This “Year of Synergy” Writeup and Reading is Part One of “Synergy: The Key to Sustainable Life.” Following will be “Synergy and Love Relationships” and “Synergy and Work Partnerships.”

For “Synergizing Yourself,” the focus of this discussion, here are the four great “SYNERGIZERS” that you can do for yourself and by yourself.

LOVE YOURSELF, EVEN THE SHADOW

First and foremost, embrace yourself, all of yourself, the good and the bad, the beautiful and the ugly. Have the audacity to love yourself. When you look at the Lovers tarot card, which is a universal and archetypal truth for total aliveness and wholeness, notice how the sculpture depicts a man and woman in embrace, but they are composed of the same stone, so it’s deeper essence symbolizes to enfold in your own arms all the different and various parts of yourself.

I know this may sound corny, but tell yourself that you love yourself. Please do not get caught up in all the hype about self-love being pathologically narcissistic, unless you are extreme. Some self-centeredness is absolutely required in today’s world, and in fact, studies have shown that narcissists are often the best leaders with the most charisma and creativity.

To have just the right balance of self-love and collective empathy, look at your so-called “shadow side,” that part of you that you don’t really love, and in fact, may despise and disown. Remember, we are talking synergy, and everything, even those gnarly parts of you, are energy. Tap into your “dark” aspects because they are resources.

If you are living in denial and disowning your shadowy nature, you are not synergistic and cannot be fully potentiated into your optimum and sustainable being. In fact, you are “unergistic,” a word that I have created that describes unsustainable behavior. So, the primary step to embracing your unloved self is to follow “The Four A’s of Self-Healing.” First, Accept those features and habits you don’t like in yourself. Like in AA, own it, admit it, declare it, accept it. Second, be Aware of when you deny and denigrate yourself. Finally, let your awareness be a sign and spark to Affirm how you are transforming your shadow side into light. Take Action, even if it’s talking to yourself that your are lovable and/or by doing something that is habit-changing.

TEAM YOU

Synergize yourself by seeing yourself as a team that is composed of the four basic portals of consciousness that run you – the mental, emotional, physical and spiritual. Translating this into everyday life means that whenever you have a decision to make that is uncertain, vexing or confusing, ask your heart what decision moves it and makes it beat. Ask your thinking mind what direction is most stimulating. Ask your body how if feels about a choice. Ask your deepest-most self or higher-self or intuitive inner knowing self, what decision is the “right thing” to do. When these are aligned, you are operating synergistically because you are following the energy state of your whole being. If you can, make these piloting calculations while you are in a state of balance, peace and equanimity, which is when you are most clear.

In today’s challenging world, it’s imperative to be functioning fully and optimally, and this wholistic way of self-governance and navigation gives you that critical sustain-ability.

AND

The fundamental principle for recharging your life is to “synergize your language.” Our words reflect and shape our consciousness, so changing our languaging changes our awareness and ultimately our actions. The most synergistic word we can use is “AND.”

Unfortunately, left-brain analytical and logical thinking, though clearly necessary, has hijacked the brilliance of our whole brain, resulting in division and “unergy.” This exclusionary way of thinking leads to an “either-or” way of life, which inherently creates separation, conflict and ultimately, war within ourselves and with others.

The real world, in fact, has as many truths as there are sentient beings. Whole brain, synergistic thinking is inclusive – including all perspectives and possibilities. This requires utilizing the creative right brain, the critical left brain, the intuitive-visionary-emotional forebrain, and the ancient reptilian brain. Then, your 100 billion brain neurons are all firing and re-igniting each other. Get smart. And stay smart.

With this kind of “both-and, and more” thinking, you not only optimize your mental powers, you embrace the whole and not limit and squander away all the resources and potentials open to you. So, love all of you, the worthy AND “unworthy. Utilize all of you, the mental AND emotional, the physical AND spiritual.

With self-awareness and action, you can dismiss the “but” word of the overly-critical mind to prevent you from sitting on your butt. (And by the way, excessive sitting, exhibited by most modern people, is now seen as a pathology called “sedentary behavior disorder” because you lose 20% of your oxygen to the brain, which cuts back your mind power). “And” is perhaps the most important word for anyone who wants to sustain, so when in conversation with yourself and others, remember to say, “yes, and.” The word, “and,” takes you out of the adversarial position of right and wrong and into recognition of difference. And, “and” gets you off your butt, out of paralysis by analysis, and into creating and doing.

THE INNER MARRIAGE

And one of the most fundamental self-integrating actions we can do for ourselves is to be both yin and yang, feminine and masculine. Sustainability demands personal diversity-in-harmony, and the inner male-female union is core . And it’s the most practical, effective skill for for inter-personal synergy, communication and community.

The Lovers androgynous archetype pictures the “inner marriage” of both your receptive and projective qualities. In the world today, as women ascend the social-economic-political ladder and move into positions of power and influence, it is imperative that women tap their masculine, external-directed, goal-oriented, achievement, mentalist, and worldly activist aspects; and men access the feminine power of openness, acceptance, feelings, and relationship, empathic, people-centric way.

The most immediate way to cultivate this synergistic conjunction of anima and animus is when you are with men, be like a man, and when with women, be like a women. As social creatures, we learn and grow by copying and mirroring.

Know that too much of one mode of being, whether its maleness or femaleness, is limiting, tiring, and repetition is the killer. When we repeat, we deplete. Changing up, the way seasons in nature change, is essential to perpetual renewability. The balancing of opposites is nature’s way of constant sustainability. Receive and transmit. Listen and speak. Reflect and act. Feel and think. Be and do.

LOVE, PEACE, CREATIVITY, ENERGY

By applying these four acts of self-synergy, you naturally create the great qualities that sustain yourself and the world. You will naturally be more loving and bring more love to the world. You will naturally have more inner peace and bring more peace in your relationships. You will naturally be more creative through the “alchemy” of mixing and matching, meeting and mating different parts of yourself, which in turn contributes to the ongoing evolutionary imperative. You will naturally have more energy and energize a world of people who are unsustainable because they do not know how regenerate and revitalize.