Elements of Life: 12 Bridges Back to You - Nia Peeples

Alive within the energy field of every single one of you is a light so abundant, so overwhelmingly alive, that to touch upon it would fill your longing heart. -Bartholomew, Reflections of an Elder Brother

Element 1 of the audio series “Elements of Life:12 Bridges Back to You” is Individuality. Nia kicks off the entire series with Individuality because, as she states,

“I consider it to be one of the most powerful elements because I believe it is the basis of our diverse personal greatness, genius, and happiness.”

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ANECDOTE 1:

“...our being of mixed race meant that we would never fit in. It meant that we would never succeed and never be accepted. After all the joy we had provided for those children, she told my father that it would have been better if he had never brought us into this world at all; that God never meant for it to be that way.”

Ask yourself: Am I allowing my children, my friends and family, or even my job, to experience the most wonderful parts of me? If not, what unique pieces of myself do I wish I could share with them more, and share with them more often?

“Anyone can count the seeds in an apple. Only god can count the number of apples in a seed.” -Robert Schuler

Element 2 of the audio series “Elements of Life:12 Bridges Back to You” is Faith. Following up her first seminar on Individuality, Nia discusses Faith stating:

“I thought it would be helpful to talk about the element that must always live beside individuality. That element is Faith. Not faith in terms of religion or GOD, rather, it is faith in who you are, most naturally, as a unique being, and faith in who you are becoming. It is faith that the universal, ever-flowing energy, or whatever else we may call it, can not help but conspire to bring us closer to realizing who we are at our most authentic, through all of our deep and driving desires, a little serendipity, and many hard lessons learned.”

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“...the only thing standing between me and my destiny was this one audition… and 8.999 other people! I nervously handed her the material. My sweaty little palms still gripping the sheet music, I followed her across the expansive hardwood floor to the table of unenthused critics who sat waiting for me to wow them into consciousness.

... They applauded when I sang. They nodded and conferred when I read and when I danced, they laughed. Yep. They laughed and excused me...”

Ask yourself:

Aside from physical illness or loss, what one event would have potentially changed my life for the better had it turned out differently?

"If you bring forth what is within you What you bring forth will save you. If you do not bring forth what is within you, What you do not bring forth will destroy you." the gospel of Thomas

Element 3 of the audio series “Elements of Life:12 Bridges Back to You” is Passion. In this seminar Nia discusses the importance of passion in our lives and helps us find ways to unearth and better define it. She shares what it means to be responsible for our passion, as well as how to listen to what it’s telling us. In taking responsibility for and listening to our passion, we allow it to lead us to our greater selves, opening us up to embody our happier, more powerful, more authentic selves.

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... Christmas of 1969 we gave my dad a remote controlled model airplane. Sounds a little crazy, doesn’t it? Not when you think of everything that airplane represented. It represented his own individual joy, rather than joy shared with someone else as a result of their own personal, happy experiences. It was a representation our acknowledgment that my dad was indeed his own person, full of his own desires and talents and loves.

And so, when he lifted the airplane out of it’s box and, pardon the expression, flashed that shit eating grin of his, we knew that the day was a huge success. But you know something? He never would take that plane outside. Never would take it outside to fly it …”

Ask yourself: What is something MAJOR I could either add to or subtract from my life, that would make me deeply joyful?

a. in my home life

b. in my work or career

c. in my fun zone.

Courage is not the absence of fear but the judgement that something else is more important. by Ambrose Redmoon

Element 4 of the audio series “Elements of Life:12 Bridges Back to You” is Courage. In this seminar Nia shares her insights on courage.

“In order to have the experiences that inspire us to accept the power in our uniqueness and joyfulness, we must meet each day, each event, and each moment with courage. Courage, though, is not just about facing fears, but also about embracing the greater unknown possibilities that potentially exist for us, possibilities we might never be able to conceive on our own.

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“...Then one day a thought occurred to her. This is crazy. I can’t just keep doing this while the world is happening out there without me. She convinced herself that the only way out of it, was to go through it. Yet, as she stood in line, patiently waiting for her turn “at bat,” her heart began to pound and beads of sweat collected on to her forehead. Approaching the front of the line, the sounds of her surrounding classmates, the screaming and shouting, the clattering of the chain link fence as the kids shook it with excitement, seemed to grow even louder, echoing in her ears. In that moment, she recognized and accepted the presence of her feelings of fear, and determined not to let them control her. And so, as she marched out onto the field for her turn, she swallowed her nerves and focused on one thing, and one thing only: kicking the ball.

I remember that moment like it was yesterday. I remember because that little girl was me. That whole scene probably took no more than 45 seconds, but that’s all the time I needed for it to change my life. You see, in that 45 seconds I learned two very important things...”

Ask yourself: What is one thing in my life that I am afraid of reaching for?

A single event can awaken a stranger totally unknown to us. To live

is to be slowly born. -Antione de St. Exupery

Element 5 of the audio series “Elements of Life:12 Bridges Back to You” is Adventure. In this seminar Nia begins by posing a question: “Let me ask you a question. Do you feel alive? Excited? Curious? Or do you feel like you’re living in a box, a world that has been rigidly formed with seemingly no room for originality? Perhaps you created this life because it provides a nice safety net. Yet, at the same time, this net you have constructed around yourself feels like a noose.

Well, maybe your life is a bit too defined. Maybe it is limiting the potential for growth in your personal identity. Although this life of comfort can seem satisfying, there will always be this voice inside of you fighting to be heard, no matter how hard you try to keep it tucked away. Driven by a desperate need be brought forth, discovered, and explored, it will continue clawing at you from the inside until you make the decision to throw open the door and let it out.

In this chapter, we’re going to explore the correlation between adventure and the foundation of who we are as women, as mothers and sisters, as wives and girlfriends, as household supervisors, and as professionals. Then, we’re going to look at the important role adventure plays in the ongoing development of who we are, how we think, how we share, and how we live.”

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“I’m sick. Sick at sea and sick of the sea. The Indian Ocean.

We’ve been sailing these waters now for nineteen days. The air reeks of decomposed fish and rotten vegetables. Every last drop of fresh water has been emptied from the tanks and I feel like I’m getting ready to heave. Laying here in my forward berth, water dripping through a crack in the ceiling onto my head and rats running over the bags of rice at my feet, all I can think about is mustering my last ounce of energy to go topside and throw myself overboard. So much for this adventure.

“Focus Nia, why are you here?” To bring aid to the victims of the devastating tsunami that were living on the most remote islands. How much longer until you hit land? Only 10 hours, less than a full days work on the set of your last TV series. Certainly if you can withstand that tedium…”

Suddenly. the pelting rain ceases to a halt and the nauseating rocking of the boat gives way to a soft roll. Finally, we’ve made it through the squall and not a minute too soon. I crawl up into the galley and am greeted by the sweet smell of coffee. Life is making sense again. This leaky boat sure as hell doesn’t have craft service, but what it does have is Indonesian coffee. Right now, that’s worth more than gold to me. As I filter the coffee through my last clean sock, I take a moment to apologize to my feet before heading to the upper deck and settling into a conversation with our female Muslim doctors about….God...”

Ask yourself: When was the last time I did something adventurous in ‘my own back yard?’

Take a minute to recall that memory and ask: “What do I see in the world around me? What do I smell? What do I hear?” Then ask yourself: “What do I feel? What do I now know about me?”

Freedom is not the right to live as we please, but the right to find

how we ought to live in order to fulfill our potential

-Ralph Waldo Emerson

Element 6 of the audio series “Elements of Life:12 Bridges Back to You” is Freedom. In this seminar, Nia examines what freedom really is, emphasizing the point that failure to exercise our freedom to create the lives we want is the same as not having freedom at all. Acting as our guide, she walks us through different areas of our lives, calling attention to inherited paradigms. Paradigms that have been ingrained in our minds by those that came before us and christened them as ‘status quo.’ She assists us in pinpointing certain instances where we’ve allowed our lives, our homes, and our relationships to be created for us by nothing more than default.

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“Dad, I can’t run for office because I’m already in too many activities.”

“What?” he asked, “Why not?”

“Well, because it would be too hard for someone to do all those things and keep their grades up,” I replied.

“Says who?” came his response.

“Says the principal. It’s a school policy.”

“How do they know you can’t handle it?” Dad quipped.

“Well, they don’t, I guess, but those are the rules. I’d like to run for office, but I’d have to choose.” Now my dad was getting agitated. “They have no right to tell you what you can or can’t handle. Nia, if this is something you really want, I suggest you challenge their dog-gone rule.”

I remember thinking, challenge the rule?? Who challenges the rules?...

Ask yourself: Where am I settling? Where do I want to reach for more, or for something different? In my work? In my pocket book? In my kitchen? In my relationships?

Life is like a bicycle: to keep your balance, you must keep moving.

-Albert Einstein

Element 7 of the audio series “Elements of Life:12 Bridges Back to You” is Balance. In this seminar, Nia helps us clarify what a balanced life might look like for each of us, individually, and creates steps to help move us in that direction. She emphasizes the idea that “failing to achieve that point of perfect balance is not what we have to beware of. The real concern is in inadvertently achieving that single point of imbalance and allowing ourselves to get stuck there.”

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“... Just because I let a few friends park their stuff at my house, the shape of my life, as well as who I was as a person, changed completely. Where I was once playful, I became rushed and serious. Where I once spent time creating with my kids and welcoming friends into my home, I now didn’t have the time to “waste.” It wasn’t a conscious change, though. It was something that crept in…”

Ask yourself: Am I creating my life or is my life creating me?

a. Make a list of 1-3 things you are consciously creating in your life.

b. Make a list of 1-3 ways you are being changed by your life that make you feel uncomfortable, inauthentic, unhappy.

Forgiveness does not change the past. But it breaks the chains that bind our past to our future.

-Nia Peeples

Element 8 of the audio series “Elements of Life:12 Bridges Back to You” is Forgiveness. In her most powerful seminar, Nia shares some very personal anecdotes and examines the many different facets of forgiveness: the power of it, the lack of it in each of our lives, and the incredible need for the giving and receiving of it. She then asks some very poignant questions, helping us unearth the places in our lives where it is buried deepest, yet needed most. She helps us boldly step forward through the doors of forgiveness so that we may assume our most authentic selves. In letting go of our grudges, anger, and blame, we open ourselves up to experience the infinite possibilities that lie within our new found self-empowerment we were only able to obtain through forgiveness.

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ANECDOTE 1:

“Even though I have difficulty sharing this, I feel it would be helpful. I’ve only recently been able to work up the courage to confide in someone about it, that someone being my husband. Many years ago, I was married to an abusive man. Certain types of pressure provoked verbal abuse, which eventually cultivated into physical abuse. A few nights before I was to return home from insert place for clarification, we had an encounter. An encounter that never should have happened in the first place. An encounter that became physical. I was in such denial...”

ANECDOTE 2: In contemplating forgiveness, I decided to make a list of those I needed to forgive. In doing so, I realized, for the first time, that I had been holding on to all of this pain and hurt and using it as a shield. Most surprising, however, was the discovery of my need to forgive myself for potential unfulfilled, dreams I failed to pursue, and goals I never met. Out of everything, those particular regrets, I wore around my neck like a noose. Every disappointment I set myself up for, even the simplest of things, caused it tighten so that every time I took a breath, I could feel it there, punishing me.

Ask yourself: What person, event, or perceived failure, on my part, puts me in a state of ‘against?’

...whatever grievance you are holding on to, is holding on to you.

“Your clarity, your joy, your genius will not come solely through the contemplation of what has been. It will come through the infinite possibilities that have yet to be.”

-Nia Peeples

Element 9 of the audio series “Elements of Life:12 Bridges Back to You” is Inspiration. In this seminar Nia explains her need for inspiration. We examine the power of both being inspired and being an inspiration. Because, as Nia states, “When you’re inspired, you are an inspiration.You can not separate one from the other.” She then goes on to say, “Inspiration is everywhere, we just have to learn to access it.” In this chapter, Nia lays out a very clear plan of action for finding and connecting with the inspiration we so desperately need.

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I felt as though I had completely outgrown everything I was doing, everything that branded me as “Nia” …With tremendous excitement and trepidation, hopefulness and confusion, I acknowledged the desire within myself to break away from my defining roles and replace them with a fresh foundation for inspiration. At 43, I figured I had only two choices. The first would involve some kind of cosmetic surgery, like a nose job, boob job, or brow lift. The second, more lucrative, of the two meant going to look for myself somewhere out, way out , in the world. It meant focusing on something bigger, more meaningful, more consuming than my own life or career. So, in the aftermath of a catastrophic earthquake and tsunami that devastated South East Asia in 2004, I decided to go with option two and travelled to the wild islands off Sumatra, Indonesia where I joined a rag tag team of rebel relief workers...

Ask yourself: What about me inspires others?

Make a List of 3 moments where people found inspiration through me.