I Love You

I got a challenge today...when answering the phone, saying the words "I love you", no matter who is on the other end.  With call display, this makes for an easy selection process because when the phone rings, there is an automatic I love feeling or an oh, dang, do I really have to answer this call cuz so and so annoys the heck out of me feeling.  The challenge is simple, love everyone, no matter who is calling...haha, simple, nothing could be further from the truth, and here in lies the challenge.  To love the unloveable is a feat, an over-riding of the inclination to protect the self from those that are difficult to be with.  I want love to be my call to the wild, in me and in the humans that cross my path, familiar or otherwise.  Call me, in the next two weeks I will answer with "I Love You".

Perfectly Happy

Yesterday...all my troubles seemed so far away (singing this Beatles like, in my head as I type) Yesterday was a crazy coaching day for me.  I got lessons all over the place, in my face lessons about the importance of infrastructure for policies and procedures; who my ideal client IS NOT; what transference looks and feels like, again; the damage projection from me to client can cause; what I can't be with; how keenly aware I must be of the context of self management; what is and what is full stop NOT, coaching.  Through it all, I was different from the me of yesteryear, I had a short self reproach pitty party after a not so well done on my part coaching session but than, I snapped out of it.  Accountability, immediate and with remorse came first, with an apology to the client.  Next came forgiveness, and a letting go of regret, followed by the learning, the thought that yeah, that session wasn't my best but I know what good coaching looks like, feels like, is.  With the knowing, I coached again, with two more clients...thankfully, I recovered, forgot about mistakes gone by and stayed present to the client(s) and I did what I know to be excellent coaching.  Phew, bitter sweet relief.  I'm not perfect, but I'm perfectly happy with that.

Emotional Contagion

Emotional contagion...yeah, sounds like quite the disease. What I learned today is what I already knew, but with super charged awesome verbiage!  Our emotions are contagious, that's right, they are catchy.  Not only are emotions contagious, they are impossible to mask!  Here is the example I heard:
Before leaving the house for work, school, wherever, you have a disagreement with a family member/ room mate.  You know you have to face people and you decide that you will put on a happy face, leave that nasty argument behind and make the most of the day.  Good plan, but what you may not know is that people read your emotions, not the lying smile on your pretend happy face, and this confuses them.  Mirror neurons, the human truth detectors that let us know that behind the smile, there is a story, are Gods gift to humanity. You can't fake it till you make it, you gotta get through it, deal with whatever is making you a mess inside, come to some kind of peaceful resolution within before the smile can ever be perceived as genuine.  I love science, neuroscience in particular, because emotions don't lie, the brain does!  Follow your gut~it is the messenger of Truth and it tells you what IS every single time.

Love Is Immutable

I had a really cool revelation today about love, more specifically about its permanency.  When I was growing up, I heard the words I love you a lot. Today I thought about what I believe about love.  This wasn't my first foray into these investigative thoughts but today, I had the oh, I get it moment that gave me a real smiley face uplift...I mean I grinned from ear to ear for a good part of my dog walk after the epiphany.  In the Bible, there is a verse that reads "faith without deeds is dead". This speaks to love in action, and while I heard the words I love you often, I didn't believe them at any given moment because they seemed to come at me from good moods, or an overflow of the heart because the person speaking them was having a good day.  Was I loved, absolutely!  Was it demonstrated, yes, in infinite ways BUT...opposite messages were also delivered, often in silence, when the persons mood was less than happy, was miserable, or it was a "bad day".  Communication skills were not taught well in my household and so, there was always an insecure feeling, a not knowing of something...now I put my finger on the something, it is love. This not knowing feeling has presented, pattern like, in my relationships throughout the years, giving me the sense that love is a come and go kind of thing. God reminded me today of His immutability, that perception and feelings do not always clearly represent truth and that "His love endures forever". My Perfect Model gives love, Is Love, and I follow in His footsteps.

The Force

One of the things I love most about coaching is the call to honesty.  The client knows that they want something, that there is something missing in their lives but they can't quite put their finger on it and in their eagerness to discover or uncover the unvoiced longing, they are willing to be vulnerable and open themselves up to a coaching relationship. Today I witnessed bravery in two clients, one acknowledging repeatedly that she no longer wants to hold someone else accountable or blame another for holding her back and the second, with trepidation, holding someone accountable in such a valiant way as to be a source of protection for those that could not protect themselves.  It isn't easy, being brutally honest, but without this honesty, there is no forward movement. Coaching is about accounability, responsibility to self first and more importantly, being responsible in the world, for what we think, what we say and do, because we impact others and the force should ALWAYS be used for good.  

Faith in Things Unseen

What if your faith in things unseen was so large as to remove all doubt?  What if your faith in others was so deep that fear of loss and pain from disappointment never crossed your mind?  What if faith in yourself was so embedded, unquestionable and unfathanably larger than life that you said and did and  loved in such a way that others knew your pure intentions, and in so doing, knew your heart?  This is namaste, I see you. Namaste recognizes the beautiful part, the glorious display of the soul...the two parts of us, the me and you that make up the whole are sometimes warring.  We are at times, a house divided against itself. The base human gotta take care of me part says if I don't take care of me, who will?  The divine, God implanted part says, what about others?  How am I a servant?  What joy can I bring?  Who am I in humanity?  What mark will I leave?  Which part of the warring me will win and what legacy do I leave behind?  On my Sabbath, I want the divine to conquer, the faith in things unseen to win.

Money Monster Slayer

Energetically, money is a scary thing for most people.  Money is talked about all of the time and is an idol, a real living and breathing thing in the imagination, a monster in the closet that screeches in a nails on a chaulk board kind of way "not enough, more, you need more of meeeeee".  I am currently studying money, and what I'm noticing is that fear and frustration are partners in crime in the pysche of those who don't understand money, have majical thinking about it, or see it as some kind of threat to their principals and morals ie the rich are greedy.  Yesterday, I presented a Say Yes To Money mini workshop to business women. Learning a profession is fabulous, edifying, AND expensive...learning that you are a salesperson first and foremost requires some insanely deep digging into self limiting beliefs.  Bringing a product or service to market is a must and yet, for the new entrepreneur, charging for services rendered can be embarrassingly painful.  I heard once "services rendered without payment are not valued".  I add to this, services rendered without payment can cause irritation, disillusionment, disappointment and dissatisfaction for the service provider as they begin to recognize that while they are helping others, they are somehow hurting themselves. Getting paid for work is not mercenary, it is a well deserved exchange for what the client wants from the service provider, an Even~Steven honouring from one human being to another.  I am the Money Monster Slayer, on a quest to get clear and help others get clear about how valuable they are before they ever utter the words, my fee is...