Sitting On The Fence

It is inevitable. Whenever you are sitting on the fence about something, sooner or later you will be pushed to jump off and make a decision one way or the other. It is as if, by putting yourself on the fence you are announcing to the world that you are ready to make a move even if you aren’t absolutely sure in which direction. Then something happens and you are forced to do it. At least that’s the way I see it.

Unfortunately, many of my coaching clients don’t see it that way. In fact, most get caught up in the wind or the events that pushed them off the fence. They start analyzing what happened, how it happened, and why it happened. These explorations leave them anxious, angry, and ultimately empty. They try to justify their position, blame the person or the event that caused this push, and in the end they feel powerless and victim like. This is when our coaching sessions typically begin.

My job when a client feels like something  unfair has happened to them is to take them back to the point before the event. I often ask them, “were you completely satisfied with your life/work before X, Y or Z happened?” “If not, what were you looking to change?” And then, “what is stopping you from making that change now?” In other words, I try to take the attention away from the spark that lead to the fire, so they can focus on the fire and make decisions about what to do next. 

When facing a major life or work transition it becomes easier if we focus on what needs our attention now. Yet, people going through major transitions find themselves obsessively thinking the same thoughts and going around in circles trying to understand how the spark came to be. They intellectualize and analyze all the possible scenarios. They tire themselves out with judgments like: “it is so unfair”, or “I never did/said the things I am accused of doing/saying”, or “I am qualified for/deserve so much more”, … Their anxiety level goes through the roof, they start having difficulty sleeping thinking the same thoughts, until they make the appointment to see their coach or therapist.

Spiritual life coaching is about helping the client see the truth as it is in the now moment. I help my spiritual life coaching clients notice the present moment so t hey can make better decisions about where they want to go. Worrying about the future by analyzing the past to death is not going to pave the way for a more fulfilling future. When the client can see the spark for what it was (just a spark), they can let go of their victim so they can be their true empowered selves wherever they choose to go. 

If you are interested in a complimentary 30 minute coaching conversation, contact me. I work with people going through all kinds of transitions.

The Private Nature of Transitions

The transition process is challenging whether it be a divorce, loss of a loved one, or loss of a job. What makes it even more difficult is the fact that the light is shining on you. Eyes are on the person going through this change. With that come opinions, judgments, and projections. So, now you have a person trying to manage her own grief, sense of loss, confusion, and uncertainty and you are adding the harshness of other people’s judgments and expectations. It is a poisonous combination.

When my clients are going through challenging transitions, I always ask them to be gentle towards themselves. This gentleness is not because they cannot handle the challenge, it is because a transition is just as much about a birth as much as it is about death.

A new person will emerge from this change, this new person has to go through the stages of growth just like a new born baby. In order for the new born baby to thrive, it needs to be cared for tenderly.  Just like a new parent shies away from crowds, staying home and immersing himself in the care and love of his new baby, people going through transitions need to be with themselves away from crowds.

And just like a new parent who is getting bombarded with unwanted advice, the new person emerging from a transition, needs to be shielded from unwanted advice. It is not that advice itself is of no value. It is just that the person is being reborn, recreated, and unsolicited advice can be rough and even damaging to their new creation. They need to figure it out by themselves.

When you lose a loved one, you are not only facing their loss, you are facing the “you” without them. This “you” is someone you are not familiar with. This “you” needs to form its own roots and become what it intends to become without the tweaking and twisting of others, free from the pain of loss. This process takes time and requires patience and gentleness.

Losing a job isn’t so much about losing a source of income as it is about losing who you were when you were employed. When people come at you with: “oh, you can now stay home and be with the kids”, or “you can retire now”, or “when my cousin lost his job, he…”, it is denying the opportunity for the new “you” to form in its own way and on its own time. They have their plans, suggestions, expectations, judgments, assumptions, and advice, and you are trying to learn how to wake up being the new you. You have your own demons, inner critics, judgments, confusion, beliefs, and doubts. You don’t need to carry on their’s.

So, if you are going through a difficult transition, remember that it is an intimate and private process. You don’t have to share your plans with anyone else. You can graciously bow out of being in the spot light. This does not mean shutting people out. It means nurturing yourself by being in the company of those who can be gentle with you. You don’t owe anyone any answers. When you know you are ready to share, then and only then, you can choose to go in the spotlight. Your baby is a toddler now and it can certainly thrive through playing and engaging with others!
 
If you are going through a challenging transition and are uncertain about how to be, what to say, and how to keep it all together, you may want to work with a spiritual life coach. Spiritual life coaching is about creating a safe space for exploration, learning how to be gentle with yourself and the freedom to express thoughts that you might be afraid of expressing to those who have agendas of their own. Contact me for a complimentary 30 minute coaching conversation to determine if you would like to work with me.

On Endings

Endings are prevalent in my world. My coaching clients are all experiencing loss or death. Whether it be the death of a relationship, a way of being, childhood, a tradition, a job, innocence, or a belief system, they have all been endings indeed. Some of the deaths make us sad and like the death of a loved one, we need to grieve them. Some are liberating, because they are long awaited, in other words, it was time.

All death ends up being expansive. Yes, even the death of a loved one. Once you allow yourself to grieve and acknowledge the grief, you can go beyond. Something always has to end in order for something else to begin. We dread endings, but endings in a way signify life. Spring wouldn’t be Spring without Winter.

The Spring I am writing about is not to be experienced in the company of someone else. The kinds of beginnings that follow the endings I am referring to are the ones we experience alone. The person you become when you lose someone close to you, a job you loved, or a way of life, is not anything you can explain or share. It is a journey traveled alone. Perhaps this contributes to our fear of death.

Our evolution however, depends on these deaths. Deaths are about letting go of something for the good of the whole. We hang on to our differences, our cultures, languages, etc. It is a way we think to keep them alive. What we are doing is choking the life force. No one wants to idly sit by and allow something to become extinct, and yet we all will be extinct one day. The fear of extinction is what compels us to hang on and fear death.

What if we did not look at it as losing something? What if we looked at it as a stage of life. Yes, a stage of life. Death can be seen as a stage of life. Death is about allowing, it is expansive and evolving. Death can only be seen this way when you release judgment. Western culture sees death as a morbid topic and yet I’d like to invite you to see it as a necessary part of your experience of life. Endings are necessary. Endings are liberating. Endings are sad, but when the sadness evaporates, the seedling can sprout.

If you are in the midst of a difficult ending, and would like support in seeing this transition in a different light, you may want to consider working with a spiritual life coach. Spiritual coaching is about changing the way you believe things to be in order to have a more meaningful and complete experience. Contact me for a complimentary 30 minute consultation to determine if spiritual coaching is for you.

Sovereignty

Everyone claims that they want ultimate authority over their own fate.  Regardless of what your political or cultural inclinations may be, on paper we all want to be independent and the master of our own domain(s). That is until we realize what that means.

Some are quick to blame someone, an event , or an institution when something goes wrong.  Even though, this may be true from the "blamer’s" perspective, dwelling on the feelings of blame is destructive and dis-empowering. Others like to think that the hand of God or some mysterious force, is responsible for the good in their lives. And then there are those who believe that life is all a series of random events and that if you are lucky, you will be dealt a good hand. None of these ways of thinking lead to independence or sovereignty.

Independent does not mean alone. We all are inter-dependent whether we know it or not. Yet, inter-dependence is not a weakness. As in management, you delegate the work, so you don’t have to do it all yourself. With that however, comes the reality that the person you have delegated to, may or may not do what you have expected them to do, or done it in the manner you would have liked them to. This is the crux of the problem, we want to be managers and delegate as long as it still gets done exactly the way we want it to get done, regardless of how that way may change as we change and how impossible this is the more we look into it!

In other words, we want sovereignty until it fails us and then we would like to blame the other person, circumstances, the powers to be, the government, our politicians, the terrorists, and on and on it goes. It’s always someone else’s fault when we don’t get what we want. Yet, we refuse to take responsibility that sometimes we want different things, in fact, sometimes we want opposite things.

Inter-dependence is an experience enhancer, that is until entitlement enters the picture. Entitlement is about expecting a perfect job, boss, government, or any other situation. Entitlement robs us of our sovereignty. The moment we feel entitled, we have handed over our sovereignty to the other.

Many of my coaching clients are going through an involuntary transition like a job loss. More than the fear or concern about the future, what seems to be the main issue they are facing is the fact that their transition is not voluntary. They did not choose to change jobs. This questions their sovereignty and they don’t like it one bit.

Through the course of coaching sessions, we both discover that what they thought was their sovereignty was not the case at all. In fact, they recall all the events that they may have missed, the opportunities they did not seek, the vacations they did not take, the appointments they neglected to make, other jobs they did not apply for, and then all of a sudden they realize how much of life was not lived because they were obligated to their jobs or careers. Then the anger sets in and for some, the blame takes place. Some of the bitterness is about the life they have missed out on for a sense of responsibility or loyalty they may have had towards a job that was taken away. Yes, they know how business works and it is not personal, but they realize all the personal stuff they gave up for an impersonal pursuit. Then it becomes personal!

Sovereignty is about accepting full responsibility for all of your creations.  It includes, the good, the bad, and the ugly. Sovereignty is about taking full responsibility for what is happening in your life, and if you can’t, then taking responsibility for how you are reacting to what is happening in your life.

No entity can take anything away from you unless you have somehow invited it to. Spending time with the possibility of that invitation is what helps you stay sovereign. If you spend time discovering the wisdom in what is happening , you will not be basting in blame or entitlement. And there truly is wisdom in all that is happening, we have just been too busy feeling sorry for ourselves or blaming and pointing fingers.

If you are at a point in your life where you’d like to learn more about ways to enhance your experience of sovereignty, you may want to consider spiritual life coaching.  Contact me for a complimentary 30 minute coaching conversation to determine if spiritual coaching is for you.

The Perfectionist

I coach many people who are self-declared perfectionists. They typically know this about themselves and yet find it hard to deal with especially when they have multiple deadlines or an important project they need to finish. What seems to happen with perfectionists is that the target keeps on moving. This can lead to stress and extreme overwhelm.

It is almost as if they keep on moving the bar higher and higher and can never achieve success because success keeps on being redefined. The mind of a perfectionist is a hostile place. There is no room for rest, relaxation or any kind of comfort at all.

Here are 10 things a perfectionist tells herself:

1)    It’s not good at all
2)    It could be better
3)    What if there is something that needs to be changed and I am not seeing it right now?
4)    What if I overlook something and someone else sees it?
5)    I could do better
6)    I’ll spend another hour, day, week, month, etc. and then it will be done
7)    If there were more hours in a day, I could do it right
8)    I won’t do it, because I can’t do it the way I want to do it
9)    I’ll never get it done and I am ashamed and frustrated with myself
10)    I am overwhelmed by my incomplete projects

The perfectionist keeps on engaging in perfectionism because the end product, finished project, or whatever they finally complete ends up being such a success that they end up feeling like it was well worth it. If you are tired of struggling with perfectionism and find yourself stuck or overwhelmed, you may want to consider working with a spiritual life coach. Spiritual life coaching is about creating a safe space for discovery. Changing your language and self-talk may be the first step after the awareness that you are indeed a perfectionist. Contact me if you are interested in a complimentary 30 minute coaching conversation.

Beginners

His 13 year old daughter comes home and announces that she is going to a co-ed party that is going to last until midnight. He is faced with what to do about this declaration and about his own feelings of uncertainty. Should I say no, you are too young for that. Is she too young for that? I feel really unsure about my decision. Why am I so uncomfortable? All these thoughts start eating away at his insides and his stress level goes up and he snaps at his wife who wants to know what to make for dinner. Sounds familiar?

In my article dated February 12, 2012, the second obstacle to creativity was the need for knowledge. I was writing about creativity, and now I am applying this concept to life in general. Take parenting as in the example above. Most parents face it at one time or another. It is uncharted territory especially if it is your first child. And even if it is not, every child is different and what worked with one may not work with another. However, with the second and consequent children, you can remember the feeling of uncertainty you experienced with the first one and that in itself is comforting (the memory that you have experienced this unease before). Some parents when faced with the unease of being a beginner may refer to how their parents dealt with them or imagine what they would have done. That gives them a sense of comfort.

Being a beginner is not easy and it is harder as you get older. One reason being that you expect to know more, after all, you are older. Yet, life always has a way of throwing you a curve ball, just when you think you have figured it all. This is what many of my seasoned clients who are losing a job feel like. I have not had to go on a job interview for 20 years, I’m not sure how to do that anymore. I’ve been an expert in my company and everyone knows me, I am nervous about having to prove myself to a new boss and a new company.

Then there are the really serious and not so positive new experiences, like waking up one day after losing a loved one, or hearing a serious health diagnosis, or finding out something unsettling about a loved one. These are the moments where we feel like our life experiences, education and knowledge, are failing us. We are exposed to the raw sensation of not having a clue and yet, the issue at hand may be demanding us to do something or act in a certain way and we are completely unsure about what or how or if it is the right thing to do.

What if as in the example of creativity, we allowed ourselves to get comfortable with the fact that we are a beginner at it? In other words, what if instead of fear, dread, or intimidation, we faced the issue with certainty of our own uncertainty and ignorance about the topic at hand?

Take the top example, if the father in this example just took a deep breath and thought: Wow, this is interesting. I have no idea what to do. I feel anxious, because I think my daughter is too young to be hanging out with teenage boys at a party. I feel like my baby is growing up too fast. I don’t want to be a strict parent, but I don’t want her to get hurt or exposed to stuff she can’t handle.

Notice how these thoughts are all leading into another similar thought. That is exactly what staying in uncertainty is all about. It is about staying in that place and clarifying your discomfort over and over again. It will calm you down, give you a sense of certainty about your own uncertainty. It will bring more light and clarity to your biggest fears. And in the end, it will allow you to communicate honestly, openly and without drama.

Our fear is getting stuck in the uncertainty, looking weak, or not succeeding. However, we do get stuck, look weak and not get what we want, when we either fight the uncertainty or give up and avoid moving forward. Surrendering to uncertainty is about admitting to being a beginner. It is refreshing to be around someone who is not arrogant or over confident, especially if that person happens to be our parent!

If you are going through uncertain times, dealing with situations that are making you feel uneasy, you may want to consider working with a spiritual life coach. Spiritual life coaching sessions are geared towards helping the client get comfortable with life’s many uncertainties by becoming confident that they can get through any situation even if they don’t know how. Contact me for a complimentary 30 minute coaching conversation to determine if you’d like to proceed with coaching.

Spiritual Development

I frequently coach clients on the area of spiritual development. Most have a solid spiritual understanding and want to enhance or embrace it into their lives. Some are curious about spirituality and want to learn more about it. Below is an example of the type of conversations I have with my “spiritually challenged” or “spiritually curious” clients.

“I want to be more spiritual, have more faith, believe in magic”, she said. She explained how she has always been jealous of people who believed in something bigger than themselves, God, whatever. She wished she was like them. When she sees a beautiful sunset, her mind rationalizes the event as a phenomenon that can easily be explained by science. She loses the opportunity to experience the magic in the beauty of the sunset. It is as if those moments of pure beauty and wonder just zoom past her.

During our conversation, she described how her life has been full of challenges and she has had to be realistic. She had to make her life work for her, she didn’t have the luxury of depending on someone else to do it for her or even to help her. Perhaps that is when she lost her faith. Perhaps this is why she can’t afford to get lost in the moment. She feels like she needs to always be on her toes. She can’t be caught off guard.

Ironically, her best friend is a person who considers himself spiritual and full of faith. He prays and believes that the power of prayer and God have been instrumental in getting him out of tough times. He owes everything to his faith. He trusts his intuition, and is in touch with his feelings. He is not afraid to express himself and linger in life’s intangible magical moments. She wishes she were more like him.

As different as they may seem, they have a lot in common. Both individuals are hard working, intelligent, and have been challenged in life with difficult situations. Both are realistically optimistic. Yes, both are realistic. Just because he is more accepting of life’s magic does not make him unrealistic. Unrealistic would be if he expected the magic to take over and tell him what to do. He does what he believes he should do, he just believes that there is extra help and support out there. Perhaps not even out there, but closer to him. He has an intimate connection with an unknowable presence.

She on the other hand, depends only on herself. She knows she has endured many difficulties and that if her life goes that way again, she will muster up the strength to deal with it. She is optimistic. She is a little more stressed than him. She does not feel the support that he does. She depends on her own intelligence, pragmatism, and experience to pull her out of dire situations.


She always feels alone. He never does. Perhaps, that is what she is really jealous of. When caught off guard with a beautiful sunset, she does not feel the presence of something else. She goes to her head, and there is no joy there, just rational explanation. He on the other hand, goes to his heart and feels a presence that is beyond his mental understanding. He is comfortable there. He is full of joy. She is off to the next item on her list.

Spiritual life coaching is a process that will help you find the presence you are missing in your life. if you are interested in a complimentary 30 minute coaching conversation to decide if you’d like to work with me, contact me.

Obstacles To Creativity (Part III)

This is part III of a series of posts on this blog on obstacles to creative expression.

Third obstacle:

•    Expectations and Fears

The “what ifs” can be a huge obstacle on the path to exploring and expressing your creativity. What if you are not well received? What if you are no good? What if everyone laughs at, or pities you? The underlying fear to all these “what ifs” is the fear of failure.

Failure is the one end of success. If you are afraid of failure, you must be hoping for success. This is an expectation. Expectations are to be avoided when seeking the creative path. There is no such thing as success or failure in the traditional way of understanding those terms. Success is creative expression. In other words, if you were courageous enough to try it, then you have succeeded. It does not matter how your art or expression is received. The moment you start worrying about the end product and other people’s reaction to it, you have talked yourself out of doing it.

A healthy dose of humility that may show up in the form of anxiety before a performance or showing is normal. After all, it is scary being out there for all to see. This is the time to remember the joy that your creative expression brought to you during the process. That has always been the goal. If you remember that, you can cruise through the anxiety more easily.

When you remember the fun, excitement, and exhilaration you experienced when you were creating whatever it is you created, you are more likely to do it again and again. Also, when you are doing it without expectation to be accepted or validated, then you can change directions, take a break or try something else. It is quite liberating to create for the sake of creating and not for any accolades.

Another well concealed fear, is the fear of success. Most people are afraid of their greatness! In that case, the “what ifs” are: What if I have to quit my day job? What if I become famous? What if I lose my friends? What if I change? Yes, the greatest of them all, is the fear of change. Every time you express yourself creatively, you are pushing the limits. You are exploring your creativity and having a blast at the same time. This goes against, the expression: “no pain, no gain”. You start hesitating a bit, because it starts to question many of your belief systems.

Could you have fun creating something, be good at it, and perhaps even get paid for it? That is scary for many. If you are somewhere on this path and are having doubts, fears or hesitations, you may want to consider working with a spiritual life coach. Spiritual life coaching is about accepting and honoring your creativity so you can keep on creating without any guilt or expectation. Contact me for a complimentary 30 minute coaching conversation to determine if this is something you’d like to pursue.

Obstacles To Creativity (Part II)

This is part II of a series of posts on this blog on obstacles to creative expression.
Second obstacle:
• The need for knowledge, expertise, recognition, acceptance, …

The more we do something, the better we get at it. Soon we can become an expert in whatever it is that we have been practicing or doing regularly. This is how we think we become successful. Most high achieving professionals think that success is a result of being known for doing something that you are an expert in. Steve Jobs in his commencement address at Stanford University in 2005 said: “I didn’t see it then, but it turned out that getting fired from Apple was the best thing that could have ever happened to me. The heaviness of being successful was replaced by the lightness of being a beginner again, less sure about everything. It freed me to enter one of the most creative periods of my life.”

One of my clients who enjoys singing was explaining to me: “Every time I sing, it forces me to get out of my head. I have to be in the moment, I never know what will come out. No matter how much I have rehearsed, that moment with the audience listening, is all that counts. I have to be present and willing to take a chance. It sounds scary, but I love every bit of it.” She takes voice lessons and rehearses regularly and yet she is a beginner every time she sings. She even confessed that she does not care if she does not sound good during a performance, it is not about the end result, there is no end result. She sings because when she sings, she feels connected to something greater than she can explain in words. And I suppose an end result for her is the joy she feels and radiates as she sings.

This same client had to face her own obstacles to get to this place. She had to recognize what it was about singing and how it showed up in her experience of it that made it possible to face and remove her own internal obstacles.

There is no room for knowledge in the creative process. It is all a risk, one that can bring absolute pleasure and joy beyond imagination. In order for that joy to become a part of your life, you have to be willing to let go of knowledge or knowing how to do something. In other words, you have to be willing to be a beginner over and over again.

If you are interested in removing some of your own obstacles and feeling creative again, you may want to work with a spiritual life coach. Contact me for a complimentary 30 minute coaching conversation to determine if I can help you in your creative process.

Obstacles To Creativity (Part I)

This is part I of a series of posts on this blog on obstacles to creative expression.

Coaching professionals in the corporate world who want to express their creativity is a challenge I love to face every time! I love it because, they know what is missing, so that part of the work is done. Now, it is all about removing the obstacles that hinder their path to self-expression. It is a challenge because, the obstacles don’t seem like obstacles to them. They have worked hard to create the obstacles that I am asking them to remove!

What are these obstacles?

1. The notion of discipline

Wassily Kandinsky said: “There is no must in art because art is free”. The moment a coaching client says, “I have to …” is the moment the obstacle has been identified. The moment you take your corporate mind set, your disciplinarian identity, your controlling aspect, whatever you want to call it, is the moment creativity ran out the door.

Creativity is an energy or consciousness that cannot be boxed in. It cannot show up at 8:30 every morning and be done by 5 every evening. It may or may not fit into your schedule. It is not an exercise routine, or an appointment. If you dare to express yourself, you have to be open to when and how it shows up.

Creativity does not repeat itself. In other words, if you created something one day after you went for a walk and it was sunny and beautiful, you felt rejuvenated, etc. and now you have created the same background and hope to create something just as masterful as you did then, it won’t work. We as humans want so badly to find patterns, and structures. It is how we understand things. You cannot understand creativity. It has an elusive and mysterious quality about it.

So, then why bother you may ask. This seems impossible. It is, if you think of it as a chore. It may feel like a chore if you are tired after a long day’s work, coming home to family and personal demands and now you have some time left for creativity. Sometimes, it is necessary to take some time out. Take a personal day or two or a week off by yourself to find your connection. Yes, it comes at a price, the price is time away from structures, routines, and all the musts in your life.

Creativity is not something you can squeeze into your busy day at the moment you require it to show up. If you are not feeling playful, inspired, enthusiastic, and connected to something greater than the physical world you perceive around you, you cannot feel creative. If you do not feel creative, you cannot truly create. Yes, you can be skilled at putting things together in a beautiful way, play music, or make a meal from scraps in your pantry, but that is your talent and not your creativity!

Creativity is a source of boundless energy that is calling the artists in all of us to have a sip or dive in as we wish. All she asks is for our willingness to abandon old structures, patterns, musts, and any kind of discipline to discover a brand new version of ourselves. Yes, indeed this is a challenge for all my disciplined, productive, structured friends who are successful in part, because of these qualities that they have developed within themselves. Letting go is not how we accomplish any kind of logical endeavor. Letting go however, is the first essential step in self expression.

Next week, I will write about a second obstacle to creative expression. If you are a professional in a logical, rational business of any kind and would like to flex your creative muscles, you may want to work with a spiritual life coach. Spiritual life coaching is about discovering the artist within and creating the required space for it to show up in your life. If interested, contact me for a complimentary 30 minute consultation.

Influence is a Two-way Street

We just got back from a wonderful college tour trying to find colleges my son would be interested in applying to. What I enjoyed the most about this last college was what the Dean of Admissions said during his talk. He mentioned that he wouldn’t be focusing on how the school would shape the students, but rather in learning how the student would affect or change the school. I had to think about that statement. How could an 18 year old affect or change a college or university?

Thinking about this statement reminded me of how influence truly is a two way street. A teacher certainly influences a student, but a student can also affect a teacher, just ask any teacher. The only difference is that it is expected that the teacher will influence the student.

In many relationships, the expectation is that one of the parties will be having the “influential” role. Yet, influence is not a one way street. We influence the world we live in by the way we show up every day. When we are happy, and open to receive, we are received a certain way. When we are angry and negative, we are received another way. The moment you are in the presence of another, you are influencing them whether you like it or not.

Sometimes we don’t realize how we affect others. For example, certain emotions like disempowerment or victimization can be so self-absorbing that we forget how we impact those around us when we show up that way. Self-pity is not fun to be around. If only we could see how these types of negative emotions can color us in a way that is truly not only ugly, but unappealing to be around.

Perhaps, if we thought about ourselves as influential individuals, powerful just because we are alive and social creatures living and interacting with others, we might be more aware of our responsibility. Yes, we are responsible for how we show up in the world and hence, how we influence others.

This is the conversation I have with many of my coaching clients who are going through a difficult transition trying to pick up the pieces of their lives. In order to create what you want, you have to be what you want. You can’t create something that feels foreign to you. You can’t find a job that you don’t feel you are qualified for. You can’t be in a relationship you don’t feel like you deserve. You influence the outcome of what you create every time.

If you are interested in finding out about how you might be influencing others or the outcomes that you keep on creating, you might want to consider working with a spiritual life coach. Contact me for a complimentary 30 minute coaching conversation to determine if you’d like to work with me.

To Coach Is To Provoke

A prospective client had recently called me and wanted to know how and what techniques I used in my coaching. There are lots of fancy words, techniques, methods, and names of other leaders in the field that  coaches use in their conversations. When I first started doing this work, I wanted to use the most sophisticated language to describe what I did thinking that the more complicated and fancy it sounded, the easier it would be to impress a potential client and hopefully get them to become an actual one.

The past year I have spent a lot of time re-discovering the value of the coaching I practice. I have learned that in the most severe cases where a client is deeply stuck in whatever it is they are going through, it is my disbelief that they are truly stuck that helps them move forward. Simply, put, I don’t buy the picture they have drawn for me. I buy that that is what they believe they have, but the reality is far from the picture in their hands. In other words, I don’t go down the rabbit hole with them.

Let’s take 3 independent stories about procrastination as an example:

She wanted to come up with a plan to tackle the tasks at hand. She mentioned that she had been procrastinating. It sounded simple enough, typical coaching material. When we went deeper, she realized that she was procrastinating, because she was depressed, things were not going well in other areas of her life, she couldn’t tackle the tasks because she was standing on shaky ground.

Yet another client I worked with that same day, brought up procrastination. For her it was about “order”. She couldn’t do something before she did something else. And that something else could not be done until something else was taken care of.

Today I worked with someone who was avoiding an important project, something she really cared to complete, because she was exhausted from taking care of some other things in her life. She had no energy left to finish her project.

All 3 wanted to accomplish their tasks or projects, but something  (depression, belief systems or habits, other distractions, lack of confidence) got in the way. None of them had much energy or enthusiasm. These were three different women with 3 different scenarios, stuck and unable to move.

Procrastination isn’t just about putting things off and being late or finishing at the last minute. Procrastination can lead to severe inertia to the point of depression, anxiety or physical illness. There is a reason for why we don’t do what we want to do. It is not because we are lazy, or slow. Under all procrastination there is at least one other layer of muck.

I see this in my children, when they are excited about something or enjoy doing something, it gets done before they even come in the door and take off their coats. If the task at hand is not enjoyable or reminds them of something negative, they cannot be held accountable to getting it done. That’s when as parents we think of ways of motivating them or holding them accountable. But the adults I work with, are self-motivated professionals. They understand the importance of the tasks or projects they are procrastinating. They are definitely not lazy or slow. So what gets in their way?

It is not procrastination as we know it at all. They get stuck, energetically stuck in their circumstances. They are not procrastinating, they simply cannot move forward. Depending on what is going on in their lives, they are frozen in a still life photograph that they bring with them to our coaching sessions.

Like a scientist examining an artifact or amber with trapped particles, a coach’s job is to imagine the particle outside the structure she is trapped in. Holding that possibility that there is a vibrant, energized, and alive being pretending to be stuck is what helps melt the amber and liquefy the solid trap. That is the beginning of the coaching conversation. It always starts from the same place, I hold the space and the possibility that being stuck is an illusion and that reality is far different from this state of inertia.

So, what techniques do I use in my sessions? I provoke to create a different possibility, one that the client found unimaginable or unattainable in the beginning. Once the provocation has taken effect, the coaching follows.

If you are stuck in procrastination or anything else, you may want to consider working with a spiritual life coach so you can begin imagining a different reality for yourself. Contact me for a complimentary 30 minute coaching conversation to determine if spiritual life coaching is something you might be interested in pursuing.

Drama

The most dangerous and destructive energy drain out there is one that is addictive, deceiving, manipulative, contagious, sneaky, and readily available. We are all guilty of partaking in it and offering or pushing it onto others. Most of the time, we are not even aware of how we engage in its distribution. It is bigger than us. It can entice us to talk up a storm, analyze a situation to death, and even keep us up at night. It breeds fear, negativity, anxiety, and depression.

Any guesses as to what it might be? If you guessed, drama, then you are correct. Drama is well disguised and yet it creeps into our lives all the time. My clients often complain about how talking to certain people brings them down. In fact, turning on the TV can be a very dangerous activity in that it opens the door to drama. Worse yet, you usually have your guard down listening to the news, unaware of how much drama was just injected into your psyche.

There are 3 major sources of drama: media (any kind of news, or entertainment), families, and work place.  Yes, it is everywhere. No, you don’t have to run away and live in a cave. You do have to be fully awake and alert and recognize it when it hits you. You don’t have to fight it, you’ll always lose. You don’t negotiate, you will lose. You breathe and allow it to blow through.

How? It is similar to hearing someone talk when you are not interested in what they are saying. You hear, you let them say what they have to say, you walk away. You turn on the TV, you watch, you listen, you recognize what is drama, what is real information, you take what you want, you walk away.

In summary, the best way to deal with drama is following the steps below:
1)    Breathe
2)    Recognize drama
3)    Keep on breathing
4)    Decipher what is useful information and what is not
5)    Choose what to do
6)    Move on

Sometimes, you might think you succeeded, but if you find yourself slightly irritated, doubtful, or anxious, then some of it got on you. Once again, go through steps 1 through 6 in your head and let go of drama. It cannot hurt you if you are aware of what is happening and choose not to let it get to you.

If you are interested in working with a spiritual life coach on learning how to cope with drama or any other kind of negative energy, contact me for a complimentary 30 minute coaching conversation to decide if spiritual life coaching is for you.

Hope

He said he was hopeful for the New Year.  I was concerned about him, he was about to lose his father to a terminal illness and he hadn’t been taking it too well. Today, he said he was hopeful. “A new year means so many things and I can’t help but be full of hope”, he said with a half smile on his face.

What is hope? According to the dictionary hope is: “desire with the expectation of obtainment” or “to expect with confidence”. To me it is directly correlated with a beginning. Early morning is a time for hope for a good or successful day. Hopelessness on the other hand is directly correlated with an ending, it has a death like feeling to it. The night when the day has ended, is the end of the hope for the new day. In fact, we always say or think that tomorrow will be a new day, a new opportunity to try again, etc.

And what about in the middle of hope and hopelessness, what is that?  What is in that space or on that continuum? Or is it a continuum? Going back to the analogy of morning and night, the middle is the day. The middle is what happens between hope and hopelessness. The middle of desire and defeat is the practice or attempt to obtain whatever you were hopeful to achieve. The middle is where you forget about hope and how it started when you are busy doing what you thought you wanted to do. The middle is distracting, consuming, and deceiving. Only when the day has ended, you are reminded of how it began.

This kind of segmentation helps us digest our lives. 24 hour segments of beginnings and endings with the stuff in between, chunking life into digestible pieces. Yes, the New Year is a beginning full of hope and some time in December we decide whether we accomplished all that we had hoped to. In between January and the following December is when life happens.

What if every moment was like the dawn, full of hope? What if hope never ended? What if we were in a consistent state of hope? As young children we are more hopeful than as adults. Just look at a toddler when they wake up in the morning, they are bright eyed and fully alert and ready to go. Over time, we learn that we don’t always get what we want and with multiple experiences of defeat or what we perceive to be defeat, we become less bright eyed and hopeful.

Over time we learn that sometimes we get what we want and sometimes we do not. This is how hope gets diluted and eventually becomes hopeless. What if obtaining something or having an expectation was not part of the hope experience? What if hope was just a feeling, like joy or sadness or excitement? What if hope didn’t come with baggage?

That’s the hope that he was talking about. He had no expectations, he knew that his father would not survive his condition, yet he was still hopeful.  He was hopeful because it was a New Year and hope was just a part of the New Year experience. It was not logical or rational, it was an irrational emotion, a child-like enthusiasm, a beginning, a clean slate, endless possibilities, …

Spiritual life coaching provides an opportunity to explore concepts like hope in a safe space. Sometimes you can change what you believe they mean and then re-experience them in a new way. If you are interested in pursuing spiritual life coaching with me, contact me for a complimentary 30 minute spiritual coaching session.

In Love?

It was a cool, crisp, but sunny day in Manhattan. I was delighted to be engaged in a lively conversation with a 27 year old cousin of mine that I had just met. Our conversation lead to an older couple we both know. He was shocked at the revelation of the wife that she was no longer in love with her husband of 50 years. He couldn’t understand how people could stay married when they were no longer in love. I smiled inside my head and was reminded of his youth with such a declaration and wondered if I would react as he was reacting to such news when I was his age.

When do we learn that falling in love with and loving someone are two different concepts and that one can exist without the other. Falling in love is just that, a fall, almost like an accident. Unknowingly you fall into something unexpected. It is exciting and fun being high on dopamine. I have fallen in love more times than I can remember. It can turn into love.

Love is a more conscious and deliberate choice. I truly can say that I love only a few people in my life and that love will not fade away and weathers all kinds of storms. Love makes you stay or leave depending on your situation. Love is clear. Love does not expect, demand, or judge. Love does not have to make sense and this is the quality it shares with “falling in love”. They are both a condition of the heart and not of the mind.

I thought about the couple who were still together despite not being in love and I recalled the wife’s answer to my cousin’s question, “We have children and grandchildren now. What is the point of leaving him now?” I wonder if she is still looking for that feeling of falling in love and wonders if it is lost to her for good. I wonder if she truly wants to end her marriage or just doesn’t feel the love anymore.

What makes two people stay together in a marriage is still a mystery to me. I coach many clients who are in what may seem like a dysfunctional marriage to many for reasons that change every week. Marriage is a legal contract and as such it is binding even after the love is gone. That is the main reason people stay married in unhappy marriages. Many are also wise enough to know that it takes two and if the relationship is not a happy one, perhaps they need to take a good look at themselves first.

All of this was running through my head as we continued walking up 5th Avenue. I smiled thinking about all that he is yet to learn and experience in life and hoped that he wouldn’t have his heart broken knowing well that it was sure to happen!


If you are in the process of re-evaluating your marriage or relationships and need help making a decision, you may want to consider spiritual life coaching. Spiritual life coaching is a process where the client is always in the driver’s seat and the coach provides a safe space for exploration.  If you are interested in a 30 minute complimentary coaching conversation, please contact me.

The Power In Silence

When my life gets super busy like it does during the holidays, the thing I miss the most is silence.  By silence I don’t mean time alone. You can be alone, yet busy with your thoughts.  What I have grown to appreciate a lot these days is true silence: silence from doing, silence from thoughts, silence from words and silence even from images, memories, and emotions.  The silence I am writing about is similar to the one you experience after extreme exhaustion from intense physical activity, when you can’t do or think anymore. 

Most of us fall into silence by accident, it is almost like the side effect of something else.

Why do we need to be surrounded by noise? Noise is evidence of life. If you are not actively participating in life, you can turn on the TV and voila, you feel like you are part of it again. The sounds of the TV, playing a video game, calling a friend, getting on the internet, checking your emails, cleaning the house, making a list, … anything is better than sitting in silence, isn’t it? If doing and thinking are evidence of living, perhaps silence is associated with dying.

Part of our discomfort with silence is the lack of purpose associated with it. You don’t go into silence with a goal other than being silent.  It won’t get you a better job, do your laundry or your shopping, it won’t even help you relax, because it won’t take away your problems.
Silence is about being comfortable with you. Silence has no agenda. Silence is not a punishment, yet it can feel like one. We have been conditioned to make good use of our time, to be productive and get things done. Sitting quietly without even thinking towards something might seem useless and pointless, yet I have found it to be a powerful experience. 

Silence brings you back to you. The you that you lost doing all that stuff, playing all those roles, thinking about more stuff and more people, that you is craving to be quiet just for a while. Silence is similar to the white background of the canvas or the paper before you start painting. Silence brings clarity and puts you in a place of choice. 

Energetically, silence can calm you down especially if you are feeling anxious or overwhelmed. However, that is the hardest time to be able to enter silence. Your thoughts and worries always seem to creep in. I try to spend as much time in silence as I can in a day. I walk out of silence gentler, calmer, and wiser. I become less reactive and more conscious and aware of what I want. I am clearer and life truly does become easier.

Silence is not necessarily meditation. It does not have a ritual, mantras, visualizations, sounds, etc. associated with it. It is plain and simple. Silence is where people find their answers. I know this to be true in my spiritual life coaching sessions with my clients. When there is nothing left to say, we both get quiet and the answers show up. The more comfortable we are with silence, the easier it becomes. When you trust that the answer is there, it just hasn’t shown itself to you yet, you are more motivated to sit in silence.

Indeed, silence does have a purpose. Its purpose is to give you the much needed space to discover your own answers. I wish for all of you out there, a very happy holiday season, a stupendous new year and the gift of silence so you can finally hear your own voice!

Best wishes to you and yours for 2012 and beyond!

It Is Not About The Squirrel

She was concerned that her anger about what had happened would determine the outcome of her future. She could not let go of the thought that the course of her life had changed because of a decision not made by her, but by someone else. This fact made her crazy. She had done everything right, been smart, worked hard, only to find herself at the mercy of something/someone else. The powerlessness made her bitter and she could not move forward and onward with her life…

This describes the point of transition for many of my spiritual coaching clients. Whether they were just laid off from their jobs or served with divorce papers, it is the anger and bitterness that they have a hard time letting go of. The headlines running in their heads go something like: “How could this have happened to me?”  “Why did I trust him?”  “How can I trust again?” “What will I do now?”

A person going through a so-called involuntary transition, is focused on the event and all the details that go with it. Why, how, if only, … Thoughts and questions that begin this way, keep us focused on the event. Transitions are rarely about the event, yet when caught blind-sighted all we can do is go over and over the event and all the contained details. 

Transitions are about change, a fork in the road, a sharp turn to the other direction, a new path, etc.  What caused the change is like the squirrel who ran into the road and you tried to avoid, insignificant.  If the squirrel hadn’t run in front of your car, you wouldn’t have changed direction, so something had to happen. That is the point of the squirrel. That’s all.

So, if you are faced with a big decision, an unwelcome change, don’t sit in analysis mode. Don’t wonder why the squirrel had to jump in front of your car. Don’t wonder if you had left later or earlier that you might have missed the squirrel. And for heaven’s sake, don’t get mad at the squirrel.   All these thoughts, keep you focused on the squirrel and not the road and the journey ahead. 

There is so much ahead and more squirrels yet! When we are pushed to make a change, life is inviting us to go through a different door. This can be exciting, and definitely evolving, while being extremely unsettling.

Uncertainty is the way of the transition and the sooner we embrace it, the easier it will get.


If you are in the midst of a difficult transition and are focused on the squirrel, you might consider spiritual life coaching to learn to focus on the path ahead.  If you are interested in a 30 minute complimentary coaching session, contact me.

Imitations Are Never As Good

I was listening to my favorite vocal artist singing someone else’s song, only I did not know that it was someone else’s song. At first, I thought that perhaps he was making a change from his own style. Two minutes into the song it was clear that he sounded like someone else and that he was indeed trying to sound like someone else. That’s when I realized what was going on. I couldn’t finish listening to the song, it sounded awful to me. In fact, his amazing baritone voice sounded weak and washed out.

I realized later that it is the same when we try to imitate others.  In that moment of imitation we lose ourselves.  When we are speaking our truth, being ourselves, even if someone does not like us, they don’t like us and not the person we are trying to be.  There is power in authenticity.  There is strength in our voices when we speak our own words in our own voice.  I am not talking about opinions, beliefs, or even the end product of what we are creating, but the voice in which we speak them.

When you try to sound like someone else, you sound like no one at all.  Your voice is washed out and dull.  Part of that I think is due to not knowing what it is all about.  How can one artist know exactly what the one they are imitating was thinking, seeing, or feeling in the moment of their expression.  At best, they can guess at it, and that guessing or assumption is the wash out.

Knowing what someone has experienced requires that you have experienced it too.  That does happen, and when it does, your voice can be as authentic as the person before you who went through the same experience. That’s when we connect with a song, story, or a person.  In fact, there is nothing quite as amazing as when we connect with each other through similar experiences.  We understand the pain or the pleasure someone is describing because we have gone through it.  You can be compassionate without having gone through the same experience, but you cannot express the same emotions as someone else, unless you have gone through the same experience.

My most challenging spiritual life coaching sessions are with clients who describe an experience very similar to what I have experienced.  It is like looking at a picture and finding out that it was a mirror instead.  Those sessions are hard, because I try extra hard to not project my own stuff on to the client.
 
In order for the client to have an authentic experience they need to stay detangled from the coach’s story.  These are special sessions where you can practice good coaching skills by asking questions and never making any assumptions. In fact, when done right, it is as if you have two originals in the room.  There may be similarities in the art work, but they are each distinct and brilliant on their own.

If you feel washed out or unoriginal, perhaps you are imitating or hiding under someone else’s image or experience.  I invite you to step out of the habit or need to imitate anyone other than yourself.  There is power and magic when you step into your own. People will suddenly want to listen to you and won’t know why.  If you want to leave a good impression, be yourself.  If you don’t know how to do that, then make it your business to learn how.

Spiritual life coaching is about the business of finding your own true voice and expressing it at all times.  If you’d like to learn if spiritual life coaching is for you, contact me for a 30 minute complimentary session.

Where Are You Trapped?

She was uncomfortable, restless, trapped like an animal in a cage.  She couldn’t get out, she couldn’t help herself. She knew this feeling, but she didn’t know exactly when or why or how. All she knew was that she hated it. She had to get away. She was afraid she would get stuck and never get out. She couldn’t think like that, she couldn’t give up. And then just like that, she woke up from the dream. She was relieved that it was only a dream, even though, the emotions were so real. She recognized them, but did not know from where. They were familiar…

Sometimes events can stir up old reactions or feelings. If they are negative or painful, we have a hard time remembering what they are associated with. If it is extremely difficult, then we don’t even want to remember where they might be coming from. However, in order to be able to have some degree of control (i.e., recognize so that if it happens again you can choose how to act instead of reacting from an old perspective), you need to go investigate what it is all about.

I find myself doing a lot of investigative work with my spiritual coaching clients. We set out to find where something is coming from before we decide what to do with it, if anything at all. Some clients don’t want to find it, because they are afraid of what they might find. Some claim they know what is there, but they don’t know how to let it go.  What both types of clients have in common is identification with either the fear as in the case of the first example, or identification with “not knowing how to …”. 

In fact, identification is the source of most of our problems. We identify with the position that we can’t do, don’t know how to do, or are afraid of doing X, Y, or Z. We repeat the reasons for the position over and over again in our heads and we believe the story. We convince ourselves of our opinion and then repeat it to whomever dares to try to help us. 

Identification is like cement or a cinder block chained to our ankles. It gets us stuck. First we complain about being stuck, and soon it becomes an excuse for not being stuck. In a way, we get comfortable with our position. It’s like falling asleep in a funny position in bed, but being too tired to move. Even though, you know that you will get a cramped neck in the morning, you don’t have the strength to reposition yourself because you are in a deep sleep. Getting stuck in our identifications is like being stuck in a deep sleep. We know what we are doing is unhealthy, but we can’t get out.

One way to break that spell is to ask yourself: “what do I want?”  Even in the depths of sleep, when I ask myself, “what do I really want?” and if I stay awake enough for the answer, I know I have to move. Asking ourselves repeatedly: “what do I really want?” brings us to the point of choice.  It for a brief moment unglues us from the identification with the problem.  It reminds us that we are not set in the same outcome.  We have a choice.
 
So, I ask my spiritual life coaching clients over and over again: “what do you want?”  Some answer the question, but then jump into “…but I can’t…” and then we go back to the beginning.  This is how you get unstuck, by going back to the beginning. You might have to do it more than once.  You might have to do it again when the problems shows up in a different form.  It is a great place to start.
 
Questions to Ponder:
(1)     What is one issue or problem that keeps on repeating itself in your life?
(2)    Where and how do you get stuck?
(3)    What do you really want?

If you would like to further explore these issues with a spiritual life coach, please contact me for a complimentary 30 minute consultation to determine if spiritual life coaching is for you. 

Copious Curiosity

It was one of those crazy busy days where I had many back to back appointments.  Unlike the way I used to be, I had not thought about who was coming and what they might need to be coached on.  In other words, I knew where I had to be, who I had to see, but I had not processed, or analyzed what it all meant.  I knew client X was coming at 9 AM and one hour and 15 minutes later, I had to coach client Y, but I was not trying to remember or predict what they might want to be coached on.  This was in part due to a conscious effort on my part to be copiously curious as my mentor coach would put it.  And I have learned that if I study or review a client’s past coaching session, then I am expecting it to go a certain way and then I’ve lost my curiosity. 

The day continued on the same way it had started, with lots of curiosity and hustle.  My evening appointment was with my children at the pediatrician’s office for their annual flu shots.  I had not processed that my daughter usually hates getting shots and sometimes even gets a little hysterical.  It was as if I had forgotten how stressful this appointment could be.  Well, to my surprise, she hopped on the examination table and pulled up her sleeve and took the shot without any drama at all!  Right after she hopped back down and put on her sweater, I realized what had happened.

She had changed her story.  Driving back home, I was reminded of my coaching sessions during the day.  In fact, all my clients had managed to surprise me.  None of the sessions had gone on in an orderly fashion, they had been slightly unpredictable and a bit messy.  Yet, I had enjoyed them because they had pushed me into directions I had not gone before.  This is not that uncommon in a coaching session, because no matter how well you think you know your client, you couldn’t possibly know them as well as you think.
 
At the pediatrician’s office I realized the same thing about my daughter.  What I thought I knew about her was just a prediction based on past behavior.  In a coaching session, the coach allows the client to change their story.  That’s how coaching works, you are in a space where you can change your story.  With practice, I am learning to apply the same principles in my own life and in the more intimate relationships which I think I know so much about! 

Copious curiosity in coaching works by dissolving the bars of the prisons that our clients have created from their stories.  When you are in the presence of someone as if for the first time, listening with your whole being and being present without judgment, expectation, or the need to fit into any theories, past behaviors, or projecting your own story upon them, magic happens!  The client is now free to change their story.

This is one of the reasons why I refer to myself as a spiritual life coach.  What happens in a session when the coach has been copiously curious, is not logical or rational.  It is outside the realms of mental understanding.  It is what I call a spiritual experience!

If you are interested in working with a spiritual life coach, contact me for a complimentary 30 minute spiritual coaching conversation.