The beginning of a New Year
So it is beginning of a new year and I feel great. I have made a commitment to myself to grow into the person that I know I can be this year– full of courage, action, and prosperity! Besides isn’t that what the New Year is about anyway–taking powerful steps toward a bigger and brighter YOU? One way I have taken strides toward this end is by getting my body back in balance through cleansing. WOW what a difference cleaning out the muck inside has made in my overall attitude and vitality!!! I love this approach to true health and healing. I now feel rejuvinated and focused to do the real work in getting my life on the fast track to success.
One of the things that inspired me today, after being in the peer coaching class is that I really want to get my coaching game on. I was a little resistent last year to take the steps of getting a peer coach and coaching others because I was experiencing a little bit of stagnation in my decision to continue on with my coaching education. I have since decided to go through with the coaching in conjunction with my other studies in nutrition and integrative wellness. I have realized that they all blend beautifully and I need to take every aspect of my education seriously. So that is where I stand– enthused and committed to getting hands on experience with coaching. I look forward to learning how to be a client and a coach, as well as all the things that go into the professional aspects such as creating a welcome packet, putting up a website, networking etc. I have so much to give and now I feel more than ready to do just that. This is the year that is going to ROCK!
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I was amped up about my class I just took on values and boundaries– I think because of the timing in which I had taken the class. I just went through the most empowering workshop with the up and coming self-help guru James Ray, and after doing his 3-day intense release and clearing out process in Vegas, I feel better equipped to not only clarify my new values and boundaries, but to committ to them as well.
The thing that I realized from this class is that we truthfully can not create adequate boundaries that are to be respected when we don’t even know what are values are. And furthermore we can’t even gain respect if we don’t identify what are values are, and truly live by them. Our values are what guides us into an extraordinary and authentic life. Without values we are just puppets on a string, living everyone else’s values. But that is not authentic, that is not freedom and that certainly doesn’t lead to happiness. Yet so many times we set our goals, clarify our desires, work toward those desires and at the end of it all we have no clue why we even really want what we want. Many times we will find that a lot of what we think we want is not based on what we trully trully value in life but rather what we think we should have in order to get by in life– money, status, acceptance, approval, power. We think these are the important things that will get us our happiness. But be serious with yourself– do you really value these things, or do you want them because someone else has led you to believe that you are nothing without them? Question your values and live by your authentic values. What are you worth? What are your gifts? What is meaningful to you? What would you die for? What did you believe as a child? These will lead you into uncovering some of your values. Once you have set your values and believe you are worthy of them– in other words, that you are valuable– you are then going to understand your boundaries, that is what you will and won’t allow. These make you respect-worthy because your implementing of boundaries based on your values have demanded that you be respected.
Only when you have made clear your values and boundaries can you then start thinking big. However to even start thinking big, you need to cut your pyschic strings that have bound you to others’ judgements, criticisms and opinions which really have nothing to do with you. Remember you are living by your values not their’s. When you really get that, you can freely and fanatically start living those teetering edge goals– those big ideas that get you out of your comfort zone but not so far out that you can’t acheive them. These are the big goals that are worthy of you and allow you to showcase your magnificence and uniqueness. But you can’t get there if you are following someone else’s values and living by their set of boundaries– what they say you should accept and not accept. Listen to your own gut and most of all respect your authentic self. If you don’t, then no one will, and you will constantly be chasing the elusive “right” way to live instead of the authentic way. Get real and for goodness sake know that you deserve to be all that you came here to be!
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The situation: I am going through this new chapter in my life and doing so with great cautious, care and deliberation. I don’t want to just get into another thing, ya know– another career path that is going to have me smacking ceaselessly against a stubborn brick wall which doesn’t even have as much as a window in which to crawl through to my success. At 33 years of age and a handful of exciting career starts but quick dead ends under my belt, I have realized my professional life has been nothing but a sifting out process. In other words I have had this dating relationship with my careers– I start one, it ends up poorly, I better realize what I like and don’t like, so on to the next. And the process continues till I am finally clear about what I am a true match for and I just go for it. I mean I guess that is how it works– seems to be the case for me at least. But like a tired princess sick of kissing many frogs, I just want to hit the jackpot! I want this life coaching to finally be the one. However there is a problem…
The problem: In looking for the one in this sifting process, I am noticing that I lack a few things that I need and am carrying around a few things that I don’t. This is why my life has patterned itself to be as it is. I am first lacking the committment and focus and determination required to stay with a carrer long enough to push through the blocked “walls”. In other words a lot of times the wall doesn’t magically open up, the wall has to be chissled through with tenacity, dedication, determination, active involvement etc. My pattern has been to slack off or even run when the going gets tough, not push through with everything I had. And I thought that because I wasn’t willing to work on my carrer hard enough, that it simply meant I just didn’t have enough passion to blaze me through the hard times– so why continue on a passionless journey? And that could be true for some people, but actually my circumstance was more about failing to REALLY really give a job everything I had and reap the benefits of building strong business skills and even stronger moral. I never appreciated the process of getting something going and rolling through the punches– I just ran from the punches. Basically, I let the flames of my fears overpower the fire of my passion. These fears were my inner sabatoer screming allkinds of limiting and crippling beliefs in my ear. Not a recipe for success for sure.
So the problem as I have lived it has been that I have been looking for the knight and shining career to come galavanting in on it’s picture perfect horse instead of going out and getting it, demanding it, making it mine, loving it , nurturing it, working it, sculting it, defining and redifining it. I have been too naive or wishful in my thinking to believe that I could just start on a career path and all doors would smoothly, effortlessly and seamlessly lead straight to my heavenly purpose and fulfillment. Damn, that sucks! Well anyway it’s okay, I am learning, growing and ready to live large– ready to play a bigger game. Ready to get real and take on a new perspective with my coaching career. This time I am reday to have real love affair with my work– which will include getting through the hard knocks. But at this phase in my life I feel confident in saying that in the career sense, I have grown into my glass slippers and I am ready to meet my prince!
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Celebrating our mistakes
Wow. I feel like today is a day of true celebration. I want to celebrate my life, my wins, my efforts and even my mistakes! Why my mistakes? Because my mistakes as Karen so powerfully pointed out today in class is nothing more than a “mis- take” on a course of action. It is not my doom or demise like I erroneously perceived my mistakes in the past to be. I don’t need to punish myself therefore for my ignorance or unpredaredness that so often lends itself to mistakes. I just try again without self-prosecution. They are just one “take” out of many that I can redo, so just redo– and if I can’t redo the situation, I can still redo my perception to the situation. Just like an actor in a studio has to do many re-takes before he finally gets the scene just right, well that is how we have to do it in life. And we can celebrate these takes because they inevidably get us to where we want to go. Just like the old adage, practice makes perfect, if we fumble and fall in a situation, we just simply get up and try something new. We are not perfect and perfectly skilled before jumping into something but it is through the many takes on a course of action that we become better skilled, better prepared, better whatever.
So why not come to embace and celebrate the mistakes? You need them. They are your ally and furthermore they are inevidable. They are your learning tool and your compass. So use them as such, not as your branding or labling device for what you consider your idiocray (“oh I made a mistake, see what an idiot I am”). In other words– they are not your mistakes that make you or a situation bad or negative in some way, but rather it is you holding on to the negative judgements of yourself or the situation that makes the mistake a bad thing. So take the sting out of the dreaded “mistake” and honor yourself for the many “mis-takes” you have done and will continue to do in order to learn and grow and expand your life in ways that couldn’t have happened without the first, second, third or 10th mis-take. Eventualy, you will have your ah-ha breakthrough moment and it takes some people making many of the seemingly same mistakes to get that. But so what, who is in a race here. Loosen up on your self…
Anyway, what I am trying to say (and learn through writing this blog) is that life is a journey that no matter how skilled or prepared we think we are is going to offer up obstacles that may blindsight us. So to better prepare for this delicious exciting journey, let’s start really redifining our mistakes as they occur. Let’s turn them into the teaching tools that they are so perfectly designed for. If our mistakes are merely perceived as the horrid straight jacket that keep us stuck and imprisoned for fear of making more bad moves, than we will never advance in life– or at least not joyfully. So let’s appreciate and celebrate all that we have become through our many mis-takes in life. Let’s fully acknowledge the strength, the vulnerabiltity, humility and courage it took to suffer through our many mistakes and come out not just on top but soaring higher than we thought imaginable. Take the time to look at who you really are– who you really have become because you have been that actor in your own movie redoing and perfecting your takes until you nailed it and become the star. Who doesn’t want to celebrate there own process to stardom?!
Here is to your greatest mistakes that continue to make you a star!
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Acknowledgement
I had a feeling that I would really enjoy my acknowledgement class yesterday, and I was right. Maybe intuitively I knew that I needed to hear what was being said. I wander why something that we long for so badly and something that we know we need to do more of, is so hard to do. Well, speaking for myself, I must say that I find it easier to acknowledge and be grateful for the obvious– I am grateful for my baby nephew, my dear friends, a good meal at a nice restaraunt, for the times that I feel elated. But what about the times that aren’t so obvious? Am I grateful for the service I receive from my electric company? Not when they want me to pay them $200 a month. What about when the plumber comes over to fix my toilet? To tell you the truth, I am annoyed that I had to call him in the first place. So why wouldn’t I be grateful and acknowledge the people that make my life more comfortable. Well, that is an issue of perspective. If I am looking at the inconvenience of forking over the money or “using up” my time, then I am not very happy, but if I see and acknowledge people’s efforts for making my life better then I am truly thankful. I mean what is the alternative– that I live in a house with no A/C or decent plumbing.?? You’ve gotta be kidding me!
So to say the least, acknowledgement and staying in that state of gratitude is highly underused yet it goes such a long way. When we acknowledge others and ourselves for a job well done, we move into a more relaxed peaceful state. We simply feel good. Conversely when we are critical of others and even more so of ourselves, we are less productive and happy. Our perspective becomes “nothing is good enough”. As a result no one can please us and we definately can not please ourselves. So, this class yesterday had me really seeing how important it is to acknowlege others more but even more so to acknowledge myself. Many times I find it easy to sing other people’s praise yet it is almost impossible to sing my own. However, if I am to follow the coaching I give to others, I must really start giving myself a few more well deserved kudos and a lot less criticism. Be the change you want to see, right? If I am encouraging others yet thinking discouraging thoughts towards myself, how am I embodying the change I want to see in my clients? I am not. So my challenge for the next month is going to be to acknowledge at least 15 efforts, victories, accomplishments and services that I was able to give/do this week and then write about them in an acknowledgement journal. Besides I really DO deserve some praises
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Glass Half Full
I have just completed my second perspectives class and I feel like I just went into a therapy session. Just talking about shifting perspective and doing a perspectives exercise in class reminded me just how much control I actually have in the way I paint my life– not just circumstantially, but inwardly. What lense do I see through? This truly makes a world of difference in how my world is created. I can understand why shifting your perspective and helping the client shift theirs then makes coaching so effective. It is like a miracle drug– change your thoughts and vavoom– you have a whole new outlook as well as an entire new feeling in your gut. Life all of a sudden opens up to possibility.
Perspective is the name of the game in life and in coaching. It’s true, and with the perspectives exercise Joanna had us do last week– which was to take on a different perspective all week– I was amazed at how much it stretched me to pay attention. Predominately to pay attention to my my old defaulted thinking. My perspective I decided to take on for the exercise was “the moment is now”, or in other words there is no other moment so be here now. In doing this exercise the shift in my perspective was liberating– truly like a drug. I felt as if everything in me soften and unclinched itself. Though parts of me still struggled to want to jump to the future or chew on negative thoughts that have become habitualized, I was still able to look at those temptations or inclinations without judgement and simply notice what was going on. Afterall, it is only natural for your habituated mind to want to go racing back to its usual programming. I can’t expect to change my conditioning over night, but I can expect to change my perspective every chance I remember in which case I will eventually make living in the moment as easy as pie. We do have the control and it is truly the most liberating thing to know that no matter where I am in life, my life is just an illusion that I have painted through the lense in which I choose to look through. That is it. Circumstances may be as they are, but I define how I see those circumstances or how I feel about my life in spite of the circumstances. So is my glass half full or half empy?Perhaps the container is just too darn big to hold the liquid all together? Which do I see, and further more does it serve me? If my life is an illusion than why not pick the one that is most empowering, right? All I know is that if my perspectives class had me feeling this good after words, I am thrilled to proceed with the rest of my schooling. I have a feeling that by the end I will have experienced more, expanded and evolved more than what I initially bargained for. The journey to my new self is just beginning… I look forward to the ride!
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First Blog
Blogging is a new experience for me and so I am just blindly going into it with both feet. When you don’t know what to do, you just start somewhere, right? Anyway, this is the beginning of my new journey into life coaching and I am curious to see where I go with it. I feel as if I am a kid just approaching her freshman year of college with so many decisions and possibilities ahead. This experience is like a blank canvas and I am in charge of filling in each and every detail. Where do I go? What niche do I want to go into? what classes do I take? How do I want to structure my business and my website? In this sifting and creating process, I am noticing that I am becoming quite the good coach because I am asking myself all the important questions to get clear as well as get my booty in gear. However, I have to say that just like a new college kid, I have been getting a little flustered and overwhelmed with it all (which is to be expected). It is all good though because I understand that acclamating to the new environment is part of the experience and it always seems a little daunting at first. As much as I get frustrated, I also know that the blessing is in the moving out of the comfort zone and getting challenged with new things (i.e. blogging). It is all perspective so i choose the one that allows me to smile. :)
Until next time…
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