Posts Tagged ‘Change’

Turn-on is compelling, enrolling, motivating, creative, fun…..and more.  At a women’s group this week we filled two flip chart pages with words defining and expanding what turn-on is. I realized that when I’m turned-on, things get done, business flourishes, life works, and relationships are alive.  When I’m turned off, the opposite is true.  I never thought of it this way, but one of my joys as a coach is to support turn-on in my clients.  Turn-on keeps their energy, juices, ideas, connections flowing in a project, business, relationship, etc.

Napoleon Hill, in his book “Think and Grow Rich” has a chapter called “The Mystery of Sex Transmutation”.  He says that the highly successful people he studied and those he read about  going back 2000 years “possessed highly developed sex natures”.  In other words, they’re turned on!  He writes about transmuting sexual desire from only physical expression to creative and intuitive and mental outlets.

“Sex desire [turn-on] is the most powerful of human desires.  When driven by this desire, men [and women] develop keenness of imagination, courage, will-power, persistence, and creative ability unknown to them at other times.  So strong and impelling is the desire for sexual contact that men [and women] freely run the risk of life and reputation to indulge it.  When harnessed, and redirected along other lines, this motivating force maintains all of its attributes of keenness of imagination, courage, etc., which may be used as powerful creative forces in literature, art, or in any other profession or calling including, of course, the accumulation of riches.” Napoleon Hill

Many of my clients have been looking for work, and they are not turned on.  Sometimes we find that the kind of work they feel they should be seeking is not really the work they desire right now.  They get turned on when they let their dreams come to the surface.

Mini-Coaching:
If you’re not turned-on about something you care about, just notice without judging what is happening.  Explore the circumstances and the environment around you as well as within you.  Get curious about what might be the turn-off.   Don’t immediately try to fix it- keep exploring and allowing it to be for a few hours or days.  Begin an inquiry, “What is turn-on for me?”  “Where am I turned on in my life?”  “What’s happening in me and around me when I’m turned on?”  When you’re ready, turn up the turn-on in your turned-off situation by experimenting with inspired changes and actions.  I’m available to work with six more clients in August for you to make some powerful changes here.

Have a hot, turned-on rest of the summer, because why not?  What’s turned on in your life?  Why?

When your passion, your brilliance, meets a need of the slice of the world you’re meant to serve, you can experience more synergy, service, gratitude, ease, reward, and purpose.

“If you had a secret passion, something that you rarely speak about because it’s just too big or outrageous or unlikely, what would that be?” I ask this question of my long term clients.  Sometimes we do a little digging to uncover what’s been buried since childhood or college. This is what’s in your passionate heart, not your logical, reasonable and  perhaps cautious mind. It can be big or small, and it can be single or plural.  No rules. It could be to travel to a certain place, learn an instrument, go to college, get fit, climb a mountain, go camping again, write a book, change the world in some way.

At age 12 a passion to “Discover America, It’s 3,000 Smiles Wide” was born when  I saw that written on an Amtrak advertisement.  Sixteen years later I took a leave from  my job for the summer and rode across America on my bicycle. It was now or never.  It was more than the challenge of the ride, it was seeing the beauty and connecting with the earth and honoring my brilliant passion before it was too late.  It took many people to help me make it happen.

Action

Close your eyes, relax with a good breath, and ask yourself what is my secret passion?  If you don’t come up with a response, let it be and use that question as an inquiry over the next couple weeks.  An inquiry is a coaching tool where you ask a broad, curious question and let your experiences give you many answers and take you down many tunnels.  If you’re already in your passion, that’s good.  Help someone else find and claim theirs, and get curious about what it is to live your passion, and if all the elements are in place.

What can you do this summer to bring the experience of your passion into your life? What steps can you take, what is ready to happen?  Maybe your passion is to play basketball professionally, but you’re already 40 years old.  Where/ how/when can you experience or live

the essence of your passion?  Find a team, form a team, coach a team, write about a team….? Get creative!  Well, will you?

It’s a good idea to keep it to yourself; or share it only with people committed to helping you realize it, until it takes shape.  Don’t let anyone stomp it out of existence, don’t let it die before its born..  If you’re ready, I invite you to write me how your brilliant passion is emerging this summer in the comments below.

Let a passion be part of your life every year, no matter how small it might need to be to fit in with everything else.  Let it nourish you.

Late May and June signal the end of the school year here in the US and students are graduating from their complete course of study or their grade level.  So, in this time of  endings and new beginnings, I invite you to do a Life Happiness Checkup.  Take a look at your life situation today and ask yourself the following questions.  You can also  download the Wheel of Life Checkup form.  It’s easy and takes only 5 minutes or less.

On a scale of 0 to 10, how fulfilled and satisfied are you in these eight major life areas? (10 is completely fulfilled, with nothing left out).

Fun and Recreation

Health and Fitness

Career

Money

Friends and Family

Significant Other and Romance

Physical Environment

Spirituality or Personal Growth

Do you have a clear, unobstructed path to getting to fulfillment in these areas and are you are on that path  with enthusiasm, optimism and effectiveness?

Do you know what you are best designed to do and be on this earth?  Are your head and heart are aligned; your soul and ego in partnership as you gloriously do the actions and have the impact that you love, love, love to do and be?

For those of you who are  finding clarity or momentum around career, money, relationships, fun, health, environment and/or joy while simultaneously in your busy life commuting, working, raising a family, or handling problems,  I invite you to consider an alliance with a professional to help you focus on you.  It might be a therapist, group, or coach (believe it or not, I’m partial to the coaching solution!).

Businesses readily hire coaches to ultimately improve their bottom line.  Well, the bottom line for your life is what you call fulfillment. That’s my business.  For a no-cost consultation,  call me (510-886-7374) or email me.  I am on purpose as a coach when I  create a courageous, energetic relationship with you so you can clarify and manifest your vision or dream.

A Leg UP

“One of the great discoveries of human unfoldment is that happiness and joy are not effects, but causes…The happy person is forever encountering things…to vindicate his happy spirit.” Eric Butterworth

Happiness is a choice

Happiness is a choice and it doesn’t come from outside, as much as the advertisers and transformation gurus want us to believe that it does. They say, “Buy this sexy car; great hair color; get your lashes thick, long, with no clumps and then you will be happy.” “Get the relationship, the promotion, the fit body, then you will be happy.”

Our culture and language habits make happiness appear to be achieved by accomplishment or product. This is like people believing the sun revolves around the earth because that’s the evidence. Happiness doesn’t revolve around things or accomplishment. Things and accomplishment revolve around happiness and joy. Watch babies learn to walk. They don’t deprive themselves of happiness until walking is achieved. In fact, they’d probably take a lot longer to learn if they weren’t happy.

So Choose it

I was doing sit up/ crunches yesterday and I didn’t feel all that happy so I didn’t feel like doing them. Then I decided just to laugh as I counted out my allotment of crunches, and it was easy to laugh! It was contagious and kept itself going and lifted my mood for the rest of the day! Hah! I didn’t have to buy a new car, get my hair colored with the latest and greatest, lose that extra weight, or solve global warming. In the moment, in the present, in the now, we can choose. “There is no way to happiness, happiness is the way.” says Eykis.

According to my friend and Law of Attraction Coach, Noelle,…You ALWAYS get back what you put out; NO EXCEPTIONS!” So put out joy, fun, whimsy, glee, laughter, chuckles, jubilance, happiness, smiles, giggles, jokes, cheer, ecstasy, playfulness. Noelle is the happiest person I know – she watches her thoughts and nearly always allows the thoughts that feel good, and discards the thoughts that don’t. She does this in the midst of challenges that would put many of us on a downward spiral of despair because we forget we can choose.

Don’t Dumb Down Your Joy

Not only do we mistakenly believe that happiness is a result of circumstances, we also believe that we need to stifle our joy because others don’t have as much or we can’t boast or show pride. What on earth good does it do to dumb down our joy because the world is in a pickle, a spouse is mad or sick?! Eric Butterworth writes, “At the very time when we need more light, we reduce the flame of jubilance, and walk in darkness.”

How Do I Generate My Own Happiness?

To turn up the flame find one small thing to be grateful for – and then another and savor them. Also, we can recall and talk of successes and what works. Simply smiling or laughing changes your energy.

OK, go ahead and laugh. Make up a belly laugh. I was struggling with writing this article – so I just started laughing. It’s much easier to have ideas flow through a joyful mood. I also invite you to see if you can make others happy – that might make you happy. Notice if it’s their choice or you can force it on them.  Just “don’t worry, be happy” this week.

Follow your joy to activities and perspectives that have you thrive. It’s definitely in my territory as a coach -much of my work is about reconnecting people with their purpose, their strengths, and rekindling joy for their lives.

Look up high in the rafters of the circus tent.   Trapeze performers in glitter and glory release one swing and gracefully  fly through the gap for a brief second until they grasp the next swing, perfectly timed for their arrival.  In that brief moment in the gap, all structure is gone and there is nothing.

Are you experiencing the Gap?  Have one or more of your structures crumbled, walked off, or booted you out?  Have you chosen to discard structures in your life?  Are you in the gap that exists before you grab onto the  next structure?

We often struggle, cry, and rail against that gap.  But what a delicious time!  This is where you are creative,  acting on faith, intuition, and courage, even though you may feel terrified.  You know you are alive.   What would it be like to relish this crazy, uncertain, risky but alive moment of life?   What about holding this moment as flying, as needing all your wits and energy, as a demand to draw on your creativity and resourcefulness?

OK, what about you who have no job, been unable to find work, and are losing things that matter to you like cars, homes, and savings?    Where’s the glitter in that?  On the one hand, yes, it’s messy, scary, and undesired.  On another hand,  what skills have you honed or created?  Who have you met you wouldn’t have met?   What have you learned?  What are you willing to learn?  What if you were five years old and didn’t know enough to be scared, what would you do in this gap?  Yes, these are not easy, but they are  what grow us.

I’m celebrating 25 years of marriage this month.   My former husband divorced me and sent me reeling into the gap for a year.  I learned who I was, what I wanted;  I learned that I could be fine on my own; I learned what I wanted in a partner; and I learned where I failed in the relationship.  I would not be here without that gap.

What have you discovered in your time in the gaps?  Will you share it?

Coaching Mode!

Ten years ago I hung up the phone and cried tears of gratitude after my first completion call as a coach.  I’ll call him Roy.  He had achieved his goal in about 5 or 6 sessions, and our final call was to acknowledge and celebrate and clean up anything left undone or unsaid.   He had trusted me with his life and heart; and allowed me to journey with him for a while as he created courage and stepped into a new, bigger experience in his life. That moment marked a turning point in my years of seeking fulfilling work, training, certifying, letting go of the old work, starting a business, marketing, and finally coaching.  It’s been many clients and sacred journeys since and I am filled with gratitude for all the people who have allowed me to serve their emerging brilliance.

We are deep into autumn here in the U.S. and the energy has softened and cooled from the brilliant summer days.   This reduction in energy and light affects us.  While the West does not pay much attention to the change, the Chinese, for example, recognize the seasons and their influence on the earth and our bodies.  Nature displays the change very clearly – it brings forth vegetables and fruits – the result of the sunshine, nutrients and water building all spring and summer.  The end of a project.  Leaves go to work one last day to produce food for the tree; they give a last brilliant signature color, then let go.  The end of a project.  The animals that hibernate or travel south begin to shut down or shove off.  The end of a project. As the light changes, so do we.   Our bodies start to pull in, its energy shifts to our core away from the extremities as we prepare for less heat and light.  The end of a project, or many projects.  The bright, fast energy of summer is giving way to the softer, slower light of autumn. There is a pause, even a sadness in the air as we say goodbye to the sun.  And it is good.  The rest is good. It is time to gather the vegetables and fruits and clear out the vines that produced it.

“Dance like no one is watching. Sing like no one is listening.

Love like you’ve never been hurt and live like it’s heaven on Earth.”

– Mark Twain

Dance Like Nobody's Watching

Sing like no one’s listening.
Listen like the speaker is divine.
Work like you’ve never been burned or burned out.
Do relationships and conversations completely -whole, nothing left
out, all is said, and any mess is cleaned up.
Play like a child.
Paint like everybody loves your work!
Feel your grief to the depth of your soul.

Laugh from the depth of your soul.
Live like a child – from moment to moment – emotionally present to every shift and new discovery.
Learn something new every day.
Work like you don’t need the money.
Wear your favorite colors.
Whatever it is, don’t wait until the special occasion to use it or
say it.  Right now is a special occasion.
Take this opportunity to be yourself.  Do it again now.  And now…

Sleep like it’s the best vacation you could ever give yourself.  It
is.
Treat your body like you’ll never be able to replace any parts.
Make up with someone.  Forgive someone.  Set down the burden of
resentment or guilt.
Live like you just fully recovered from a life-threatening illness.

Thank 10 people for their contribution to you.
Walk in nature like you belong with her.  You are made of her.

Action

Take action on whatever of these resonate with you.  And choose one
that doesn’t. Live fully without the stops for a few moments or a
few days, and notice what happens in you and around you.  Thank you.

Leave a comment – what in this list are you taking on and why?

The anniversary of the moon landing reminded me of the anniversary of a life-changing journey I created.  Twenty five years ago this summer I was riding my bicycle solo across the United States.  I was in Yellowstone and Grand Teton National Parks on 7/24/84 sharing two lane roads with gigantic motor homes – worse than the east coast traffic!

One of my big aha’s this week as I remembered this bike trip with a coach, is that I had a plan for the trip.  It was simple.  Every day I got up and pedaled at least 60 miles down a very clear path – the road – unless it was dangerously hot or pouring down rain.  The road took me east every day.  Not north, south or west.  East towards Boston and the Atlantic Ocean.  As long as I followed the road, and kept safety precautions, I would get to Boston, to Deborah D.s house – my best friend from high school.  Now, the problem with me in my business is that I keep changing plans.  I change marketing plans, I change my goals, I change niches. I doubt my vision.  I worry about money.  I take exits off the road to visit giant balls of string and two headed snakes.  I wander north and south and wonder why I’m no closer to Boston.

The road and my goal focused all of my energies. It kept me true and on task.  Sure, I never saw the two headed snake, but I reached Boston, I accomplished my goal.

Action

Take stock of your plan. What is it to honor it?  What are your two-headed snake detours?  What are three changes you’ll make to your plan or how you honor it?  I invite you to respond in the comments.  Thank you for the courage to invent yourself everyday into your greatness.