IDENTIFYING YOUR ZONE OF GENIUS
WHAT IS THE ZONE OF GENIUS?
You may have heard the phrase ZONE OF GENIUS - a new age concept coined by psychologist, Gay Hendricks and the author of the Big Leap. Another term associated with this state of being is "the flow state". There is some beautiful wisdom to harvest behind these mental concepts that we will be unpacking this week so we can recognize them in our own life experience.
Think of it as uniting what you’re most confident in with your calling. The key to your genius zone is to take your natural talent and channel it into your passion and purpose so that you genuinely enjoy your work.
The Zone of Genius is the space where you feel alive; the things that you love the most about what you do. You can harvest moments of genius throughout a variety of everyday moment. It is the place where you thrive as if no time has past.
Living in your Genius Zone is truly about accessing the magic of our innate abilities that have always been with us, embracing them and allowing them to flow through us to meet an outer need.
THE ZONE OF EFFORTLESS EASE
Your zone of genius is an effortless state of being where you are simply living at your best. It's where your natural and innate abilities intersect with what you are passionate about. You get a shining light in your eyes, people can see it in your smile and hear it in your voice. Take a moment to reflect on those people you have met in your life who are living their dharma...they just seem to glow and you can feel it! It's a state of being where inspiration flows to you and through you and from you. You feel deeply engaged and energized.
The inspiration that has been awoken in you then flows to them and awakens something in them. Your zone of genius (innate spirit) is a life lived as an expression of your essence; Life becomes a reflection of your own radiance.
When we discover our own authentic and meaningful way to share our gifts with the world, we feel Joy like no other. Life begins to unfold in a way you could never imagine - magic is everywhere. Your path becomes clear, and Life gifts you with the exact situations for your highest service and growth.
WHY WE DON'T ALWAYS RECOGNIZE OUR GENIUS
It is not always easy to look objectively at ourself and immediately perceive what our zone of genius is. This can cause some of our most precious gifts and talents to slip right underneath our nose sometimes leading us to take on the belief that there is nothing special about us or feeling as if we don't have any unique gifts.
The truth is, our genius can sometimes stay bottled up inside of us due to limiting beliefs or feelings of inadequacy; you can imagine it like a tight bud that may need some recognition to unfurl. This weeks tools will open our awareness to begin to recognize it so we can water it with our attention.
This week's group Mastermind will help shine a light on the gaps we may miss. Sometimes we need someone else to help us to recognize our special spark within ourselves.
LIVING IN GENIUS = LIVING IN FLOW
The more we live within our GENIUS space and allow our unique energy to be expressed - the more alive, inspired, connected, creative, FLOW and EASE we experience. We also experience an increasing flow of synchronicities and serendipitous events due to being in a state of LOVE of being.
Deepening our awareness of our Genius Zone drops us into living from our heart space, doing what we most love to do, which naturally results in a large decrease in habitual negative thinking and more inner harmony.
HOW TO IDENTIFY YOUR ZONE OF GENIUS
Taking time to contemplate and write a list of your innate abilities, gifts and life passions. This will empower you to see new pathways that enable us to spend more time engaging in our essence energy that nourishes us from the inside out.
Take some time to get curious and ask, "What are my...
- Innate gifts - What Am I Good At? These are usually things that people compliment you on or you have been recognized for that maybe you have brushed off as unimportant. Put in here everything that makes you feel a warm glow when you think of doing it. The activities which most absorb you and create a flow state when you do them.
- Passions - What Do I Love to Do? the things you could spend all day doing in joy and feel like you loose track of time doing them
- Wisdom/Skills Cultivated From Challenges - to figure out your vocation, reflect on the personal experiences and challenges that have shaped you into who you are today. Only you have grown through them in the way you did to harvest the perspective and wisdom that can help others. Write down the major transitions and struggles in your life you have persevered, noting what was difficult and what you learned from them
The Zone of Genius Meditation will support you in creating space in your mind to connect with the moments in your life that you were living in an expression of your genius to get familiar with the quality of energy being associated with that state…
Once you finish the mediation, and are in a nice alpha brainwave state where creativity is flowing, you are invited to reflect on your life experience and write out what comes through. Each piece is a puzzle of a your unique soul blueprint. It's okay if you don't have crystal clarity right now, it can be hard to see something that you have never looked for before. But now that you are aware of it, you will awaken to more of these moments as they occur in your daily life.
GENIUS QUESTIONS TO JOURNAL ON
***These are the same questions included in the meditation above
- What are some peak conversations you have had with friends where you felt light up, inspired, deeply touched and goosebumps all over your body?
- What are some reoccurring words of appreciate you have received throughout your life? Certain qualities that leave others feeling uplifted.
- What work would you do even without any incentives (pay or praise)? What about this work makes you love it?
- In what activities do you experience a vibrational shift in your body when something seems to kick into a higher gear?
- What work produces exciting and energizing ideas without effort? Almost as if a channel opens up and insights stream through.
- What is your unique channel of expression to share what you love most? (writing, talking, dancing, speaking, hands on creating, movement, etc)
- What was a recent time where you felt like you were in flow (like you lost track of time)... what you were thinking of while working? Try to pin point how you felt and why.
Reflect on these questions and allow them to start pointing you towards your genius ,which will act as a beacon for the rest of our self-discovery work as we move through the week.
TOOLS TO REVEAL YOUR GENIUS
I SPY THE GENIUS IN ANOTHER
Think of 3 people who you admire or inspires you and try to identify what their zone of genius is. This is going to help you to have a deeper understanding of the Genius energy you are naturally attracted to as a mirror to recognizing it within yourself. This is an initiation to begin to tune your awareness to start to notice and look for it in everyone you meet and recognize the Divine spark in everyone around you.
Challenge Transformer Reflection Tool
This is a simple exercise to shift your lens of perception on major life challenges or hardship themes/patterns that have had a major role in shaping you today.
We can either remain a victim of challenging circumstances or we can harvest the wisdom that was there to teach us and empower ourselves and others. We reclaim our power once we recognize we can choose the lenses we look at our challenges through!
