...so, it’s a willingness to know that I am this magnificence and this bigness and this greatness. That’s who I am and I’m willing to continue to exercise the muscles, to live into that on a more constant basis and that’s a constant challenge because as we move from one day to the next, we move from one circumstance to the next.

We’re dreaming, we’re envisioning, we’re inspired, we’re imagining all the time and that’s a wonderful, wonderful thing. It’s when we get attached to our desires in a certain way that we demand or control or try to manipulate in order to have that out come. That’s what creates the suffering.

For me, with self-improvement, much like I said, the idea is that there is something that needs to be improved. There’s something that’s missing… The self-empowerment perspective encourages people to see that there’s nothing missing, there’s nothing lacking, it’s a matter of using the tools they are already using in other areas of their life…

Todd Zimmerman is a Transformational Coach and Trainer. His modalities include: Life / Spiritual Coaching, Hand Analysis and Non-ordinary states of conscious work such as, dancing, drumming and Radiance Breathwork. Co-founder of the Paradigm Shifts Coaching Group, Todd and Dr. Rosie Kuhn have been facilitating a Transformational Coach training program at The Institute of Transpersonal Psychology (ITP) for six years. This training is a transpersonal and ontologically oriented approach focusing on how we are ‘being’ which leads to deep level change and permanent transformation. When core beliefs and desires are clearly distinguished, consciously chosen and committed to and we align our actions with them our ability to create the life we want is radically increased.

Todd has created, lead and supported powerful transformational experiences, trainings and workshops since 1986. He integrates ontological coaching and mainstream goal-oriented practicality with the tools and techniques of our ancestors, creating a safe and well grounded space that allows for graceful, powerful, self-paced transformation* and the achievement of desires while nurturing and supporting the call of Great Mystery.

...I think we’re very smart when we’re two and three and four and five, and then culture, our parents and schools get their grip on us and we start to lose ourselves. In Jung’s model, we don’t reclaim that self until we hit that mid-life crisis and notice how much of our true self has been lost along the way.

And right now; although, I’m staying very active, I don’t know where to make meaning and that’s the next challenge; to find the thing that is, for me as meaningful as writing books have been. And I’m not sure what that’s going to be, but that’s my day-in-and-day-out task. That’s my wakeup task; to figure out what’s really meaningful to do on a given day.

We’re supposed to do one thing after another right and then when we create, we’re supposed to go into the unknown and not care about rightness. Most people can’t make that transition on any given day. They’re so stuck in having to get things right that it’s too hard for them to move to this other space where not knowing and making mistakes is legit.

...sometimes, a person needs to get uncomfortable enough before they’re willing to look behind the curtain and make changes in their life that are potentially uncomfortable for them to make. Only when circumstances are bad enough and it’s intolerable; sometimes that’s exactly what motivates people to move forward.

Think how many well-known leaders we’ve known with their tragic flaw. You know, the Greeks were writing stories about that 2,500 years ago and no doubt they weren’t even the first ones telling stories about such people. And without that tragic flaw, they’re less than fully human. It’s not really a story of a human being and we all have that piece that the Greeks were doing plays about. At our best, we can hold that part of ourselves compassionately and know that being me includes having that piece as well.

...and it’s kind of like the kid with the gun who says, “Now I get respect.” He thinks that’s empowerment, but that’s mistaking empowerment for fear. So, most of the kids I work with don’t have any empowerment at all. It’s a very difficult thing to teach a kid who doesn’t have any true self-identity or self-esteem or true concept of who he is or why he’s here.

With regard to the kids …from a Jungian perspective … their unconscious patterns are so skewed that you have got to really work the unconscious. The problem is no one in this youth industry does that kind of work. We are all doing cognitive behavioral stuff, which is surface… right now my frustration is, most of the grownups in the world won’t let me do what I know works. So, my only struggle in a world filled with really difficult teenagers, are the grownups.

…it’s interesting most of my life I’ve experienced, myself in communities, with friends and family members and there’s this kind of agreed upon split between making a living and waking up. And it’s so wonderful because Café Gratitude is about utilizing your time at work to support the awakening…

So, it’s a tricky thing because there is really no individual self and yet, we’re given this cell of the self, this tiny cell of the self to awaken so it’s like, self-empowerment is like taking the responsibility of this small part of the whole and awakening it. But you’re awakening it to the whole, so it’s kind of like… it’s a paradox. It’s a very tricky thing. It’s a mystery.

We’re divorcing ourselves from an old paradigm, the old paradigm, which is fear-based, scarcity-based, individual-based and the (new) paradigm that we’re heading into is about community, it’s about oneness, it’s about love. And to the degree, like in any divorce, to the degree that we resist the divorce, that’s how much pain we’re going feel, because resistance and pain are really synonymous.

...So, it’s a tricky thing because there is really no individual self and yet, we’re given this cell of the self, this tiny cell of the self to awaken so it’s like, self-empowerment is like taking the responsibility of this small part of the whole and awakening it. But you’re awakening it to the whole, so it’s kind of like… it’s a paradox. It’s a very tricky thing. It’s a mystery.

We’re divorcing ourselves from an old paradigm, the old paradigm, which is fear-based, scarcity-based, individual-based and the (new) paradigm that we’re heading into is about community, it’s about oneness, it’s about love. And to the degree, like in any divorce, to the degree that we resist the divorce, that’s how much pain we’re going feel, because resistance and pain are really synonymous.

…it’s interesting most of my life I’ve experienced, myself in communities, with friends and family members and there’s this kind of agreed upon split between making a living and waking up. And it’s so wonderful because Café Gratitude is about utilizing your time at work to support the awakening…

...I changed because I had a different way that wasn’t verbal to get some feelings out and I could stand back and look at it and other people didn’t get it, I didn’t care whether they got it or not, but I had my art hanging all over the house because your voice and your art are your own homeopathic healers and I healed myself about many things because I had the art visibly around and I did it. And I didn’t care how good it was. I wasn’t in it for selling it, I was in it for expression.

If you are not doing that, (consciously living your passion) then basically, you are going to be leaning on somebody else to try to fill that hole that nobody else can ever fill. So, when you have your own best interests at heart and you are loving.

What they've found is that, experienced meditators have much more connectivity in the prefrontal lobes...So, part of what happens, when you have that kind of central connectivity is, you're able to self-regulate your emotions better, such as your response to fear and another of the interesting benefits is you improve your immune function so you are sick less. It's really hard to be empowered when you're not feeling well.

So, part of why this approach of this research is really fascinating to me is that it helps me to remember, “Oh, it’s not me that’s fearful or it’s not me that’s apprehensive, it’s my brain. It’s my brain.

...you know, we really are on a developmental journey and it’s not just going from childhood to adulthood to old age. It’s basically a neuro-biological, physiological, spiritual-logical unfolding and part of what’s really exciting about the research that’s going on is there’s more and more validation for authentic spiritual practices.

...Yes, so that what you innately know is who you really are, has been held as something not viable or not valuable or only valuable if this. You aren’t that, so that can be a really huge stopping structure. It can bury something really deep because people do want to do what they are supposed to do, by and large, they do want to survive well, and those restrictions are really muffling to the spirit.

Empowerment, I would say, the strongest aspect of that with art is in the making yourself and in the making physical your own truths so that if you are absolutely authentic, it doesn’t matter if you are “a good artist or a bad artist or experienced artist or an inexperienced artist, everybody is an artist.