Band Aids

One of my fabulously bright coaching friends gave me the gift of an amazing metaphor today. We are all broken in one way or another and the beauty of self awareness, the hard work of uncovering what ails us, is the discovery of the healing available to those who seek wholeness. I find this in my relationship with God, my knowing the alive and ever present Jesus Christ as Saviour, the quiet calm gentle and compelling whisper and sometimes loud voice of The Holy Spirit, they are my medicine.  I have memories of a poisonous work environment and to cope, I kept my Bible close at hand~it was my emergency manual, my how do I survive and what do I say, do, go to place.  That job threatened my well being and by the time I left, I felt broken battered and bruised. I tell this story as a point of comparison, the than me and the now me.  What was at one time a threat, no longer holds any power over me.  My need for emergency room God care has become a lighter, more like first aid for minor scratches and cuts (yes, paper cuts are included in this metaphor) need and as I take off protective bandaids from these cuts, healing and wholeness is revealed underneath, no sign of injury remains.  God is love, He is Healer, Wonderful Counsellor, and He has made me whole...Much love to my divinely inspired, metaphor gifted coach friend Jane Reid.

Peace Transcends Understanding

Eminent threat, warning, attack may occur so get those hackles up~you are now entering a danger zone of unsure origins and secret pathways with scary monsters standing at the ready to grab at you, claw away what isn't theirs, it is something that belongs to you and you must hold on for dear life because if they get their grabby grubby hands on it, they will treat it roughly, with disregard, destroy it...and you won't be able to get it back again.  What is the it that must be protected from others?  I'm not sure what your "it" is but I know mine is autonomy, I don't like being told what to do.  Lately I have been noticing my own immediate reactions and those of others in my life and what I have observed is that it would appear humans are a threat, to other humans.  With my attachment to autonomy, my fight or flight radar goes into red alert at the strangest times and while I believe intuition is a powerful tool, I don't appreciate the somatic reactions that go with this natural protective mechanism. That had me wondering, how long have these automatic responses been in place?  I must have needed them at one point in time, and do I still?  Is there an eminent threat, or is this a twisted perception, a defensive mechanism gone rogue?  Here was the biggest question for me: Do I WANT to view the words, actions, reactions of others as an eminent threat to my well being?  Is fight or flight the boss of me and what can I do, what new way of seeing the world and it's super cool humans can I take with me everywhere I go?  I have read more than once recently, be hard on issues, soft on people~I like this, it sounds and feels right and it means that when intimate relationship goes sideways, when strangers misunderstand and miscommunicated, when intentions are checked and clarity is sought after rather than each person going to their corner to come out fighting to protect themselves, the door opens to a peaceful harmony, first in me AND than it shows up in how I interact with the world.  I am not a threat, I come in Peace~May the Peace that transcends all understanding, also be with you. 

Paper Cuts

The expression "death by a thousand paper cuts" has been playing through my thoughts lately. Think of this:  how the heck can one piece of paper be so sharp and how the heck can it cut to the point of causing excessive bleeding?  Plus, these nasty little slices of open flesh really sting~multiply by a thousand and ouch, that's a lot of blood and sting. Now image you do this to yourself, with thoughts, actions, mean words, disregard for yourself. Once sliced by paper, the victim of the assault can attest to the discomfort of the cut, this is akin to the invisible and just as painful slicing and dicing we often do to ourselves when we worry, criticize, critique, malign our character after making mistakes and any number of other self mutilating acts of invisible self abuse. Handle with care could be the warning stamp on seemingly innocent stacks of waiting to cut you paper...wouldn't it be wonderful though, if we too, had this label stamped on us as a reminder to treat ourselves with care?  You are wonderfully made, there is only one precious unique you, be kind to yourself, you deserve it.

Empathy Disabling

Today, with the help of my close friend, Lauren Rudolph, I entered the playground of my own soul. I have been blocked, stuck or perhaps struck, with a sense of inability, a desperate hopelessness. Not long ago a man spoke to the congregation at my church about the International Justice Mission. Their purpose is to seek and find the enslaved, including children, rescue them, help heal them, go after perpetrators and prosecute them, bringing justice to and for the maltreated and innocent.  I want so badly to help too and my fear has been gripping me...today I learned what was at the root of my fear. I have been terrified of hearing the stories and having my heart break, unable to stop crying, grieving for the beautiful people who deserve by virtual of being humans, love and kindness and most of all freedom.  During my conversation with Lauren, she probed and asked about me owning the pain of others...this stopped me in my tracks and helped me recall Mother Theresa who worked with joy in her heart for the hungry, sick and dying, telling her workers that they were to be joyful, never downcast. Empathy has its place, it is a glorious point of connectedness between humans, clearly this is devoid, non existent in those who liberally use others with disregard for their pain.  Having empathy is a catalyst and this is where the I must do something driving force comes from~this said, the question turns into is it my pain or theirs and will I give it back so that the gift they receive when helped is healing, curative, and separate from the freedom fighters so that they become strong, empowered and fortified to fight the good fight for themselves and others?  Empathy is crippling if it stays there, moving forward into action, believing and knowing that the fire of God is in all men, that is when empathy becomes a life giving transformational living breathing entity.

Wellness is No Accident

I have a joke I tell people when they ask me how it is that I am so fit:  as I gesture with a hand sweep from my neck downward toward the floor, I say "this is no accident".  Nothing done with purpose is an accident and results are a natural outcome from consciousness~from choosing.  Adults are on purpose learners, in other words, when adults want something, they investigate ways of getting the something and intentionally go in that direction.  Nothing is mission impossible and this truth is in the old saying "if I can do it, so can you". The do it part is the easy part AFTER the choosing part. What do you want?  What are you willing to do to have it, get it, be it?  Happiness, joy, faith, love, wellness, fitness, these are no accidental events, they are choices. 

God Isn't Mean

The result of the first rebellion against Gods will is that evil was implanted in human hearts. Genesis explains that the worlds evil does not come from some defect in Gods creation, it comes from mans rejection of Gods plan for his created beings. If God were an umbrella and his children wanted to stay dry, it would behoove them to stay under the protective covering~instead, Adam and Eve decided to go against Gods advisement and in so doing, they and we as direct descendants, have had to brave the storm so to speak, ever since. Consequence is a natural law, cause and effect exists and we have all experienced the "if I do this, that will happen" in life and this law holds true in relationship with God. His offering was parental, protective, a covering and a supplying of all good things for human pleasure and liveliness.  Man and woman chose, using freedom of will, to reject Gods offer in favour of something else...would you and I have done the same?  Results and effects?  Humans no longer recognize Gods presence, his authority; there is shame, fractured relationships with God and other humans; estrangement from the rest of creation and death.  The gifts were rescinded, not because God is mean, but because man didn't recognize a good thing when he saw it, felt it, had it already...Until next time in the Bible.

Focus

Whatever you focus on is what you are going to get.  Now this can be a super scary thought or it can be a spectacular way of moving into the fast lane of life and getting over THERE, wherever there happens to be. Have you ever noticed that some people are trouble magnets with endless stories of mishaps and near misses and misunderstands and missteps, makes me think they are missing something or perhaps they are a moving pain target.  Sharing the stories, repeating them to all who will listen appears to amplify the target and the stories keep coming. I had a client many moons ago and during a training session, he held up two fingers.  I stopped talking and asked what he was doing, what did the two fingers mean?  He responded, "this is my signal for you that I have now heard a story twice, I'm going to hold up two fingers when you start repeating yourself".  This was an awesome lesson in self awareness for me and the impact I was having on those who politely listened to a repeat story, and those that were not willing to sacrifice time on redundancy, which brings me to my point:  How boring is a repeat of outcomes to you?  How interested are you in focusing on something new, life giving, enthralling, empowering?  Focus on what you want and chances are, that's what you are going to get.

IMPACTFUL

Spin, spin...I'm a spin doctor, and so are you.  I can set the mood, kill the mood, elevate the mood, depress it, escape from it, move into it, separate myself from it, yeah, I am THAT powerful and everyone in my life knows this because I have so much energy that I am IMPACTFUL.  Does this sound like an ego trip?  You take this trip with me, let's see if you too, are impactful. Have you ever joined a group of people that clearly were bored and within minutes of you entering the space, they became happier?  How about the opposite, the joy was tangible and after your grand entrance, the group became quiet, reserved, tentative? Oh come on, it's not just me, you have the power too, to shift and shape and move wave like, the energy in a space and of course, the energy in others. Too much evidence points in the direction of this as truth for it to be deniable. It is only and always insecurity that keeps us from our powerful impactful selves.  Try this as an experiment~disassociate  yourself from you by deciding what your impact will be on others before joining a group, by picking your mood (you CAN pick your mood, it is a choice we all have) and than observer like, see how others respond to you. If you are happy, are they receptive by smiling and sharing, sad, do they become melancholy, hyper, do they get energized?  Here's my point:  YOU can shape your world, you DON'T have to react to it, you can call the shots!  Try it, maybe you will be surprised and the people in your life delighted and perhaps they too will learn to take bold steps in shaping their own lives and the world around them.  Go on, you have good intentions, be a change agent and have crazy fun creating the life you want to live, RIGHT NOW...no more waiting.

Defence Mechanisms

The other day my husband was talking and at the same time, my dog was whining which irritated my husband.  He told the dog to be quiet and attempted to continue speaking but the dog also continued speaking in his whiny doggie way. This irritated my husband more and he went after the dog, alpha male style, to swat him into silence.  I laugh as I recall this because quick on his feet, my dog retreated, hiding behind me!  When I shifted my weight, he moved with me, clearly protecting himself from the anticipated silencing swat.  As a coach, I am loathe to have a metaphor go unnoticed and under utilized and so, I have to say that my dogs self protective reaction reminded me of human defence mechanisms. While my dog physically moved himself out of harms reach and used me as a trusted barrier, he clearly is not cognizant of his actions, in other words, he didn't think to himself "woof, if I move behind mummy, whine woof, there's no way daddy, woof can get me".  This is how defence mechanisms work~they are like tire grooves on a well worn driveway.  They exist because for whatever reason, at one point in time, we, you and I, had to learn to protect ourselves from some kind of emotional, physical, spiritual, psychological swat. The current question is, how are those defensive mechanisms working for you now?  What are they and do you still need them?  What are you protecting yourself from, and do you still want to...