sheffrawilliams
| Forum role | Member since | Last activity | Topics created | Replies created |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Member | Mar 30, 2012 (14 years) |
- | 2 | 0 |
- Forum role
- Member
- Member since
Mar 30, 2012 (14 years)
- Last activity
- -
- Topics created
- 2
- Replies created
- 0
Bio
I am inspired by stories of how ordinary moments, especially the unexpected, become "holy ground," places of transformation of mind, body and spirit. I have tracked these moments in my own life and written a book, Flying With Two Wings: Finding and Living Your Passion, (1989, 1992) (Sheffra Williams-Sam)about men and women who uncovered forgotten, positive, moments in their childhood experiences, which, when recalled, massively changed their lives.
I speak about this human capacity to see through events to the meaning which appears to be intended by the occurrence. I write story poems about such moments, because I love poetry and story, and how a single word or line can turn the ordinary into the holy. I also have a performance persona, Tenaya, wild woman, who loves the Eastern Sierras, collects herbs and flowers, swims naked in the hot springs.
For work, I have the pleasure of helping owners of businesses to fall in love with their own reasons for doing what they do, reasons mostly buried in childhood, reasons that when revealed to their customers, transforms those customers into a "hallelujah chorus," what you might call, customers for life.
I absolutely love when the entreprenuer and employee see the much bigger story, bigger than they ever imagined and realize that a cause has seized them. They have had a sneaking suspicion that something lurked beneath their intentions, but now, off they go, unstoppable, enjoying what had been a burden. They are absolutely willing to decide and commit, loving on their customers, knowing that failure is not an option. Problems are only information nodes, with embedded lessons that must be learned.
I am a martial artist, (over twenty-five years), a watcher of birds and nature, and I love to dance. However, what thrills me most is to advocate for the sharing of positive childhood experiences by professionals and those passionate about their work, with children ten to twelve years of age. A friend of mine, Dr. Susan Van Vorhis Key, Ph.D, an Entomologist, routinely shares her story of collecting bugs and having a bug zoo when she was eight, with millions of children and teachers and there are adults, now Entomologist themselves, who heard her when they were 12.
My early years of education, BA at the University of Southern California and later a Masters Degree and becoming a Dean's Graduate Scholar, were places through which I had to journey to reach the joy I have today. However, I was lost, for many reasons. Hey, the good news is that I know what it means to wander without awareness of the story living in me.
I look forward to your responses to my postings and to hearing