our August 19th session. We’ve created a campaign called Love in Action, which focuses on loving ourselves and then taking action to make the world a more loving place.
Doctor Neha: Especially now in the pandemic it’s essential to unhook from your anxiety and paralysis and start to feel a little more normal.
Gina Murdock: On our last call we asked people how they were—were they feeling overwhelmed, helpless or empowered? We found that a lot of people were overwhelmed.
I recognized that I was feeling some of what they talked about. I decided to start a weekly call from 12 to 1 MT (2-3 ET) every Wednesday called Love in Action. We like this timing for the calls because it’s accessible and something you can do during your lunch hour. We have had some CEOs join our calls and they have asked all their employees to join and incentivized them by offering to pay them for that hour. We’d love to see more of this happen!
For our weekly topics, we research them up, down, and sideways—and we look for areas that need our loving action and heart-centered-leadership. On the call we start by centering ourselves and coming into the heart space, and from there we move to becoming knowledgeable about a certain cause. We currently plan on looking at social justice, environmental, civic engagement, and voting issues.
The attendees get a synopsis and bullet points about the issue; we want to make it as tangible and easily accessible as possible. During the call we take about 15 minutes where we all mute ourselves—and take action. We call the representatives, the DA, the mayor, and the City Council. We also have scripts that we’ve written that tell our participants key points to make on those calls.
Finally, at the end we close with reflection and share our experience taking action. This helps us all establish a sense of community and connection, and just taking those baby steps helps to move people out of feeling paralyzed and into feeling empowered. Together we are taking small steps to change the world into the one we want to see. In this sacred pause, we have a beautiful opportunity for us to engage in things that are important—we can’t just sit on the sidelines—unless of course, we need to focus on our own wellbeing.
Doctor Neha: When you were talking I was thinking about the diagram I showed earlier and how we are all connected. What you’re saying is that we need to know where we are on that spiral, and if we are ready to transcend past the ME and move toward WE, to impact the WORLD.
One of the other special points you brought up is that self-care is important. Self-care is not selfish, it’s SELF-FULL. Just as you wouldn’t take a car across the country without any gas in it, you can’t ask someone to start taking actions outward to benefit the world if their tank is not full.
Once we know where we are on the Me-We-World spiral and take care of ourselves, then we can serve the collective. It doesn’t matter where you are on the spiral; all that matters is that you know where you are and don’t judge yourself for that. And when you are ready to take the next step upward, you can impact the WORLD by joining Love in Action and Conscious Community (CC) Café Online. How can our viewers get involved with Love in Action and sign up?
Gina Murdock: The best way to do that is to follow @ileadwithlove on Instagram or Facebook, or go to our website. From there all you need to do is register. we make it really easy, you do need to register. Even if you register and you can’t show up, we will send you an outline of the material we prepared and some action you can do on your own!
I love the live Zoom call! It’s a lot of fun. And I understand that not everyone can take off an hour midday on a Wednesday. I’ve loved the reflections after the call—people shift from that sense of overwhelm to feeling bubbly and energetic again. Putting your Love in Action will create a healing energy.
Doctor Neha: Now is when to take action. When the world and all its rules are changing, it’s the perfect time to take risks and try new things.
In our ever-transforming world, who knew that loving somebody would mean that you don’t see them and don’t hug them?
We have the opportunity to create the world we want to live in and change the rules. The questions are:
- What would YOU do?
- What is YOUR vision for the world?
- How are YOU using this global timeout?
I hope you’ve really enjoyed this experience with Gina and me. If you’d like to meet people who are thinking this way and using this global timeout to do something positive, please join us at Conscious Community (CC) Café Online and Love in Action. We would love to have you.
Let’s use this time to heal ourselves, serve our community, and ultimately create the world that we want to live in! Thank you, Gina, for joining me.
Gina Murdock: Take care.
Awareness Prescription
Questions to Save Rescuers
-
Where is self-care on your to-do list?
-
What are the ways in which you fill your own tank?
-
3.Do you ever help others and then find yourself feeling resentful?
-
If so, were there boundaries that you never expressed?
-
Moving forward, will you choose running on empty or invest in becoming self-full? (Because it’s a choice – Even though sometimes it doesn’t seem that way)!
-
Are you ready to expand into triple vision—moving from ME, to WE, and finally to WORLD?
