Archive for Life Unfolds
Little Struggles are Toxic Too
Posted by: | CommentsOne of the rules I set for myself in creating my 28 Day Challenge is: “I will not struggle nor suffer”. Now, when I wrote that I was thinking of the times I’d gone round and round in circles, sometimes for weeks on end, trying to work something out or make something happen. And one thing I am sure of is that struggle never gets me anywhere but stressed, frustrated or feeling depressed. Hence, the rule.
So, on Day 1, everything was fresh and exciting and I was open to possibilities and very much living in the present. I set my goal and then let go of it, while I got on with the business of taking action from the moment – just doing the next thing. Eveything was hunky, dory. The next thing came and went, listening to the audio of ’Creating the Impossible’, responding to emails, putting my intention out into the world by writing about it etc.
After lunch I wasn’t sure about the next step so decided to go for a walk and then go for a coffee where I would brainstorm some ideas of what the coaching programme might actually look like. But just as I was leaving I received an email from my coach, responding to my 28 day challenge. It said:
“Gillian. For one thing, you’re a very persuasive and beautiful
writer…you can really express yourself well….SO create
a POWERFUL letter of invitation…I filled a mastermind
group of 20 people at $10,000 each, and I did this
twice, by sending a letter.”
So, there was my next step.
I went for my walk, went for a coffee and sat with my pen and paper made my first stab at a letter of invitation. Now, what was interesting was, I don’t really know what a letter of invitation is but I just settled myself down and wrote. My first few attempts weren’t good but I reminded myself that ”this is just a game”, “I don’t actually have to run a seminar if I don’t want to”, “this is all in the future and all I’m doing is playing around with an idea right now”. Then eventually a “letter” began to emerge and I had fun creating it.
So, fast forward to yesterday, when I listen to the next Impossible Challenge audio and settle down to do the next thing. But yesterday’s “next thing” just didn’t seem to flow and, I realise now, that that was because I’d unknowingly already decided what that next thing was. My invitation letter was only half written so I’d simply assumed that the “next thing” would be the completion of that. And, all day, on and off I struggled with trying to write it. But it was very subtle. I wasn’t sitting down and saying to myself “this letter must be finished” but I was, unconsciously, thinking that and, as a consequence I probably missed an easier “next thing”. And by easier I simply mean, one that flowed more. And, I didn’t get much further with the letter.
So, today I reset my commitment to enrol 10 people on my 6 month coaching programme called – ‘When You Don’t Know What You Want – Make It Up!’ and I reset my commitment to doing so without a struggle – be it little or large.
Hmmm. So what’s the next thing? . . . Breakfast. Easy!
I Crack Myself Up
Posted by: | CommentsI crack myself up sometimes. (For those non native English speakers a rough translation is – I laugh uproariously at myself).
I started yesterday raring to go. Spent hours writing a blog post as I developed my thoughts around the topic. Published it. Read something that seemed to contradict what I’d written. Came home for lunch and started feeling flat. Couldn’t work out why. Felt very wobbly about the post so took it down. Felt pissed off that I was feeling down again.
Woke up this morning and watched my mind create a story about how hopeless it all was. Decided I needed to go to a workshop that is being held locally at the weekend which didn’t feel good cuz that was coming from a place of needing to fix myself. Noticed my negative thoughts were mostly around commitment. Looked at my life right now to see what I was committed to and then – ah, ha! I’d been assuming that once I committed to something that that would be it.
I am committed to change, to enjoying my life, to discovering more of the mystery, to being a “better” person etc. I can see that because that is what I’m spending my time doing. But when I committed to consciously investigating whether or not I can create something concrete in my external world I expected that to be the end of it. No doubts, no back-tracking just clarity from here on in. A nice bit of black and white that would lead to “yes I can” or “no I can’t”. Well, seems that’s not how it is so I’ve put the post back up, picked myself up and recommitted to the project from a place of curiosity and “I wonder”.
To Thine Own Self Be True
Posted by: | CommentsIt’s been a month since I wrote a blog post and it feels even longer. It’s been a challenge and a struggle and the last couple of weeks have seen my mood spiral down but now I have come to rest. I feel like I am gathering my strength before I leap off again. All is well.
I’ve been reading a lot of Byron Katie’s stuff and doing The Work, with mixed results. The Work itself mostly brings me relief, whereas the more theoretical descriptions in books such as ‘1000 Names For Joy‘ leave me confused. There appears, to me, to be a contradiction between the spiritual approach and the idea that we create our own lives. It has caused me much angst over the last few weeks and I have struggled with it. However, I have learnt that nothing productive ever comes from struggle and I am happy to report that, today, I can put this seeming contradiction aside and just let it be, for now.
Another shift today, relates to the title of this blog post – “To Thine Own Self Be True”.
Since I joined the Coaching School in June I have felt a lot of stress around certain things. An example is that 4 or 5 different people, on separate occasions, have told me that they thought I was hard on myself, that I should try and treat myself the way I treat my clients, that I bullied myself etc. This feedback caused stress. But instead of questioning the truth of it I beat myself up even more for beating myself up in the first place. I never stopped to ask myself whether or not my being unkind to myself was true for me and, if it was, whether or not it was important to me.
Yesterday, when I finally got around to asking myself those questions I realised that I’m not really bothered about whether I beat myself up or not. Right now, I don’t experience my thoughts as hurtful or counter productive. What was really creating the stress was the thoughts I had about what other people thought about me. My interpretation of what they were saying was that it was wrong and it was the fact that I was doing something “wrong” that was causing me stress. So actually, the thing for me to look at was not whether or not I was beating myself up, because that wasn’t really important to me, but whether or not I wanted to be influenced by what other people thought was “wrong” for me. I simply hadn’t stopped to find out what was true for me but had instead reacted in a knee jerk way to perceived criticism.
As I journalled I found more and more examples of where I’ve not stopped to ask what is true for me.
Part of my coaching recently has been to find my relaxed place and stop trying to make things happen. I was feeling stress around this but didn’t stop to question whether or not this coaching was or wasn’t right for me. When I asked myself what the truth was I found that I was feeling impatient to enrol a new client and I had been resisting that impatience because I’d made the assumption that I couldn’t be in a relaxed place where I wasn’t trying to make things happen, and be impatient at the same time. However, the truth is – I am feeling impatient to enrol a new client. So, now, instead of trying to ignore that feeling I have acknowledged it and I’m exploring if and how I can use it to help move me forward. By acknowledging the feeling, without judging it, it loses it’s power.
It seems to me that my mini depression of the last couple of weeks was brought on by my loosing touch with my inner truth. The coaching I was receiving, the books I was reading and the audios I was listening to were all things I wanted to hear and ideas I found appealing but in those moments when I tried to apply them they weren’t necessarily true for me. But I didn’t notice, such was my desire to have them be true.
Today’s another opportunity to create my life anew. To pay attention to what is true for me right now, to experiment with things that may, or may not be true and to question the truth of the thoughts that bring me stress. And I am grateful for it.
Finding Life Purpose – Day By Day
Posted by: | CommentsSince writing my blog post on finding your purpose, I’ve been rereading Gregg Levoy’s book – Callings. I went to a seminar of his 8 years ago and was surpirsed to see that the things I’d written in my notes then were pretty much what I’d write today, with the exception of wanting to live somewhere else. This maybe suggests that these were indeed “callings” that I was getting in touch with.
In my earlier post, I mentioned the idea that we may have a choice in respect of finding life purpose. Similarly Gregg Levoy notes: “Calls are in our minds, big, and we feel we have to respond in a big way, which, of course, can be paralyzing. It is therefore important to remember, first, that a call isn’t something that comes from on high as an order, a sort of divine subpoena, irrespective of our own free will and desire. We have a choice“.
Also, “few people actually receive big calls, in visions of flaming chariots and burning bushes. Most of the calls we receive and ignore are the proverbial still, small voices that the biblical prophets heard, the daily calls to pay attention to our intuitions, to be authentic, to live by our own codes of honor”.
“The great breakthroughs in our lives generally happen only as a result of the accumulation of innumerable small steps and minor achievements. We’re called to reach out to someone, to pick up an odd book on the library shelf, to sign up for a class even though we’re convinced we don’t have the time or money, to go to our desks each day, to turn left instead of right. These are the fire dirills for our bigger calls”.
I find relief in the idea of “innumerable small steps”. It is something I can do now and ties in with living my life on purpose even when I don’t know what it is I want to do. Having said that, I notice that 3 days have passed since I wrote the post about my 4 week experiment about getting on with life when you don’t know what you want. And, although I have taken some action on using the opportunites that are in my life now, to consciously enjoy the present and create the future, I have been consistently ignoring the small still voice that is calling me to have more coaching conversations.
Today I will step up and attend to that voice that I am pretending not to hear.
Where is the Certainty?
Posted by: | CommentsI’ve just read the Week 3 Reports from Steven Chandler’s Coaching School. It’s ironic that he introduced them by saying ”week three’s reports are really FUN to read” because when I finished reading them I ended up weeping uncontrollably for about 10 minutes – not my idea of fun!
As part of the School each attendee sends in a report, once a week, and then Steve gives us some coaching on what’s been happening and sends them all back to us as one document. So we get our own coaching and also to see what’s being said to the other group members (9 of us in all).
As I was reading through this morning I found myself grabbing something that had been suggested to another member of the group, then snatching something else that was written for someone else and growing progressively more confused because it seemed like one thing was being said to one person and something else to another. I wanted some certainty about what I should do next but I wasn’t finding any answers.
Then came my own coaching, part of which was “We create it all. All the moments. All the things we later label as “important” versus what we label as unimportant. . . . So all the labeling we do is usually out of habit, not accuracy.”
And I was left floundering. I’d been feeling that certain “important” things that had been happening over the past 3 weeks were “signs” that I was doing it right. By grabbing at the actions suggested to other group members I was attempting to find more ways to “get it right”. So where did that leave me? Sobbing. That’s where. Feeling lost and lonely.
So I got up and walked around. (Movement always works wonders for shifting your emotional state and I thoroughly recommend it.)
I came back and decided to focus on MY coaching and forget about what had been said to the rest of the group, for the time-being. So I copied and pasted all Steve’s responses to my reports into one document.
There was one theme running through consistently -you’re doing a good job with the blog. Keep at it. So, that’s good. I’m managing that!
But there the consistency appeared to end.
Last week I’d spoken about how I wanted to do things my way and building my coaching practice through the blog was my way – as opposed to actively going out and making proposals. Steve’s response to that was “It IS doable. Totally doable. I can’t tell you how many people contact me for coaching because they have just read something in my blog. And other people, too, have built their entire worlds around how popular and useful and inspiring their blogs are. Is it doable? VERY!”
However, in response to my report this week Steve said “I recommend you keep looking for real people to engage with person to person”. My intial reaction to that was that this was contradictory to what he’d said last week. However, I could do this by responding to readers comments on the blogs and, even if, I interpreted it to mean that I look for real people to engage with FACE TO FACE, it’s still not contradictory since things have moved on since last week.
Only yesterday I’d decided that building interest and community through blogging alone was a longer term strategy than I wanted. My experience with one of my clients this week was so good that I wanted more of it. And sooner rather than later. So I went ahead and booked a room so that I can run a mini workshop on August 5th.
So what have I learned from this . . . ?
That looking for the right way is not helpful. Looking for my way is better but only if I remember that this is evolving and changing all the time.
What is certain now can/will change in an instant.
