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Instilling MorePA S S I O N ,

W O N D E R & AW Ein Your Life

There is a signpost up ahead. You stop and pause and want to know which way to turn to follow your authentic path. Best-selling author and speaker Gregg Levoy’s latest book, “Vital Signs: The Nature and Nurture of Passion,” explores cultivating passion as a mindset that helps bring vitality to all our engagements, from work and relationships to creativity and spiritual life. The book encourages readers to examine the inner signs that will guide us to our purpose while igniting our passion as the fuel to get us there.

The vagaries and demands of our lifestyle and culture today — both in the corporate world and in our personal lives — may have taken a noticeable toll on our innate vitality and creative expression, Levoy says. Whether due to protracted bouts of ennui or the overload of multitasking, many people find themselves depleted of the essential quality of passion in their lives. When that is replaced with passion, whether it takes the form of colorful intensity or contemplative alertness, it contributes to a vibrant life.

Levoy shares a story about Maurice Sendak, author of “Where the Wild Things Are” that he feels speaks to the innate passion in all of us: Sendak once sent to one of his young readers a card with a picture of a Wild Thing on it.

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Getting FiredUP

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Here are three of Levoy’s passions all at once: mountain biking,

traveling (in the Himalayas) and being a twin (Gregg is on the left).

Levoy is also a dog lover. Here he is with Issa as a puppy.

Levoy loves to drum.

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The boy’s mother wrote back that her son loved the card so much he ate it. The boy didn’t seem to care that it was an original piece of art by the author, he just saw it, loved it and he ate it.

“Passion is a state of love and hunger. It is also a state of enthusiasm, which means to be possessed by a god or goddess, by a Wild Thing … . We move toward a kind of divine presence because, through our passions, we are utterly present. We are utterly charged and focused.”

In “Vital Signs,” Levoy examines skills that expand one’s exploration into the art of living life fully with a sense of adventure and discovery, opening the way for creativity in all areas of life. The book guides the reader into the soul in order to do the necessary work to uncover and maintain the visions and passions that are uniquely ours.

“Vital Signs” is geared to being in love with life, not just attaining passion. It’s about cultivating the skill of passion — not just passion as a place to get to, but a place you come from, says Levoy.

As a fervent writer, he incorporates the etymology of the words he uses to enhance the significant meanings our personal vocabulary can ascribe to our lives. The word passion has a Latin root to the word for “suffering.” The question it asks is, “What are you willing to suffer for?” Levoy says that we also suffer when we don’t follow our passions. Often, we can pay the price physically and/or emotionally if we let our desires and passions go dormant or be denied.

Taking the word “religion” beyond the “belief in god” definition is a common theme in this book. Levoy, along with other scholars such as Joseph Campbell, favor the derivation of the word “religion” from ligare, which means to “bind, connect,” probably from a prefixed re-ligare, i.e., re (again) + ligare or “to reconnect.” This approach allows for a deeper understanding of what he refers to as a vital component to be able to reconnect the intrinsic passion of our lives.

“Vital Signs” stresses the importance and the imperative to not just review, but to reignite the passion of our natural state.

Put that chip on your shoulder to workLevoy says he strives to always express his authentic self. However,

that intention didn’t always fit well at home or in society. He says his mother didn’t know what to do or how to handle her authentic, expressive twin boys.

Her coping mechanisms resulted in choices for her sons that allowed Levoy later in life to see that individuals might benefit from identifying the baggage they carry or the “chips on their shoulders” as potentially

repressed forms of passion. He has worked his entire life to ensure that nothing ever again dampens that fire within him.

Levoy grew up with a self-proclaimed chip on his shoulder because his mother didn’t understand his inclinations or his enthusiasm. As a child, Ritalin was put in his morning milk to suppress his natural exuberances. Because he didn’t appreciate the end results of the choices his mother made for him, he encourages others to acknowledge their own shoulder chips that might be masking a suppressed or dormant passion.

In his book and lectures, he doesn’t suggest nurturing grudges. Instead he invites and instructs people to identify their “chips” as a form of energy that can serve as tremendous motivators in one’s life.

He tells himself, “Gregg, there are always going to be forces in this world both coming from the outside and inside of you that attempt to hold your horses, rein in your natural exuberances or shame you out of them. It’s important, no; it’s critical to identify these forces. Don't make them enemies. Try to understand them and why they exist and what they are after. When they (the forces) show up as people, try to understand what their stories are. Sometimes people attempting to talk you out of your passion, is just a way of silencing their own grief at having lost their own passions and shutting you up is a way to do that.”

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This book guides you into the depths of your soul to help you uncover your unique life passions.

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In the “Vital Signs” chapter on freedom of expression, there is a correlation and important component for many of us who follow a metaphysical life. Our founder, Dr. Ernest Holmes, wrote, “The divine plan is one of freedom. The inherent nature of [the individual] is ever seeking to express itself in terms of freedom, because freedom is the birthright of every living soul.”

It's essential for individuals to get whatever is on the inside, out. You can go inward all you want as long as you advance toward your passions (this applies even to introverts). The author stresses that the critical part of one’s challenge is to get the passion out — identified and active — so that it can be shared with the world. Levoy adds, “We do so because we recognize that the passion is the risk, and it’s only by taking risks that whatever passion is in us truly comes alive.”

Echoing the wisdom Levoy espouses are the profound words of one of his favorite writers, theologian, Frederick Buechner: “The place where God calls you to is the place where your deep gladness and the world’s deep hunger meet.”

Answering the call to our life’s purposeSome “calls” come knocking at the door, others are internal, yet

often we can discover our passion by answering the calls. It works both ways so that when we uncover our passion it helps to reveal the energy commitment and direction we seek to fulfill our own life's purpose. The key to all of that is that we must have willingness and the courage to heed the call and embark upon our quest.

Levoy says that finding or cultivating passion doesn't need to be an all-or-nothing approach. The better approach is always to make small, incremental steps that move us toward our authentic selves perhaps over a six- to 12-month period. Take field notes along the way because life gives us feedback and we can then identify things that motivate, encourage and engage us, just by taking one action.

Yes, passions can fade, as it is the nature of nature that everything fades and loses energy over time. Levoy reminds us: “If habits become ruts instead of paths, we need to hit the reset button."

Once our passion is identified, it becomes our responsibility to nurture it. Levoy shared with Science of Mind magazine that recently he wanted to identify areas in his life where he was losing energy, so he began a personal campaign to identify the leaks.

He soon realized that what would awaken him and get him out of bed in the morning would be a noise outside, remembering a task, etc.

Yet, more often than not, his first thought was a negative one. He now makes a conscious effort to wait for an affirmative, more positive thought before he allows his feet to touch the floor. This begins his day with an affirmative and mindful approach that infuses the rest of the day’s activities.

He says “Vital Signs” is about striking a match to one’s exuberance and vitality. Thereby, we learn what passions provide a good reason to get out of bed each morning.

Levoy concludes, “It is critical to stay close to passion and enthusiasm, your curiosity, your sense of wonder and discovery … obviously, wonder isn't something that happens out there but in here; it is the function of the observer not the event.” z

4 Questions to Identify Our Passions

Levoy suggests we conduct our own biofeedback experiment by asking ourselves a few simple questions to determine what habits and beliefs drain our passions:

• Do I feel better or worse?• Am I excited or bored?• Do I feel expanded or

contracted?• What is my body trying

to tell me?

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