Posts Tagged ‘nancy Montier’

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?

Success is an inside job – it begins in the heart with what matters to you, what you love, and what brings you joy.  Maybe it’s numbers, or music, or cooking, or inspiring, or teaching.  This you knew when you were a child – it is what attracted your attention and was joyful.  Unfortunately, we often choose to ignore our heart in favor of shoulds, opinions, fears.   It can be a long journey back to the heart.

Once you find your way back to your heart, the head does the implementation. It works out the details, gets the help, designs, and plans in service of the heart.

Finally, success is an outside job.  The body gets into action with speaking, writing, building, selling,dealing and doing whatever it takes to bring to reality the heart’s passions and purpose.  This is the most challenging step – to go from the mental, emotional and spiritual energy of the heart and head to the slower, denser, physical energy of the body and of making an idea real.  Just know that it is normal to have bumps and setbacks bringing your brilliance to reality.  

And, when actions and goals are aligned with the heart’s purpose, those goals flow, things work better, and the transition to the physical has more grace and synchronicity.

Moving gracefully from inside to outside, may your success flow in 2010.

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.

Get out of the box here, and borrow from other industries to find new approaches to the job search.

New Packaging

Amp Up Idea Number One: As the entrepreneur of your life (you must look after you, the days of the long term corporate job are gone with just a few exceptions) part of your job finding process is to package  yourself.  Most companies put out a new and improved version of their product every few years (or sooner for software!).  What’s the new and improved you?  Amp up with a product overhaul.

What is your core product?  Consider what you love to do, the part of your work that makes your heart sing and the time fly by.  What is that?  Why do you love it so?  Why would an employer be lucky to have you – what benefits will they receive from buying you?  If you were to look at all of your skills, how does a combination of them enhance your core product?  In what new ways can you combine them in order to come out with the new and improved you?

You can take courses to add a new skill.  You can get a group of supportive colleagues and friends, and brainstorm up new job descriptions that combines some of your interests and skills in new and improved ways.   You can take your so-called shortcomings (”too old”, “too young”, “too long out of area”) and flip them into assets (”experienced”, “longevity”, “energetic”, “coachable”, “out getting other experience to bring back to this area”).

OK, let’s hear about some new improved you’s!

What would you do if you lost your job and your industry also disappeared?  I just returned from a Membership Job Search Group in a town here in the San Francisco Bay Area where unemployment is at 11%.   I went because I wanted to  find out why I hadn’t received replies to my inquiries about speaking there.  The upside is that there were lots of people, they were networking, sharing success, creating fundraisers to buy supplies for the club, and helping each other across the river called unemployment.

The downside is there were lots of people with vast talents not able to get paid to use them.  The office personnel and volunteers were too busy processing members to deal with speakers.  They can’t even have guest speakers because of the space crunch.  They  talked about having to limit membership – they have so many people they cannot safely gather in the rooms they have access to.   No new members will be added until several current members are safely in jobs.

Here’s an industry (managing unemployed) that’s growing, but mostly supported by governtment funds that are severely lacking.  Any ideas how to support these folks? They need larger meeting space, supplies, and jobs.  Please leave a comment with ideas and resources.  Thank you!

What to do if you don’t find a spot for you in the group.

1) If you can take advantage of the classes they offer without becoming a member of the group, do that- the classes are invaluable and focus on resumes, interviewing and job finding techiques.

2) Find like-minded people, google “mastermind” and set up your own success or accountability group.  Like-minded means everyone in the group has a similar goal:  get a job in 3 months, figure out a new career, etc.

3) Find a coach.  I have an online, low cost  group for job motivation support

4) Look on the social networking sites like Facebook and LinkedIn for online support communities.

5) Make a plan, create accountability if you need it, and go!

May your path be short, sweet and lead directly to good work.

I’m not saying anything earthshaking when I write that 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. “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 wealth, 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 take a lot longer to learn if they weren’t happy. 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.

According to my friend and Law of Attraction Coach, Noelle Sharp, ” …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.

What on earth good does it do to dumb down our joy because the world is in a pickle, a spouse is mad or we haven’t succeeded in that goal yet???!!! Eric Butterworth writes, “At the very time when we need more light, we reduce the flame of jubilance, and walk in darkness.” How that applies to today’s time – let’s turn up the flame of jubilance, my dear friends! That will turn YOUR economy around!

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

“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

“Many persons have a wrong idea of what constitutes true happiness. It is not attained through self-gratification but through fidelity to a worthy purpose.”
Helen Keller (1880 – 1968)

“Remember that happiness is a way of travel – not a destination.”
Roy M. Goodman

“When you relinquish the desire to control your future, you can have more happiness.”
Nicole Kidman, in The Scotsman

“There is no way to happiness, happiness is the way.”
Eykis

Action
OK, go ahead and laugh. Make up a belly laugh. I was struggling with writing this article – so I just started laughing. Much easier to have ideas flow in a joyful mood. I also invite you to see if you can make others happy. Notice if it’s their choice or you can force it on them. Just “don’t worry, be happy” this week.  And tell me what you discovered, OK?
Peace,
Nancy

Purpose is why you are here. The short version that some Law of Attraction folks use, and other New Age thinkers say, is that your purpose is to experince joy, and / or to learn. Yet each person has their own path of joy. This is a good thing! That way everything gets done!

Here’s an example from nature. An eagle is built to hunt small, live animals. It has a very keen eye, sharp talons, a beak with leverage to tear and pull. It would be ridiculous to insist that an eagle become a vegetarian and eat leaves or seeds. Not going to happen. An eagle is always congruent with its nature. It lives on purpose without questioning. It would starve trying to eat seeds. However, a finch is designed to eat seeds would starve if it tried to hunt small animals. Both are relevant in the systems of nature.

Each individual has a Life Purpose - whether it comes from soul, genetics, or environment, or all three. This is something that you do and be better than anything else, like the eagle is better at hunting than any other way of getting food. You are uniquely designed to be a certain essence (perhaps love, peace, beauty, the sword of truth, joy). You are uniquely designed to do a certain thing in the world (like the eagle to hunt animals). You might put things together, help people find their path, see and communicate the next step, nurture new beginnings or bring harmony to relationships. This is your gift you give to the world.

Knowing your purpose  is a cornerstone of your inner peace. Knowing your purpose allows you to ground and center yourself around your true nature. You are not fighting your strengths – trying to eat seeds with an eagle beak. When you know and align with purpose, you are in harmony and at peace with your nature, rather than resisting it.

Stay tuned for the other cornerstones of peace.
Please leave a comment about this article…

Action for Dessert!

Notice what you do naturally well and you are happy doing it. Now notice what else. Notice whether you are at peace at those times.  Ask five people who know you what your 2-3 strengths are.  What are those strengths  that they would call on you to do or be because you are a natural at them?  Leave a comment what you think.

Peace,
Nancy