Life Moves

Standing in the open gap
I feel uncomfortable
I feel confused

Sometimes I am open hearted
Sometimes I am fearless
But most of the time am I my old self
With beliefs that no longer fit

It is a place of not knowing
A place of becoming
A place of living into

And in the moments
When I glimpse the possibilities
I feel blessed
I feel joy

I am alive
I live

“To transition we must enter a state in which we are no longer what we once were, and yet we are not who we must become. We have to be willing to stand in the open gap and momentarily risk being nothing”.

- Jim Manton - “The Secret of Transitions“

- Jim Manton - “The Secret of Transitions“

I am in standing in the open gap. Will you stand with me?

I’ve been very stuck again today. Drifting from one thing to another without conscious intent. Waiting for something to happen to get me into action.

Eventually I moved. Got away from the computer and came outside. And now I am in a local cafe, writing. Not with the computer but “proper” writing with pen on paper. And I wonder hoe mnay times I must learn this lesson - to move away from the computer when I start to feel myself drifting. To do something different when my energy starts to drop. Ah well, I@m here now and that’s what counts.

Yesterday I signed up for Michel Neill’s ‘Create The Impossible in 30 Days’ program. The idea is you choose an “impossible” project to take on this July which you believe you have a less than 50% chance of success with in the 30 days of the program.  Yesterday I was energised by the sheer audacity of my goal but today the “who do you think you are?”/”get real” voices are clamouring for attention and my energy has plummeted.

I am bogged down in the “how to” of the goal - how can I possibly achieve this at anytime, let alone in 30 days? - but I am reminded that it’s never about the “how to”. It’s always about the “want to”.  So what I’m really saying is “I don’t want this goal”, yet. So does this mean I’m not ready for the goal? No, it means I’m not committed to it. So I need to recommit and then take somme  action that demonstrate this commitment.

Are you letting the “how to” of a goal stop your progress. If so, ask yourself if you really want it. If you do recommit and take action. If you’re not sure then let it go for now and move on to something you really do want.

This morning I have been busy. Some of my busy was good. Catching up with friends who were keen to know about my experiences in the States and thereby reinforcing my commitment. Some was OK but mistimed like catching up with admin that needed doing when this was not the biggest priority. And some was poor, i.e. reading emails that didn’t need reading, surfing the internet and being distracted.

My current number one action goal is to write a blog post each week day and I have been avoiding that today. I’ve been avoiding it because it takes courage to write from the heart. All my fears about being judged, not doing it well enough, having nothing to say, bubble up and I let them stop me writing.

To write I need to be still.

Breath . . . but still nothing comes to me.

Maybe this is enough. Maybe I am enough . . .

This is funny.

When I was in the process of writing the second paragraph of this post the phone rang. The man on the other end asked - ”Can I speak to the person responsible for the energy bills, please?” I said “That’s me” and he put the phone down.

I then changed the title of this post from “Why is it so hard to write?” to “Integrity Equals Energy”.

D’you get it?

It is easy to live a distracted life of chaos, where I feel swamped and I’m suffering in so many small distracting ways, and soon I’m a victim.  That is the easiest way to live.  That is the easiest way for humans in our society to live:  to be swamped, to be overwhelmed, to be overworked, to feel like a victim. And suffer.

Especially those of us who have our own businesses, because when we have our own business, we really could work 24 hours a day.  Or so we always think. We would have plenty to do.  If we could find a way to stay alert and awake for 24 hours, we would work 24 hours.  We wouldn’t run out of things to do.  But that’s the problem. It is being indiscriminate, it’s being unwilling to have a ruthless, focused powerful plan. Like a magnifying glass in the meadow in the summer focusing a sunbeam on a dry leaf. THAT would be my most successful day.

But we get distracted. Our fears tug at our hearts. Small fears. Like “I might upset him if I don’t call him right back.” Soon I am lost. Distraction. It’s the biggest problem anybody-especially anybody having their own business-the biggest problem anybody has.  Because if you work for someone else, there will be some structure there and there will be some other people monitoring your every move, so that they make sure you’re on course.  But if you work for yourself every moment presents a whole new choice.  You can do anything at any given moment. And very few people are committed enough to success (or awake enough to how it happens) to create a fearless plan for the day. But that’s the real answer right there: create a fearless plan for your day. Then work it with great heart and wisdom and love.

Author: Steve Chandler from Club Fearless

Well I didn’t get to play around with any ideas because by the time we’d had dinner, I was ready for bed. I loved being around the other peeps in my coaching group though. This is a positive manifestation of something I’ve been wanting - to spend more time around people who want to play a bigger game and who inspire me. So, seems like using this blog to get clear about what I want and then creating that is definately working.

I awoke at 2.00 a.m. this morning and had a major breakthrough but can’t for the life of me remember what it was. I didn’t want to get out of bed to write it down because I thought that might keep me awake but, as it happens, I didn’t get back to sleep anyway so I might as well have done. This sleep deprived, jetlagged state is having an interesting effect. I seem to be in that just waking state, where clarity often happens, much more than usual. Anyway whatever the breakthrough was it doesn’t matter because I’ve had another one.

I was concerned that I would go back to the UK without an action plan. I wanted something to be working on, other than just my process, when I returned. But everything I thought of felt manufactured and not natural. I was puzzled as to how I could turn this ‘blogging to my new life’ process into something I could work with with coaching clients. What would I say I was doing and how could I explain how that would help them?

Then I just decided that I would run a workshop for 100 people around the topic that everything you need to know to move forward  in your life is in your right now - as long as you take action and are willing to tell the truth.

I can design a workshop around that, using my own experience for inspiration. This will get over the problem I was having with how I would have “coaching conversations” with perspective clients. I just couldn’t envision that but I can imagine a workshop that has been created from my own experience.

So, there you have it, when I share with the group later, what I want to achieve in the next 6 months, I have something to start with that excites me and feels right and more importantly, reflects where I am in my own life right now. That takes away alot of the fear and allows me to be more authentic.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

4.30 p.m.

Well, the workshop is over and what a wonderful experience it has been. I’m really excited about the next 6 months.

Jim Manton gave a talk about the work he does with transitions and transformation and his description of the people he works with exactly matches my dream clients. He also acknowledged my courage for turning up at the workshop, not really knowing what to expect but taking the risk of answering a calling. I felt really validated by that.

Sharing what our goals for the next 6 months was a toughy for me. It was hard to listen to the others who had concrete numbers that they wanted to achieve, either in terms of income or new clients and I had to fight to hold onto what I’m trying to create. But I decided to use this opportunity as another test of my commitment to step up and speak my truth.

I stood at the front of the room, to face my fear of being seen, and shared my goals for the next 6 months. I had to stop a couple of times to let my tears subside but I did it. Stepping outside my comfort zone was the important bit. The quality of my performance was incidental.

I was surprised that Steve mostly focussed on the commitment of writing one blog post a day with less emphasis on the workshop idea. It’s hard to imagine that one blog post will be enough but I’m happy to go with that and continue to record the process and look at some of the quatum stuff again. Actually, the first thing he pointed out was that I had shifted from considering the idea of returning to coaching to making a commitment to making that happen.

One of my 6 month goals is to be earning money for my coaching services before my return to Phoenix in December. Whether that will be via a workshop or in individual clients has yet to be determined.

So . . .  now I’m waiting for 5.30 p.m. when 3 of us will be going into town for dinner. Then 2 more days here and then home.

Just returned to my hotel room after Day 1 of Steve Chandlers coaching school. It did not disappoint. Steve is insightful and funny and a pleasure to be around and my fellow attendees are an interesting group of people whom I’m excited to be working with for the next 6 months.

The main take away for me was noticing, again, my tendency to want someone else to tell me what to do or even that I can do it. Whatever “it” is. I’ve been aware of this tendency for years but have still been looking to others for guidance/permission. But what’s the use of someone telling me I can do something if I don’t believe it myself? That’s not going to change anything so, I hereby declare that from now on I am committed to consciously deciding for myself - to choosing what I want for myself and taking action to make it happen.

Tomorrow we have to tell the group what we’d like to achieve in the next six months and receive feedback on that so I’m going to take my notebook and my coloured pens and play around with some ideas.

Wow! I can’t believe it’s a week since I had my coaching session with Michelle Pippin. Things have moved fast since then. For example, I’m sitting in a hotel room in Phoenix writing this, a slightly surreal experience partly due to jet-lag and partly due to the pace that things are moving.

As I mentioned, I am considering restarting my coaching practice but what I didn’t say was that I was also considering attending Steve Chandler’s coaching school. Michelle was SO positive about her experience of the school and the results that it had helped to produce that I decided there and then to see if places were still available.

Long story short, I emailed Steve to ask. He emailed back - “I have one place available. I enjoyed reading your blog posts!” and I signed up. I did’t realise quite how mad this was until a friend asked me on Sunday what form the seminar took and I realised I knew nothing about it. All I know is that you spend 2 days with Steve and 8 other coaches. Then have 6 months email coaching with Steve and the other coaches in the group and then meet up again with everyone for another 2 days.

My decision was made on my gut feelings about Steve after reading and listening to his stuff on the web and on my impression of the work the coaches he’s coached are doing. This is what Michelle had to say in a email she sent after our coaching call: “Bottom line: if you CAN attend this event, I want to encourage you to do just that. You won’t find a better coach than Steve. He will hold you accountable to your potential. He won’t hold your hand, but he will empower you to RISE UP to become your own “best self”.”

I do so need someone to hold me “accountable to my potential”. I am weary of playing small.

Then after I’d signed up, in response to my emailing “I’ll let you know what happens next . . .”, Michelle responded with: “I already know what happens next…. YOU step into the fullness of life and business and self that you were created to occupy. YOU walk away “on fire” for creating a life and business you love and are supported for a full six months to make sure inspiration leads to implementation!! Steve is a catalyst for this….The group will be phenomenal and YOU will be forever changed.”

Powerful words indeed and, not surprisingly, I’ve experienced a powerful rollarcoaster of emotions since - excitement, fear, weariness, incredulity that I could take such a financial risk (cuz at times that what it feels like), excitement, fear, detachment, fear, self-doubt, excitement, fear - you get the picture. But, whatever happens, I’m here now. Seminar starts tomorrow and as I said to Michelle . . . “I’ll let you know what happens next . . .”.

When the song “I still haven’t found what I’m looking for” first came out I used to sing it like a mantra. Lots of intensity and heart on my sleeve sort of stuff. “Oh, woe is me – I still haven’t found what I’m looking for, but
aren’t I a great person because I’m searching hard and trying hard and one day I’ll find it.

But now I wonder “what was this ‘it’ I thought I was going to find”.

In the days when I was single ‘it’ was a man. In the days when I felt overweight ‘it’ was a slimmer, sleeker body. And often ‘it’ was more money. Thing is I never found what I was looking for because as soon as I did, I started looking for something else.

When I first started consciously on the path of ‘personal development’ I spent a lot of time looking for THE answer. I would attend the latest seminar or read the latest book and decide that that was the ways things worked or, more often than not, that that was what was wrong with me. I’d follow the ‘expert’ advice for a few months and then discover holes in the theory or find it didn’t work for me.

Then, one day, having grown weary of searching for lofty goals I realised that all I wanted was a way to live my life that worked for me.

I didn’t want enlightenment, or to grow back my missing teeth (yes, I worked with one ‘leader’ who was attempting to do that). I didn’t want to live in a permanent state of bliss or surrender my body to alien walk-ins. (yep, I went to one of those seminars too – just curious!)

All I wanted, was a way to live my life that worked for me.

What I didn’t realise then was that this still left me searching for ‘a way’. By attending seminars, reading books etc. I was still looking at someone else’s way. It still left me vulnerable to cultural pressure and the assumptions and beliefs I’d formed due to my personal experience of life. Unconsciously, I was still being dictated to by outside influences.

Now, I’ve shifted into wanting to live my life IN a way that works for me. That’s a subtle difference. That brings my life back to the present and in this moment, there’s no-one else’s way but my own. I might choose to experiment with things I’ve learned from others but as long as I’m trying them out IN my life I’m still living my own life – making adjustments day to day.

My life is not so much about what happens in the future or what I believed in the past. It’s about how I live my life, today, in this moment.

It’s been over a month since I started this blog so I thought it would be a good time to take a look back and see how things are progressing. Right from my initial post on May 7th, I’ve been writing to try and get clearer about what I want to do next and about what I could build a business around. Also, back in that original post I was wondering to what extent I was willing to “go public”.

Well the latter question has at least been answered. Over the last few days I’ve decided I’m ready to “come out of hiding” so have started adding my blog to the blog directories and will write some articles for the article directories, when I have time.

In relation to the question of what I want to do next, I’m beginning to move in the direction of restarting my coaching practice. I’m not totally sure at this point but am hoping to be clearer about that by this evening. More on that later . . .

Overall, my mood has improved considerably and I put that down to truly making a commitment to change. See my intention versis commitment post for more on this as this is a critical breakthrough. But that breakthrough only came about because I followed through on putting the strategies in place I described in my post - the trick is to get out of bed.

In the post do what you love I stated that I was going to put myself in front of as many opportunities as possible and I’m pleased with my progress on this. I went to the Mike Southon talk, even though I didn’t feel I had the energy and that resulted in my being offered a mentoring session by him at a later date, I’ve stopped watching television mindlessly and I’ve joined Club Fearless which led to the unexpected bonus of my having a coaching session with Michelle Pippin this afternoon. With her help I hope to get clearer about whether or not to restart my coaching practice.

Most importantly, perhaps, I’m beginning to reconnect with some of the fundamentals that make life exciting again. Hoorah!

So, where I am currently is . . . Committed to making changes in my life . . . which are evidenced by:

1. Writing a blog post every week day to help me stay aware of the process, learn new things and share them.
2. Taking advantage of opportunities that present themselves to me even when they take me outside my comfort zone.
3. Replacing mindlessly watching television with consciousess, more inspiring choices about how I spend my time.
4. Going for a walk every day.
5. Taking a step each day to further publicise my blog.
6. Listening to/reading inspiring stuff each day, especially if my mood starts to drop or I start to get scared.

Please feel free to comment and share your own list of things you’re committed to. You’d be surprised how powerful “going public” can be.