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January is Strategy Month!
January is the time I coach my clients to take some quiet time for Strategic Planning. That means taking a step back and looking at the big picture, identifying goals, and figuring out a strategy on how to make things happen. This kind of attention is not just important for businesses; it’s also critical for your personal life, too. Otherwise, you can end up putting a lot of time and attention into things that take you off course from your true path.
January is not only a great time for planning because it is the beginning of the year, it’s also the perfect time to slow down, be still, and quiet. Mother Nature, who is resting before the big growing stage of spring, supports this. We’re naturally drawn inward, to our deepest core. This is the place from which our inspiration comes, the place our internal compass lives. When we step back and plan from our inner wisdom, we chart a true course for the next season of our lives. There’s less regret, wasted time, and frustration. We get unstuck and move ahead, living from a deeper, more authentic place day to day.
There are several things I have found that really facilitate this kind of big picture planning. Here are a few that I hope you’ll find to be helpful:
1. Get away. Even a few hours away from your familiar surroundings, responsibilities, and usual distractions can really clear your mind and settle you into a deeper place of heart-centered insights. Start by taking a walk, a yoga class, or getting a massage, and then settle yourself somewhere quiet that you won’t be disturbed. If you can get away for a night or two this will really facilitate inner clarity. If getting away at all isn’t an option, a coaching session might help launch a process that you can take your time with, a little each day or each week.
Here are some places I like for simple, inexpensive quiet:
None of these places are spas or big fancy centers, which I find don’t have the kind of deep quiet I need for a retreat like this. Also, don’t be put off by the fact that most places on the list have a religious affiliation. No one will ask you about religion or require you to be or believe anything in particular. What most will provide is a very simple place to sleep and be, old-fashioned American food, and quiet, quiet, quiet. (Wood Cliff Cabin is a tiny place where you’ll bring your own food.)
2. Start with brainstorming. Let your mind wander and dream; indulge your flights of fancy, before getting down to the business of what is realistic and manageable. Try mindmapping on big sheets of paper, making some crayon drawings, journaling, or collaging from old magazines. See what emerges from your creative interior before you impose left-brain prioritizing, list making, and deadline setting.
3. Get concrete. Now that you’ve dreamed the dream, put some legs under it with concrete lists of Strategic Outcomes (what you want to have), Goals (what needs to happen to get the outcome), Tasks (what you’ll actually do) and a Timeline (when you want to complete each task). Remember, every outcome needs goals, every goal needs tasks, and every single task needs a deadline.
4. Find your theme for the year. What is this year about for you? Health? Patience? Simplifying? Notice what emerges as the overarching theme of how your soul wants to more deeply express itself in the coming year. Where are your lessons and longings pointing you? When you begin to align your actions, thoughts, and choices with a deeper soul-prompted theme, you’ll see yourself moving forward into more joy every single day. A word, phrase or image may emerge to guide you through the coming year.
5. Get support. Find a family member, friend, loved one, or supportive life coach or spiritual director (!) to help you make the time to get away, organize your inquiry, process your experience, and stick to your plan once you return home.
Taking a few hours or days away in January can provide you with a blueprint for a wonderful year. Let me know if I can help! (Please note, I'll be away January 11th - 19th on silent retreat!)
Remembering the Sacred
Looking around at holiday time, you’d think the whole season was about decorating, indulgent meals, and finding bargains. Whether you celebrate Christmas, Hanukkah, Kwanzaa, the Winter Solstice, or all of the above, it’s easy to get lost in the hype and end up exhausted and broke.
I invite you to put all that aside for a moment and focus on something else, something deeper.
Each of the traditions I mentioned has a common element: LIGHT. In Christianity, we wait for the birth of Christ, the “Light of the World,” Jews remember the miracle of the lamp oil that lasted 8 days as they celebrate the re-dedication of the temple, Kwanzaa honors the seven principles of African heritage and features the lighting of seven candles, and some are eagerly awaiting the return of sunnier days beginning on the Winter Solstice.
Underneath these stories is a sense of waiting, expectation, and faith in a symbolic Light. So this is a good time of year to pause and reflect on what, inside you, is this Light that is waiting to emerge? What part of you needs enlightenment? Perhaps it is some more authentic YOU waiting to express itself. Can you name that part? Can you see and describe who you will be when some darkened place in you lights up with awareness, energy, and healing? Are you willing to bring a deep and strong expectation to draw up the courage and healing required for that part to emerge?
How do you assist your soul in birthing this next incarnation of your true self? Just like the people in the ancient stories, this time of year calls us to patience and faith. Can you bring patience to your own healing process, even as you hopefully expect and wait for it to come to fruition? And what do you have to trust in or have faith in, in order to be patient?
You don’t have to be religious or of a particular heritage to have faith. Just keep letting go of negative thoughts. Affirm the possibility that you can love yourself just as you are and that you can evolve even further. This time is not about action, but about expectation, as we wait in acceptance, trust, and peace for what is to come.
So amid all the rushing, wrapping, shopping, eating, and traveling, take a moment to light a candle now and then. And let one particular candle declare your faith in something deeper than your own working, striving, and achieving. Let it remind you of your faith in the process of unfoldment that is always moving inside you, whether you know it or not. Then, while you’re waiting in line at the store or are busy running errands, remember that candle, and the powerful forces of love and healing that are acting in you. And smile! It’s free, and it spreads the Light in an instant!
The Gratitude Experiment
Let's not wait until Thanksgiving to remember to be grateful for all that we have in life. Recent studies in Positive Psychology show us that practicing gratitude can retrain our brains to be positive. And that leads to happiness and higher productivity.
Harvard Researcher Shawn Achor tells us we can retrain our brains to become positive in the present by practicing these tools for just two minutes a day for 21 days:
5 Ways to Create Lasting Positive Change
Gratitude: Writing 3 new things you are grateful for each day helps the brain begin to
look for the positive.
Journaling: Chronicling one positive thing that happened over the last 24 hours lets you
relive the experience.
Exercise: Teaches your brain that your behavior matters.
Meditation: Allows our brains to focus on the task at hand, leaving behind the cultural
ADHD of multitasking.
Random Acts of Kindness: Writing one positive email praising or thanking someone in
you social support network builds happiness.
Try This: Let's make it easy. Try placing a small notebook by your bedside (that's mine in the photo) and each day, either morning or evening, write down three new things you're grateful for. Start today and by the time you are sitting down for your Thanksgiving turkey (or tofu) you’ll have rewired your brain to see the positive all around you.
When we begin to take control of our own happiness, we are letting go of trying to gain happiness from the changing world of objects, the idea that another person, situation, or thing can make us happy. Then we can begin to realize, as the Vedas (the world’s oldest known scriptures) teach, that the actual source of happiness is our own, ever-present, complete, and limitless true nature. Our true nature IS happiness, regardless of the ever-changing landscape of fulfillment or disappointment that the mind focuses on.
Gratitude is one doorway to the limitless true self, and a doorway we can easily walk through with this simple exercise of recognizing what we are grateful for each day. Try this practice and let me know what changes you notice in your life.
To find out more about the science of happiness, watch Shawn Achor’s 12-minute TedxBloomingtonTalk, "The Happiness Advantage: Linking Positive Brains to Performance," on YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GXy__kBVq1M&feature=youtu.be
What’s On Your List?
According to Amazon.com, there are 128,785 books about LISTS. So, at least I am not alone in my devotion to list making. I just feel better if I have a list — a work list, house list, shopping list, garden list, reading list… OK, now the word “list” has completely lost its meaning….
This morning, as I looked at my list for today (write this e-news, do some other work-related writing, do laundry, do volunteer stuff, bake for a potluck tonight) I realized that Just Live was nowhere on the list. Where’s the time for all the stuff of living? Where’s the time for praying, eating, petting the cats, going for a walk, or quietly waiting in the garden for the hummingbirds? I’ll do all those things, but there’ll be some niggling guilt about them because they aren’t on the list. I’m not being (drum role) Productive. Never mind Present. No time!
So, I'm taking a stand. I’m going to set some boundaries with my lists. A little tough love is in order. Today’s list is now closed (nothing more can be added) AND it is now a 3-day list (I have 3 days to do everything). Now I have some breathing room. And Monday is already a scheduled Free Day; so no starting a list for that day after this list is done.
Are you too busy accomplishing things to have any time for just living? For spontaneous pleasures? To hear your own heart? Let’s get off that merry-go-round! Right now. Put down that list and step away! Stretch its time frame, divide it up, schedule a free day! You have my absolute guarantee that your life will not fall apart. It might just come together.
At least put this on your list to think about….
Add or Subtract
We've all heard the adage, "Change just one thing... " And I believe in the power of that. One little change, like one domino tipped over, can set in motion a chain of positive impacts. But how do you determine what the one thing to change is?
One way to think about it is, first, ask yourself, “Do I want to add something or subtract something?” In my work with clients and students, what I see is that people pretty much know right away which one they are will to do. Since being willing to make the change is all-important to being successful in carrying it forward, it should be something that you can really get behind and not something you are resisting from the start.
For example, when I think about trying to eat healthier, I usually go for “add something” (and it’s usually more veggies) because I already don’t eat gluten, dairy, and white sugar due to food allergies. There’s not too much left to subtract and still have eating be any fun or satisfying, so I will opt to add, rather than the uphill battle of subtracting.
The two options to think about adding that will give you the biggest return are sleep and water. Get more sleep (and go to bed earlier to get it) and drink more good, healthy water. Ideally, be in bed by 10pm (11pm in the height of summer, even earlier in winter). Be sure your bedroom is peaceful, your mattress comfortable, and the air fresh. If you are not waking up refreshed, it’s time to rethink this one third of your life. The benefits of being well hydrated and the issues with being dehydrated are well documented. Carry a stainless steel bottle with you and choose water over caffeinated drinks or sweet juices. With either of these additions, you’ll see a difference in your skin, digestion, mental acuity, stamina, and outlook.
If your life feels packed and you couldn’t add another thing, maybe you’d rather subtract something. Timewasters are the things to look for. These are often connected to objects with screens: namely TVs and computers. The day I unplugged my television and put it in the closet was the day I was liberated to pursue more of what brings me joy. Give it a try. A variation on subtraction is substitution, such as substituting healthy treats for junk food, for example. Or you can make a habit of substituting gratitude for complaining.
With a little investigating into what is and isn’t working in your life and a simple “add or subtract” of “just one thing,” you can be happy, healthier, and less stressed in no time.
Could this be Enough?
With all the rain we’ve had, the verdant land around me is lush and filled with the sounds and scents of abundance. It’s easy, on a warm summer day with a sunny sky and cool breeze, to believe that everything is possible and life is very, very good. Other times, doubt and dissatisfaction creep in, when I think some aspect of my life should be different or “better” in some way.
Perhaps you are in a job or relationship that isn’t fulfilling; perhaps you are lonely, bored, worried, frustrated, or confused. I think you have two choices: change your world or accept your world as it is. And if you do decide to make a change, you often have to spend some time accepting things as they are anyway, because changes don’t usually happen in an instant. So it’s good to learn to be OK with how things are, since that’s where we spend most of our time anyway.
This month, I’m inviting you to try on this question: What if this is enough? What if, for today, it’s enough to have what you have and be just who and how you are? What if it’s enough to have the home, job, kids, money, body, friends, happiness, and opportunities you have right now? What if whatever you did or did not accomplish today was enough?
Let the desire to change any one or all of those things be there, too, if you like. Just make some space to try on the possibility that how your life is in this moment is absolutely enough. How would your outlook be different? What happens to your stress level? How about your spending, eating, complaining, worrying, and striving? Any change? How’s your outlook?
What I notice is that every time, and I mean every single time, I ask myself that question, I can feel my body relax and become lighter. My mind quiets; I smile to myself; I sleep soundly. Several recurrent nagging thoughts about how certain things in my life should be different seem to fade into the background. Contentment bubbles up, and amazement, too, which always leads to gratitude and a buoyancy that gives me a lot of positive energy. I use that energy to make the changes I want to make, in time.
I believe we can affirm that we have and we are everything we need to be content in the moment. That is a powerful place to enact changes from. The next time you find yourself dissatisfied with something in your life, try this question and see what happens for you. Maybe you'll feel contentment and gratitude, or maybe you'll say "NO, this isn't enough!" and be motivated by that!
3 Steps to Inner Peace and Freedom
Working with a coach is a great way to envision and follow through on making changes in your life, but what about the other 99% of the time, when you are not in a session and just living your life? Here’s a 3-step process for creating positive changes, every day.
1. Start Noticing
Awareness is the key first step to changing a habit or reactivity pattern (and it’s your habits of mind that are making you bored, frustrated, angry, argumentative, etc), so BE CURIOUS. Notice what triggers you — do you get defensive when someone comments on your cooking? Do you get envious when you hear about a friend’s promotion? Do you keep overeating, even though you don’t want to put on more weight? JUST PAUSE AND NOTICE, and keep noticing, when and how you are triggered, and, most importantly, what the “triggered” feels like in your body. Soon you’ll see a pattern, and you’ll be noticing it with that beautiful, unchanging center deep inside you. That’s the place where change begins.
2. Meet Yourself With Compassion
Once you really become aware of your pattern, and how bad it feels inside when you fall into it, the temptation is to get down on yourself for what you are noticing. It’s a trap — don’t fall for it! Don’t waste any more energy by adding self-judgment, frustration, blame, shame, or guilt onto the original pain of your reactivity. Instead, hold yourself with great tenderness, like you would hold a small child who has fallen and scraped her knee. You’re not condoning or defending the reactivity, you’re just separating who you are from what you did/said/felt and still loving yourself anyway. Because your reaction isn’t WHO YOU ARE, it’s just how you are handling the situation in that moment. Knowing what you want to change about yourself and not yet having the power to change it, because the habit is still too great, can be difficult and frustrating. Use this time to build your inner strength through the healing power of self-acceptance and self-love. See below for the actual HOW of doing this.
3. Drop into Your Experience in Your Body
Your body is your ever-present, in-the-moment tool for transformation. When you wake up in a moment of reactivity — you’re frustrated by traffic delays or disappointed by the outcome of a conversation — wrap yourself in compassion by noticing what you are physically feeling in your body at that moment. Is your chest tight? Breathing constricted? Stomach churning? Just BE WITH whatever sensations you are noticing, really experiencing them for 1 – 2 minutes. Don’t tell a story about them or start an argument with yourself. These sensations are the energy of the reaction and by fully experiencing them you begin to release the hold the reactive pattern has on you. You establish a new pattern, one of mindfullness and self-mastery that is actually rewiring your nervous system.
This process of noticing, meeting with kindness, and being with body sensation is one you’ll probably have to repeat many times in order to break your long-held reactive patterns. Along the way, you’ll develop a deep friendship with yourself, filled with patience, courage, and abiding love. One day you’ll find that the grip your old habit had on you has loosened and you’ll have the power to choose a new way of being in the world, moment by moment.
Renew Yourself with a FREE DAY!
It’s very easy to get into the habit of always being busy, tightly scheduled, multitasking, and productive. We all need to be able to kick into gear and manage our busy lives. But much is lost if you never downshift — you lose the ability to hear your own heart.
Once you are in high gear for months, years, or even decades, it starts to feel like “normal” and unavoidable. But you do have the ability to change, to recalibrate your inner gears, and become more present to yourself, others, and the moment. NOW is when life actually happens, so it’s worth it to show up for that.
Try This: Schedule a whole day as Free Day.
(OK, I know what you’re thinking, you don’t have time. You couldn’t possibly. Well, hear me out first and then see how you feel.)
A Free Day is 24 hours spent alone, following your joy and inner promptings. It’s a day free of planning, working, socializing, or accomplishing anything in particular, except listening to your own inner rhythms.
Does contemplating that make your blood pressure go up? It’s OK, just breathe and read on...
On a Free Day you will:
- Eat when your body is hungry — feed yourself good, delicious food!
- Sleep when your body is tired — napping is good!
- Go outside — smell, walk, look, marvel!
- Do whatever brings you joy in the moment — moment by moment!
- Now here are the DON'TS:
- No housework, yard work, catching up on your job, bill paying, etc
- No television or movies
- No talking on the telephone
- No hang out with other people
- No Facebook or emails
- While it is fine to read, don’t spend every waking moment lost in a novel
- And, under no circumstances, should you make a list of what you want to do on your Free Day. No planning ahead, even by an hour, is allowed!
- Remember to:
- Nourish your body, mind and spirit
- Listen to your body and respond to it
- Follow your creativity
- Rest and let your mind wander
- Spend some time doing absolutely nothing (look out the window, sit by a stream, etc)
- Write your reflections in your journal (but don’t spend journal time reiterating the old complaints)
Remember, Free Days are not spa days, although a nice long soak in the tub is a great idea, and they are not days to catch up with anyone or any tasks. A Free Day a day dedicated to freeing your mind from lists and to do’s, from inner and outer noise, because a mind free of clutter and pressure is a pretty creative, compassionate, grounded instrument with which to navigate your life.
Still think you can’t take a whole day? OK, how about half a day? An evening? Two hours? Try it and see. And please let me know how it goes.
The Promise of Spring
Just east of the village I live near, in Livonia, the MacNeals have started tapping their maples, readying for the big job of making syrup in the new mapling shed. Each gallon of syrup takes 44 gallons of sap. And the trees can give all that sap and not be harmed.
Seems to me that sap rising is a sure sign of the life force energy. Like the prana (energy) seeking to rise from the root chakra to the crown, ever seeking union with the Divine, so we and every living thing is filled with energy that flows moves it toward fulfillment.
The desire to grow is never more evident than in the spring, when the green shoots and tender leaves begin to poke through the soil, reaching for the sunlight. Each flower is a living prayer of unfoldment into its own fullness of expression. Each reveals the parts of themselves that have been hidden underground, as they must do in order to grow. For us — just like the flowers and the maples — revealing ourselves, rising to our fullest potential, and giving freely of our energy doesn’t harm us. In fact it is just what authentic living is all about.
What parts of yourself are being revealed now? How will you honor more and more of who you truly are? What makes your energy flow? Whatever it is, give yourself to that, fully and freely. Trust that choosing life giving activities (and letting go of draining ones) will energize you in a deep way, as you fulfill the divine promise of new growth.
Take the Invitation
Life hands us invitations all the time. Every interaction, decision, situation, or opportunity is an invitation - to grow, learn, evolve, let go, open up, gain insight, or be free. And every invitation has two choices contained in it - yes or no, accept or decline, in or out. We don't always get to choose what gets thrown our way, but we absolutely have choices about how we respond to the invitations life hands us. We can choose either to Life hands us invitations all the time. Every interaction, decision, situation, or opportunity is an invitation — to grow, learn, evolve, let go, open up, gain insight, or be free. And every invitation has two choices contained in it — yes or no, accept or decline, in or out. We don’t always get to choose what let life’s events make us more open, loving, and conscious, or we can, reaction by reaction, choose to close down, shrink up, and hide away. If we do the latter, our experience of peace and happiness gets smaller and smaller, because when we close off to avoid pain, we also close off from love and joy as well.
This past weekend one of my Embodied Life Coaching students declared, “I am like a tree, rooted in the Earth, and learning to sway and bend with possibility.” Her declaration was made in the face of work, family, and person stressors that could have left her feeling like a leaf in a tornado. But instead, she chose to connect with one of her favorite things in nature, trees, to inspire her to gracefully remain strong and rooted, while being responsive to each new situation. This is what I mean by accepting the invitation.
There’s always going to be “stuff” to deal with in life and things are not always going to go our way. How are you going to deal with the inevitable stressors of life? Will you be rooted and flexible like the tree? Flowing like the river? Still and deep like the lake? Expansive and open like the sky? Stable and solid like the mountain? Whatever inspires you, find a way to say “YES!” to the invitations and show up for your life and all it brings.
At my house, the frozen creek waters are flowing again. I take that as both a sign and an inspiration to keep flowing with whatever is ahead.
Why Retreat?
I go on retreat regularly because no matter how simple or complex my life is, the challenge to stay centered in what is truly important to me is always there. I forget easily! I get busy with lots of fun projects and new ideas, I have responsibilities to attend to — there’s always a good reason, or six. And it’s also a challenge to ratchet down the “noise” of everyday life once in a while and tune IN. Inside. Into my heart, where what is essential and life-affirming resides.
Wanting a full life means sometimes emptying out for a bit — emptying out my closets, clearing my mind, resting my body. In the silence, the conversations, the stretching of body and mind, the mindful play, and the sheer luxury of free, unstructured time, I end up remembering someone — myself. I also remember what is important to me, what makes me feel alive and connects me to God, to nature, and to joy.
Life in the 21st century is filled with choices, distractions, and fast moving changes. There’s no getting around that. When I take time to go on retreat — not a workshop or training, a retreat — I am less likely to find myself heading down a road I didn’t mean to go down. So retreat is like a rest stop on the journey, time to look at the map of my own life, which is inside me, without the pressure to be anyone or achieve anything for a time. I rest, look back, look ahead, let some self care nourish me for the next leg of the trip.
After retreat I feel so refreshed and renewed! I feel like my feet are really on the ground and my heart is so open. I find it much easier to let go of energy draining things and embrace the practices, activities, and ideas that enliven me. I’m off for a retreat a couple of weeks before the one I’m leading at the Hartman Center, so I’ll be ready for the honor of creating that sacred space for others. Hope you’ll join us!
What does being and becoming mean?
The journey of a conscious life is one of growth and transformation. There is something in us — a pull, a longing — to discover who we are as a unique individual and to live our life from that authentic place. That process of discovery, of learning about who you truly are, with all your faults and limitations, your light and shadow, your strengths and challenges, is the process of becoming.
How we receive or react to what we discover about ourselves is as important to pay attention to as the process of discovery. Do I reject myself when I discover some smallness in me? Do I react with guilt or shame when confronted with my own limitations? In the process of transformation, what we discover about ourselves is not a cause for self rejection, but a call for self compassion. Learning to love and embrace ourselves, even in the painful truth of our failings, provides an opportunity for the heart to grow strong and wise, and for change to come from a vision of wholeness and healing. This deepening of self acceptance and self love is the process of being.
Together, being and becoming form the two wings of the bird of transformation. A bird can only fly with both wings, and with both can climb to heights of quiet joy and contentment, feeling the freedom of awakened consciousness. |
