☆ Belief Statement About The Work I Share
The work I share with the world - and how I share it - is a mysteriously beautiful, beautifully mysterious mix of my offerings (innate and learned), the universe’s offerings (clear and beyond-the-known), and societal offerings (advantages and restrictions). My sphere of influence is where I give and direct my time and energy.
Be With Cassandra's Eight Values
These are the foundational values Be With Cassandra embodies. I hope knowing these will assist you as you learn more about me and my creative offerings.
1. I have a body.* I am considerate and compassionate to my body and to yours.
Our bodies need water, rest, food, touch, breath, movement, breaks, shelter, and play. In all my work, I seek to acknowledge, respect, and invite in your body and mine.
2. I am connected with the earth and all beings.* I am considerate and compassionate to the earth and all beings.
I nurture my own sense of belonging by remembering I belong to the earth and the earth belongs to me. One example of this is that I have a meditation in which I walk through the forest and see a particular tree and say (aloud or to myself) “I belong to you. And you belong to me.”
3. I am in service to the well-being of the human and of the system.
I follow well-researched fact-based best practices and expect the same of the customers, clients and colleagues with whom I work. I agree to do my best to meet each human where they are and invite them on a journey of development and growth.
4. The ‘we’ is given as much attention as 'you' and 'me.'
I work with humans and more-than-humans who wish to sustain fruitful, joyful, reliable, and mutually beneficial partnerships with me. Each partnership (the ‘we’) develops its own cadence and rhythm and invites in a flow of joyful and healthy generosity and receptivity. Since I am often working with humans who care for others, the ‘we’ also includes the constellations surrounding the human.
5. I nourish my joie de vivre through experimentation. I consider everything an experiment.**
I give myself and those with whom I work permission to not know and to make mistakes. We have permission to incorporate our shared wealth of knowledge, experience, wisdom, and intuition. Our humanity is embraced. Imperfection is embraced, often through humor and with love. Imperfection is where reality lives anyhow. Curiosity, feelings, and play are at home with imperfect experimentation. And you’ll find me at home there, too.
6. My business serves as a healing for myself and for others.*
We live in a time in which many call the age of isolation. I seek to nurture a sense of belonging and practice of encouragement because the kinship we form acts as a salve for each of us. When one feels a sense of relatedness, one is also more able to learn.
7. My business is a prototype of the world in which I want to live.*
My business is not a static entity nor an entity in which maximum growth and scalability is paramount. Rather, growth is iterative and incremental. Bold moves call for a practice of sweetly-sized steps. There is such a thing as action. There is such a thing as reflection. Then there’s a thing called completion. Through it all, there is an undercurrent of synchronicity, enoughness (and often abundance), and reclamation of center. This ebb and flow is the world in which I want to live. And I make it so by nurturing a business that accepts these as realities.
My business is not me, nor am I my business (even though my name is in my business name!). Rather, my business and I are in partnership. I listen to what my business wants to become and I seek to be clear in what I need from it, monetarily and otherwise. This business partnership is the world in which I want to live. And I make it so by nurturing a business that accepts these as realities.
8. I am an agent of change and growth. I trust the unfolding process.
I disrupt by bringing reflection, change and growth into my world and the world. I am agile and responsive to change and growth surrounding me and within me. I see change as constant and inevitable, and growth as a response to change. When I trust, I am able to grow. When we trust, we are able to grow.
The belief statement is a living statement written in July 2020. Last updated August 2021.
The list of eight values is a living document written in August 2020. Last updated August 2021.
*My business is in the process of embodying feminist business principles. The starred principles come from Jennifer Armbrust’s 12 Principles for Prototyping a Feminist Business.
**This juicy one is rule #4 on Sister Corita Kent’s Rules made for the Immaculate Heart College Art Department.
I give gratitude to Sister Corita Kent and Jennifer Armbrust in offering their principles and rules to the world and to my world.