06 Sep , 23:14 | Admin   08 Sep 2009   03:29:29 pm An Opinion Fast An Opinion Fast My son has gotten on a banana bread kick lately. He enjoys eating it, but most especially he likes mixing it up using a recipe he saw on a kid’s show. He only wants to use this particular recipe though and we’ve recently found out that he is allergic to bananas, wheat, milk and eggs. Banana bread, or banana cake, as he calls it, is pretty much the perfect storm of what he isn’t supposed to be eating. Still, I hate to squelch creativity and the opportunity to do a project together, so I figured we’d just use another recipe; one that uses things he can have. It would still have bananas, but at least not all the other off-limits ingredients. Needless to say, this idea did not go over too well. He really wanted to make it his way, so I did one that he could later eat, and let him make a second batter using the TV recipe. He followed the recipe to the letter in some parts, but for some reason went a bit overboard on the salt. The batter got a huge pour of salt rather than the pinch that was called for. Still, we baked it up and when it was cool, he asked to eat some. That’s when I heard myself saying, “I don’t think you’re going to like it. It’s going to be very salty.” I have a lot of opinions. I guess most human beings do, but I seem to have an extra abundance of them sometimes. Just ask my husband and he will no doubt confirm it. I do a pretty good job of keeping them in check in my professional life because I’ve been trained to not overshadow my clients with my perspective and my thoughts on a subject, but in the rest of my life, I could use a little work. I decided one way to at least be aware of how many times I spout my opinion would be to go on a week-long “opinion fast.” I started this yesterday morning. I am pretty sure I can’t stop myself from having opinions, but I figured I could at least try to refrain from sharing them – even if my opinion was that something was good. I caught myself twice offering up the opinion that something was good or a good idea, but then came the banana bread comment. Yes, it’s probably a fact that the banana bread will be saltier than most recipes, but I really can’t possibly know if my son will end up liking it that way, and it really wasn’t going to hurt anything to let him discover for himself. He actually did eat a little bit of it, until one of my cats came over and gave it a few big licks. I’m fairly sure that cats don’t typically eat banana bread, but I know that they do like salt. That was the end of that banana bread experiment but it was a valuable learning experience for both of us. Well, I couldn’t even make it through one day without offering up some opinions, but I’m still going to continue trying for the rest of the week. If nothing else, I’ll at least strengthen my awareness of how much I do it. My goal is to get much better at listening to the people I’m interacting with; to be aware of their thoughts and wishes and to really hear what they are trying to communicate without having it get lost in the formulation of my opinions about it. And now, if you’ll excuse me, I have to go to the store. We are just about out of salt. Category : Family | By : great12 | Comments [89] | Trackbacks [0] 01 Aug 2009   03:01:46 pm Being Your Authentic Self Most of us walk around wearing some sort of mask, and this applies to me as much as anyone. Social conventions keep the wheels of society rolling and in many respects they provide a valuable service, but it’s also all too easy to fall into being whom and what other people expect you to be, rather than exploring what you really want. Uncovering and developing your authentic self can we a rewarding experience, although one that may come with a little discomfort. I still remember what it felt like when I was a young, newly married woman and I made the decision to stop working. My husband had a job where he was expected to work as many hours as possible, including weekends and late into the night on many occasions. We came to the conclusion that we would have better quality time together when he was home if I were free to take care of all the other aspects of our lives without working a 9-5 job as well. It was an arrangement that suited us well, but I had to get used to the looks I often received in career-conscious Washington, D.C. when I was asked what I did for a living. As much as I would have liked to “fit in” it wasn’t worth the trade off I would have had to make to do so. As with any muscle, the more you use it, the stronger it gets. I’ve started to continually ask myself, “Does this reflect who I really am or what I want for myself? Whom am I doing this for?” There may even be areas where you aren’t even aware that you are living out someone else’s expectations. I’ve recently become conscious of the fact that although I am fascinated with energy work and have studied several modalities I haven’t really incorporated it much into my coaching. I’ve been denying something that is very important to me because I wasn’t entirely sure how other people would receive it. Recently, I’ve come to realize that it’s okay if not everyone wants to have that as a part of their coaching experience, but there is nothing wrong with giving them the option. As I move towards natural ways to bring energetic techniques and practices into my coaching sessions, I find that I am breathing a little easier because I am not expending any energy to hide who I really am. There is a certain freedom that comes from playing the role that I have created for myself, rather than the one I might believe that others expect of me. It’s still a balancing act to do what is authentic for me, while not making others uncomfortable, but I’d much rather walk that tightrope than spend my life hiding behind a mask that really doesn’t look like me at all. Category : General | By : great12 | Comments [71] | Trackbacks [0] 29 Jun 2009   01:11:03 pm Follow Your Dreams, Not the Consolation Prize People often ask me how I got into coaching and the answer in short is that I embraced what I truly wanted, despite a lot of fear and reservations about how to make it happen. I was at the point in my life where caring for my son was no longer taking up all my time. He was in elementary school and I began looking for a part time job – one that would let me use my brain to think about grown-up topics; something that would nourish my creativity and give me something that was just for me. I met a life coach through Harrison’s school and decided that would be a good way to explore some of the ideas I had. I’ve always enjoyed writing, so I thought that might be a possibility. I had something else in mind as well, but I can’t remember now what it was. The parameters were that I had to have a flexible schedule that I would set and a certain amount of autonomy. I also wanted to be able to work mostly from home and I wanted something that really interested me. I wasn’t too far along in my coaching agreement before I fell in love with coaching. It seemed like a good mix of my skills and interests, and yet, I just couldn’t see how I would ever be able to do it, so I kept pushing the notion aside. First there was the matter of training. The program I wanted to do was located in California and I live on the East coast. I’d only have to go out there 4 times for 5 days at a time over 15 months, but it was still daunting. I also needed tuition money to enroll in the training program. Then there was the matter of an office and finding clients. It seemed too impossible, so I put it aside and continued to explore the other possibilities but I really couldn’t make a lot of progress because none of them were what I really wanted to do. After several weeks of seriously resisting the idea of becoming a coach, I finally admitted that was what really excited me. As I spent more and more time getting clear about what I really wanted, the pieces started to fall into place. My uncle, who had passed away earlier in the year, bequeathed me almost the exact sum I needed for tuition. My husband agreed to take off early on the days that I would be out of town and down the line a bit I figured out a way to sublet some office space and share it with another coach who also only needed it part time. Once I put the fear aside and started really looking at the details of what, when and with whom, the how started to become apparent. The same type of thing recently happened with a client of mine. We had spent several months looking at possibly moving to another city and trying to figure out what kind of job she might want. She kept saying that she just didn’t know where she wanted to go. We made progress on clarifying some of the parameters, but nothing seemed to really gel. After a while it came out that what she really wanted was to move to Australia, but she just couldn’t see how to make it work. We switched gears from trying to come up with a satisfactory second best and started focusing on how to make Australia happen. It turned out that she knew an Aussie who could answer a lot of her questions and with that as a foundation we started working on really making that dream a reality. Once she realized that she did actually know what she wanted, she said it was like a great weight was lifted. This was another great lesson for me; one that confirmed that most of the time people do actually know a lot more about what they want then they are willing to admit. It’s just that they are afraid they can’t have it, and so they are putting their energy into a consolation prize. When you own your true desires you can start going to work on making them actually happen. Talking it out with someone else is always useful, but the most important part is simply believing that you can have what you most want. Category : General | By : great12 | Comments [85] | Trackbacks [0] 07 Jun 2009   11:22:25 am Driven to Try Last week we popped into the vet on the way home from school to pick up some prescription food for one of our cats. I knew I’d just be a second and so I let my 11 year old son stay in the car. I was gone long enough that when I returned he was sitting in the driver’s seat. As I came around the car he pointed to the passenger side, indicating that this was where I should go. I just laughed and told him, “Sorry, but you aren’t driving home today.” It took a few more minutes to convince him to move over so that I could drive us both home. Besides the fact that he is years away from being legal to drive, he doesn’t really know how to operate the car. Neither of these things phase him in the slightest. I’ve caught him behind the wheel of my car several times in the past few weeks and despite all evidence to the contrary, he seems to think that it is just a matter of time before he starts driving. I always take the keys with me when we are in public, but I’m starting to think I ought to never leave them in the car, even in the garage, because I don’t really know when he will figure out how the ignition works. When he wants something, he is pretty persistent and I’d really rather not have to start worrying about finding my car at the bottom of our hill for a few more years yet. I have to say that I really admire his boldness and sense of adventure though. How many times do we shrink from something new because we don’t already know how to do it? Of course, attempting to do something dangerous like driving a car when you are not of legal age and don’t know the first thing about what you are doing is probably not a wise idea. However, there are lots and lots of times when we don’t attempt the unknown because we don’t want to look foolish or we aren’t exactly sure what the end result will be. We rob ourselves of new experiences and opportunities to really chase our dreams when we play it safe all the time. One of the most instructive experiences I have ever had came when something that I was counting on to happen in a certain way fell apart at the last minute. At first I felt that I was left high and dry, but after a few days of reflection I realized that the dissolution of all my plans left me with a clean slate. What was I going to do now? Whatever the heck I wanted to! I could design a whole new scenario that worked even better for me than the one that had imploded. It gave me huge confidence to step forward more boldly in all areas of my life. The possibility of failure was still very real, but it just didn’t have the same weight anymore. So what if I fail? I’ll just pick up the pieces and start on something new. I still have comfort zones, like everyone else, but I’ve gotten a lot better at stepping out of them. I know that falling short doesn’t have to take on a heavy meaning. My son is one up on that because he still doesn’t know that falling short is a possibility. Every time he gets behind the wheel of my car, I’m sure he thinks that this is the time he’ll actually get to operate it. It is only a matter of time before he gets to drive for real, but the time is in years rather than weeks. That doesn’t stop him from enjoying the experience of giving it a try though and turning up his favorite song really loud. Category : Family | By : great12 | Comments [54] | Trackbacks [0] 07 May 2009   11:18:23 am Creating Your Life I recently went through a two-week illness and I was sicker than I’ve been in recent memory. I had a tenacious sinus infection and it took 2 rounds of antibiotics to knock it out. During part of that time, I was fairly uncomfortable - feverish and sore and the rest of the time I just had no energy at all. It got kind of depressing. All I wanted to do was lie in bed and wait for it all to pass. I didn’t want to feed my pets, or my son for that matter. The laundry piled up and I struggled to get through sessions with clients. Everything annoyed me and even though my husband did a Herculean job of trying to maintain our lives, all I saw were the bills that hadn’t been paid and the demands on my time and attention that I didn’t feel like giving. I just wanted to crawl under the covers and not emerge until things were better. Time and antibiotics did eventually do their thing, but in the meantime I had to function at a higher level then I really felt able to. I had to force myself to put one foot in front of the other to keep up with my responsibilities. It felt very much like life was happening to me, and believe me, I was not at all pleased about the way it was going. Most of the time I do have the sense that I am creating my life and I’ve been giving a lot of thought lately to how best help my clients start experiencing themselves as the author of their life. Of course, this is mostly about a simple shift in perception. Life is still going to occur as it does and the unexpected and unpleasant will still pop up, but if you believe that you are in charge it makes all the difference in the world. Even though you can’t control what happens in many cases, you can control your reactions and what you do with your self in spite of it all. Many people can understand this from an intellectual perspective, but they still haven’t internalized it. The result is a feeling as though life is occurring outside of them instead of because of them. After spending several days mulling over my situation and continuing to look for a powerful way to assist my clients, I finally came to the conclusion that at some point you have to stop putting out fires and start going to work on making something happen that you really care about or that moves your dreams forward. Otherwise you are just continuing on a type of hamster wheel. If you wait for life to settle down so that you can start building something wonderful, you will never break ground on it. The only way to start being the author of your life is to begin creating something wonderful no matter what else is going on that needs your attention. The fires will still be there and still need you to handle them, but when you shift your focus away from giving them your entire attention, magic starts to happen. I started to think about what would really give me a boost – something that I could look forward to that would give me more of what I was needing in my life just then. I often take a short trip with my Mom in the Spring and so we started to plan a long weekend together. The more we talked and moved ahead in our plans, the better I started to feel. I’m not going to take that trip until the very end of May, so it is still weeks away, but I suddenly started to feel less depressed and overwhelmed. In going after something I really wanted, I was better able to deal with some of the things going on around me that I didn’t like so well. Now, of course, going on vacation for a few days every time that I feel overwhelmed isn’t always an option, but going to work on something that brings me joy or satisfaction is and it will always work. The second part of this formula for getting into the driver’s seat is to not worry about the How until the very end. It’s so easy to get discouraged or to come up with a dozen reasons why it won’t work if you think about what you want and then immediately go to how you are going to bring it about. 1. First get very clear about What. What is it that you want to do, be or have? 2. Next think about When. Do you want this by next week or next year? 3. Then go to With Whom. Who are your partners in this project? Who do you want to assist you? Who else do you want to benefit from or enjoy this plan? 4. Finally, start to look at How. Chances are the options will be much clearer once you have fleshed out the other components. 5. Lastly, never worry about the Why. If you want something, that is sufficient. Knowing why is not material to moving toward your goal, and in fact, may hamper your progress. Too much of this kind of thinking tends to get in the way. So this is what I’ve come up with, both for myself and my clients: while engaged in improving the things that aren’t working so well, designate time and energy to start moving on the things that will give you the life you really want. They may not all come to fruition immediately, but getting started on them is what’s important. This is how you begin to live life out loud. There will still be bumps in the road, but I believe that once that shift in perception has occurred, it will never leave you for very long, despite the worst sinus infection e Category : General | By : great12 | Comments [76] | Trackbacks [0]   Prev 1 2 3 ...9 10 11 Next