Your Life - Inspired

(This is December's Main Newsletter article. See the whole thing here.)

I have a client who wants to feel more comfortable getting her creative thing out in the world. We had a good session on Wednesday. At the very end, I took her through a little process to check in with herself, see what her heart wants. We went through it, and at the end she said, "that's the kind of thing I'd love to see on your website! You talk about it, but I didn't really get it, until now."

She asked, you receive!

When you find yourself feeling a little unsure or icky, or like you want to do something but aren't sure what, rather than pushing through, pause. Take a moment (right now works too) and put your hand on your heart. Inhale, almost as if you could breathe into your hand. Exhale. And again. One more time.

Now, if you haven't already, turn your attention to your heart. Ask yourself, "How can I best care for myself in this moment?" Then simply observe. Notice the very first thing that pops up.

For my client, it was "red."

It could be a pictures, a word or phrase, a sensation, a color. It may be very clear, it may not make sense to you right away. If it isn't clear, sit with it for a few moments. And notice what you notice.

When she sat with "red" for a moment, she pictured riding in her red truck, singing and enjoying herself.

Then give it to yourself the best you're able in that moment, even if you're simply imagining it.

She thought about her icky situation, but with that feeling, and it didn't feel so icky. In fact, it seemed just fine.

Rinse. Repeat.

This is great to do in the moment, as you're going through your day. If you aren't sure how that will work for you, you can practice. Seriously. Here's how:

Think about a situation recently when you felt lost or unsure. And go through the process.

Or for even more fun, think about a situation that might come up in the future, where you could get an unsure or icky feeling. And go through the process.

There are only a couple of rules to follow as you're playing with this:

1. Be nice to yourself.
2. Observations only (no judgments). If you aren't sure about this one, refer to #1.

There is no right or wrong, no good or bad. Simply you, learning to care for yourself in each moment.

There's actually some science behind this. If you're interested in knowing more, check out The HeartMath Solution. (This links to the book on Powells, the best independent bookstore in the world, rather than the Heartmath website because it is more informative!)

I'd love it if you'd try this and let me know how it goes.

I love words: reading them, writing them, speaking them, coaching with them, trying to find the right ones that say what I want to say and fit into 140 characters or less. So clearly I get that words have meaning, or they wouldn't matter so much. But sometimes, still, I get surprised by just how much things can change by choosing different words.

An amazing coach, organizational consultant and friend, Manya Arond-Thomas* is getting certified in a new assessment tool that helps you identify and quantify those tasks and activities that are "mission critical" for your success. I volunteered to do a practice assessment with her. (Duh, me, me! I'm a sucker for I love these kinds of things. If you ever need a volunteer for a quiz, test or assessment, you know where to find me.)

You come up with a list of things, rate them according to a few different criteria and the results are put on a grid. Manya helped me understand what the placement on the grid means, and how to shift things around so that the things that really do need to take priority do. Hint: it's based on a combination of your perceived ability and perceived challenge.

One of the things on my list was: Be physically active 5 times per week. This was something that, until the broken toe incident, had been a regular part of my life. Now, I'm finding it difficult to get back into the routine. And this phrase, Be physically active, was how I had worded that desire in the past. It worked well before, but now, it just seemed boring and irrelevant.

Through talking with Manya, I discovered that if I changed the language to: Train to Climb Mt. Hood, the whole thing shifted in a really cool and magical way. I get excited and really connected to it. And the irony of it, and this is where the importance of semantics becomes really clear, the actual things that I'll be doing to Train to Climb Mt. Hood are the exact same things I'd be doing if I was just being physically active.

• Just a quick PS! While Manya's niche is working with Physicians and Healthcare executives, she also works with others outside the healthcare field. And, she'll soon have a free assessment tool, similar to the one I took, available on her website. Check back next week if you're interested!

I never in a million years thought I’d write that, much less experience it. See, I’ve spent my life being very careful about what I tried to do, because I always wanted to make sure I would get it right and be good at it.

I didn’t want to try something and be bad at. Sheesh, that would be crazy. Who wants to fail? Who wants to be mediocre? Who wants to be…bad?!

So, as you might have guessed, I didn’t try a lot of things. I passed on opportunities; let little glimmers of interest die a quick and nearly painless death. (To resurrect later as regrets.)

The things I did do, were the things I was naturally good at, or had an early success with. I didn’t experiment. I didn’t get curious. I didn’t practice those things I did do. (I’m sure that’s incorrect grammar or word choice or something, but deal with it. It sounds funny. Read it over again!)

Now I’m trying something new¹ that is so difficult that only two practitioners have mastered the second to the highest level, and even at the simplest, beginning level, I make so many mistakes in 10 minutes that you can’t even count them. Doing this goes against every way I’ve ever protected myself from the feeling of failure in the past.

The first time I practiced Dance of Shiva I got frustrated, a little angry, annoyed and considered never ever doing it again. (It was brief, but I did consider it.) There was discussion on Twitter about the throwing of shirts at TVs out of frustration. And Sonia Simone coined the phrase "100% possibility of spazzosity."

The second time I did it, I didn’t even notice the small mistakes and felt surprise when I found myself in so completely the wrong position I can’t imagine how I even got there. Hell, I didn’t even know my arms could move that way.

Today, the third time, I found myself smiling the whole time, and laughing when I got really tangled up. It’s not that I suddenly got the actual physical positions right either. It’s that I just felt so happy to be moving in this way that feels so interesting in my body and my mind. It is actually fun.

As I was writing this, my Former Paranoid Self (FPS), popped in for a chat. Apparently FPS sometimes forgets the definition of Former.

FPS: I don’t think you’re supposed to laugh. You should be taking this more seriously.
Me: But it’s fun. And funny.
FPS: Well, it’s not supposed to be. You’re probably doing it wrong. It’s supposed to be Serious Brain Training. Just look at that guy! (Image of stonefaced Andrey Lappa pops into my head.) That’s how you’re supposed to be.
Me: Yes, he’s very serious-looking, and maybe he’s “laughing here, [pointing to chest] where it counts.”
FPS: I don't think so. And you know, no one’s going to get that esoteric reference to an old Happy Days episode. They’ll think you’re weird.
Me: So what? I crack myself up, that’s what matters.
{FPS slinks away to dream up future torturous thoughts…}

Then it occurred to me that maybe I was having one of those moments of Bing! Havi talks about. I realized: I. Truly. Don’t. Care. It doesn’t matter to me (at least for this moment and long enough to post this) if someone else thinks I’m getting this right or not. I’m doing it, I’m experiencing these cool insights, and most importantly for me, maybe not for you, but for me, I’m NOT taking it seriously – I’m laughing and having fun.

¹ The new thing is Shiva Nata or Dance of Shiva. As Havi describes it: "It's weird yoga brain training that sets you up for crazy life-changingly cool insights. Awesome." And, I'll just add this amazingness happens in less than 15 minutes a day. Seriously. Check it out.

I've been sitting in front of my computer thinking, I should write, I should write, I haven't written in a flabillion years, and it's about time. But I'm all electric with energy. I'm jittery. I'm antsy.

Part of it is I'm sure to do with it being election day. Hope is in the air, and I just love what Jen Louden had to say about it. Part of it is that I've been pretty housebound for the last month due to the breaking of my toe. And part of it, is that I can just see a sliver of blue sky out my office window. I was expecting weather more typical, i.e. overcast skies and drizzles.

But most of all, I think that sometimes I need movement and fresh air to clear my brain and allow space for writing that's not forced.

I'm headed out now, I'll let you know what I find out.

I've been at Heart of Business' Path to Profitability retreat. Lots and lots of awesomeness over the five days. I'll be sharing specifics with you soon. But in the meantime, I've been catching up on my favorite blogs.

This morning I was over at The Fluent Self getting a good dose of Havi. Her recent post on taking the scary of out blogging really hit me over the head. Well, actually since this is Havi, it was more of a gentle tapping on the shoulder that said, "Hey, how are you? Any of this ring a bell?"

Ding-ding-ding (finger tapping nose). Yep. Posting is sporadic at best over here at Chez I think of all this great stuff, but it hardly ever gets into a post. After a little thinking on it, this is what I realized:

I find myself pre-editing my blog posts. By this I mean I get an idea. I start writing it in my head. I start editing the writing that I'm doing in my head. I begin to wonder if this is a cool enough idea to share with you. More often than not, I decide it isn't. So no post gets written.

It's a little crazy that I let this sadistic, idea-smashing, exploration hating editor in my head. Hmpf. At any rate, he's been having a great time wreaking havoc in there and leaving everyone else out in the cold.

So you know what I did? I fired him and hired a new guy. That crazy bastard has been replaced by my favorite Uncle as my new mind editor. He thought everything I ever did was wonderful! Amazing! Beautiful! Brilliant! So he's the new boss of what gets written.

So there may be boringness. There may be irrelevancy. And there will be something to read. YAY. Besides, I'm the boring, irrelevant coach. Just ask Havi.