Design Your Life Insights

When did we become a country of looking from what's wrong rather than what's possible?

2010-11-03T13:52:00.000-07:00

When did we become a country of looking from what's wrong rather than what's possible?

How about happiness?

2010-09-26T09:12:00.000-07:00

How about happiness?

What is a really good friend/friendship?

2010-09-10T13:31:00.000-07:00

What is a really good friend/friendship?

Days Gone By

2010-06-15T08:19:00.000-07:00

Its a quirky thing, blogging. I think about it as days go by and on the one hand I ask myself what inspirational thing can I share... I never really have considered myself inspirational but others have. I think I've just looked at myself as wanting to experience everything that I can and have considered the moment as being the best time to start. "What's next" has pretty much been a mantra of mine... and "no time like the present." It's been perfectly fine in my life when I've been 'on my own' and a bit stickier when I've been in relationship. Except for now, which is fabulous.

Days gone by.. I don't know what had me name this post and the days have gone by. There are many wonderful times and many not so wonderful times. There have been highest highs and lowest lows. Each have contributed to who I have become. I'm content. I'm also restless. Which both are exactly okay for me.

I've been told many times "you should write a book" because of the stories that come out of me that I have lived. Perhaps those experiences will eek out in my blogging and my bloggers can vote on whether or not there is something to write about. No time like the present, eh?

Thoughts on dis-empowering conversations that we automatically speak to ourselves

2010-05-19T08:24:00.000-07:00

Day by day we wake up into possibility. Today, at 6:30 AM I woke up into possibility, or said another way, choice. In that exact moment I had the opportunity to wake up into... "I should... or "I have to... or "I need to... or "I'm going to try... or whatever form of waking up into the 'default' environment that we, as human beings, automatically set up for ourselves.

Or I had the opportunity to choose to wake up into "I will...

Think about it. If I "should on" myself, I am automatically 'off the starting block' with a 10# weight tied around my neck. I call this way-of-being 'being hopeful that my day turns out.' There is no commitment in these default conversations that show up automatically and besides, they dis-empower me as the designer of my life.

If I live from "I have to..." then I am already making myself wrong for 'not doing what I have declared I have to be doing.' There is a difference between "I have to" and "I will." Today, I will get up... and make a choice in the NOW. The now is all I have. Now, I can choose to continue to write this blog or now, I can choose to stop.

Yes, there are plans that I have for the day, including choosing to be responsible for my body and going to work out however, it is up to me whether or not "I should... or "I have to.. or "I need to... or "I'm going to try...

You see, I can go on not working out. It's not something "I have to" do. That is perfectle acceptable as a choice. I can continue to choose not work out ever as a way to live my life and to accept whatever happens because of that choice. If I look from being responsible in designing mine as a healthy life, I will work out. There is no Have to, Need to, Should, Trying.. there is only choosing that "I will", if I choose to live my life responsibly and healthily.

And now, I choose to stop writing this blog and go work out.

Powerful Communication with First, Your Body Dispositions

2010-05-05T09:55:00.000-07:00

I heard something fabulous the other day on which I've been pondering where to pay attention to how our communication with each other may become more powerful.

Marty Raphael, one of my colleagues through Newfield Network, said the following in one of our shared ontological explorations:

"First, we have a body.

Then, we have emotions.

Finally, we have linguistics."

Let's explore this as an inquiry and how it relates to communicating powerfully.

Sometimes we pay attention to what we say. More more accurately however, we pay attention to:

"self talk" or

"the little voice in our head" or

"I have to" or

"I need to" or

"I tried.." or

"feelings" ...

... or just generally, how we "should on" ourselves via language.

In other words, we automatically fall into talking to ourselves or others from which we find... shall I say "collusion" ... to keep our automatic ways of speaking in place. But that is fodder for another conversation. Let's get back to Marty sharing the obvious.

"First, we have a body.

Then, we have emotions. (I'll add "and moods")

Finally, we have linguistics." (briefly defined as "what we say and what we listen")

Are you noticing that what you are saying resides inside of a mood or an emotion? In addition, have you noticed those two domains reside within how you are 'holding' your physical body? There is a congruence with these three domains that 'we' as human beings don't often put our attention on.

An obvious example of an automatic way of speaking that does not work for you is when you are "fighting" with someone.

There are:

1. the spoken words that come out of your mouth <"you did this" and "you did that!">

2. from an emotion and I promise you,

3. how you are holding your body

The congruence of these three domains lead to a lack of powerful communication in an automatic way-of-being called "how I fight with someone." This way-of-being does nothing for you other than keep you "fighting."

You might ask, how do I "get out of" this dis-empowering way of communicating?

Look at Marty's statement...

"First we have a body."

We learned FIRST how to communicate via our bodies. How might you shift the conversation or the mood or the emotion from 'anger' or 'frustration' to 'acceptance' or 'compassion' or 'humility'?

If you think of how you hold your body in 'anger' or 'frustration' you will begin to see a pattern. That body disposition is where you automatically reside whenever you are in anger or frustration.

Now to first, go with the body, shift it. Consciously move it to another body disposition, someplace that is unfamiliar to you when you are in anger. Notice what happens. Notice how the mood or the language is altered. Notice now you have the ability to "step out" of the anger or frustration and "observe" from another view. One from which you are now able to communicate powerfully.

Exercise: when you recognize that the Way-of-Being that you are in is not working and you "want out of it," stop yourself and notice how you are holding your body. Then shift it.. if your shoulders are forward, move them back. If your legs are crossed, open them up. If your eyes are squinting, open them wide. If your sitting, stand up. Then notice what happens. What new emotion shows up? What new words of possibility show up? How does your communication shift? As with any new practice this takes practice, practice, practice and guess what? More practice.

Let me know how it goes.

Happy Spring!

Patricia

Patricia Hirsch
ICF Master Certified Coach
Communication Expert
Design Your Life Coaching
www.designyourlifecoaching.com

Have you considered that this life, the one you are living right now, is perfect?

2010-03-03T10:18:00.000-08:00

Yes, yes, I know there are assessments that people live in that life will be perfect when… when "this problem" and "that problem" and "so many problems" is/are handled such that often people spend their time, their precious living time, wanting to and having to "fix" so that they will get to "life will be perfect." However, I'm going to ask you to "try on," like you would try a new hat on in a store to see if it fits, that "life is perfect."

Right now this is the life you are living. So how, pray tell, can it be anything other than perfect? This is where you will start designing the rest of your life. You have the opportunity to say whatever you wish to say, be it something of power, or beauty, or sadness, or anger, or disgust, or just plain joy. You have the opportunity to make the choices you make regardless of what others think you "should" do or "have to" say about it or any other nonsense that might get in the way of designing your life from now forward that life is perfect.

This is your perfect life. How will you choose to design it? How will you choose to shift who you are being such that life shows up as perfect? It's not up to Mom or Dad. It's not up to your boss, your teacher, your fellow employees, your friends. It's not up to your partner. Guess who gets to choose your life. Bravo! It's YOU!! You are the one that gets to come from life is perfect - right now - and you get to choose… "x" …or maybe choose "y." What's it going to be?

Okay, say you're 58 years old, and you've been laid off a job, and you have a bad cold, and your partner is mad at you, and all you want to do is scream to the world, "It's not fair!!" Is life perfect? Absolutely!

Being 58 years old. Wow. However, let's take a look. That is coming into the age of wisdom, where you are able to draw on your legacy and make choices based on what you have observed in your life up till now.

Having been laid off, you can now choose where next you wish to focus your intentions and how about on your passions? Oftentimes people default into a job or career, and it's not necessarily what they wanted to do when they were young and people asked them, "What do you want to do when you grow up?" Granted, you may have to adjust a few things and decrease spending to match what you can afford; however, think of what opportunities you can now design living from life is perfect.

You know you will get better if you care for your cold with responsibility. All it takes is lots of fluids, vitamins, cleanliness, and rest.

Your partner is mad at you. Okay, this one I ask you to think from that new hat perspective that our assessments often choose for us and we let them. With a partner mad at you, what assessments are you living from that can get in the way of life is perfect with your partner? How about this one… my partner is mad at me and that's okay!

"But," you say, "how about me screaming at the world, it's not fair?" That too, is perfect. I say an emotion expressed allows the emotion to dissipate. Not the truth, just another way to look at emotions. Say the emotion fear comes up, or perhaps frustration, or how about the mood helplessness, or hopelessness, that has you want to shout "it's not fair!"? I say that's perfect. Well, what's perfect is to shout it if it is calling out to be shouted, and we are responsible about our shouting. In other words, I find the perfect place for me to shout out my frustrations or anger or upsets are while sitting inside my car, with the window down, driving down the freeway. What a perfect place in my perfect life to express those emotions that wouldn't necessarily be acceptable nor responsible inside my home (unless it's into a pillow), or my work place or a movie theater. In my perfect life, it works for me to express those emotions driving down the freeway. It's brilliant if I say so myself as I am then able to observe the fear, frustration, helplessness or hopelessness and choose to "be at cause" in my life.

To me, life is perfect. This has been just a tiny view from my perspective. I wouldn't want it any other way. Living in life is perfect allows me to look at each of my fellow human beings as the perfect people with which to interact and since I absolutely love my fellow human beings, how perfect it is that they come into my life.

Patricia Hirsch, MBA, Master Certified Coach
Chief Empowerment Officer with Design Your Life Coaching

Are You Vacationing?

2010-01-12T10:36:00.000-08:00

There is nothing like unplugging from a quest to reach dreams or goals or a desire to “get to” other than where we are and to just enjoy the moment, as so often can happen on a vacation.

Truly, to vacation and experience a world that is vastly rich with peoples and cultures and new ways to traverse this experience we call life allows for a richer and deeper appreciation for what we choose in our lives. To vacation is not "the right thing to do” however, if you are one such a person who does not vacation, have you considered what you “might not know that you might not know” and could experience and learn from?

Perhaps for me the key factor in the importance of taking vacations is based on the fact that as a military kid moving from one state to the next every two to three years, and even to a foreign country, there was always a reason to vacation. Oftentimes we didn't spend a lot of money to vacation, however vacations were always important for our well being.

Mom was an avid historian and would research our next vacation each time we would move to the next city. She found numerous historical cities, along with the wonderful federal and state parks throughout our naturally rich with history and nature, United States. She drove us through the country visiting places like the huge sculptures of the four best Presidents representing the first 150 years American history. We visited the massive dam of Niagara Falls, outside of Buffalo, New York, which holds back thousands of tons of water which pours over a 180 feet high cliff that is over a half of a mile wide, while at the same time feel the spray of mist that displays wonderful perpetual rainbows. We walked across a plank laid across a tiny, muddy trickle of the assumed head of the 2350 mile long Mississippi River in Itasca State Park, Minnesota, and later were amazed by a visit to the Gulf of Mexico where the huge mouth of where the river culminates.

Our idea of vacationing brings back fond memories of no television, no radios, not a MP3 player in sight nor thankfully needed. Instead we talked and we sang and we played games such as to how many different state license plates could we find along our travels. We spent valuable and now longed-for time together on our vacations. We traveled in big old wood paneled station wagons staying in inexpensive clean little motels or vacation rentals on military bases rented for a modest fee along the way. One summer we traveled in an old silver Airstream trailer camping along the way and sitting around campfires at night while listening and laughing to wonderful stories told by my parents or fellow campers visiting the same campground. It was a pre-fast food environment and my very favorite place was Howard Johnson's where we would stop after a roadside picnic for dessert on special vacation occasions and I could order my favorite Peppermint Stick ice cream.

I knew that life was great. We were on vacation and I was with people I loved.

Dad was an avid fisherman and when we weren't moving from state to state or country to country, the "in-between" years we would be at some little fishing resort that would take a family of 4-8 kids, depending on the year, with fishing gear and aluminum skiffs, and a ski boat where he would drive madly around the lakes with kids in tow either solo or in tandem, depending upon the boat of the season and how large the motor was. This was the basis of the years I have spent on sailing the oceans of the Pacific, Atlantic and Caribbean, I'm sure. Dad would take off to fish in solitude while the rest of us would swim or fish our own way or sit around and read books with each other or get lost in a story alone. Often, we'd set up our meals on picnic tables outside with fellow resort vacationers and learn new things from new perspectives.

Ah! The realization that life beyond our own imaginations was plentiful and rich and waiting to be discovered!

When we moved to Europe, Mother's itineraries spread from tiny little Moroccan cities in España to huge cathedrals in Italy and cities in France where she and my father might have visited previously during their assignments during WWII. Dad being the water person that he was would choose vacations along the Costa del Sol in beach cities such as Benidorm, Barcelona, and Sitges.

Ah yes, vacations are important. To have accomplished what I have of which I am proud, my accomplishments have been based in my choice to continue my family tradition of vacationing. While I no longer stop at Howard Johnson's, I have had the pleasure of going camping just a few short miles from my own town deliciously isolated from the ‘city life’ lights and hustle and bustle while sitting next to a crackling fire under a star studded sky, while laughing with family and friends and fellow campers. Or visiting the wonderful people of Fiji and SCUBA diving while taking movies and pictures of sharks being fed inches away from me; and visiting the Oktoberfest in Munich with friends from Germany and Austria; and sailing for 10 days in the British Virgin Islands, dropping anchor in deserted little anchorages and plunging into the warm waters of the Caribbean Sea; or traveling to Europe with an inexpensive Euroraíl pass, getting on and off the trains for visits to "Youth Hostels" where albeit the water wasn't always hot in the showers but the beds were welcome and the beds clean, while traveling the Bay of Biscay where Napoleon's wife, Josephine, had her estate, or a customized pizza was served to me in Brindisi, Italy, or ouzo was served to me in a Café Neon in Crete, Greece.

Because of vacations, I have been able to indulge in a favorite passion: to study people and cultures throughout the world; all along, getting to know the people of the world and learning to love the wonderful earth on which we live. That what is available beyond my automatic ways-of-being in my life always opens my views wider and assist me in appreciating life for what I knew not.

Are you vacationing?

Have you considered that conversations are a bit like yawning?

2009-12-01T16:50:00.000-08:00

Have you ever notice that some conversations seem to run rampant in communities?

Take for instance, the conversation being shared all over the U.S.A. that goes like this: "I'm SOOOO busy!" Doesn't it seem as if almost everyone you meet is living inside of that conversation? Doesn't it seem as if that conversation alone is contagious? Almost like the analogy I referred to in the title of this post... as contagious as a yawn.

As a matter of fact, I'm yawning right now and I even had a great night of sleep last night. Just the word, "yawn" brings to the forefront that there is a yawn waiting to be expressed. Woops! Another one.. and I'm suppressing a third... nope.. no such luck. I yawned. Yawns are contagious and I bet you've had to stifle one just reading this post. Plus, if you are in a public place ans someone saw you yawn, I'll bet they too have yawned in the few minutes since seeing you .. then someone saw them yawn and there it goes! A yawn caught around the world!

As with a conversation.

If we use the same rationale for how conversations run rampant like a contagious yawn, think of the conversation "I'm SO busy" and how it's showing up in the unlikeliest of places. People have been doing the same things over and over again, and people are going to work and returning from work very much around the same times they always have, and there have always been 'action items' around what needs to be completed next.

How about farmers who have tons of things to do from waking up before dawn, making breakfast, eating it, cleaning up, getting out to the barn, hitching up the animals, taking them out to the field, plowing the field, and on and on (I'm just making up that I know what happens on a farm). Oh yes! Don't forget about gathering the eggs, feeding the chickens, and whatever else there is to do like milking the cow and butchering…well, we don't have to go there. In all the shows I've seen where there are farmers who are getting their long lists of chores done, up until about two or three years ago, I never once heard anyone say on one of those shows, "I'm SO busy!" and especially with the contagious emphasis on that word “SO”!

Perhaps we are not as busy as we make out that we are and that someone actually invented the conversation of being busy and we “caught” it as when we catch a yawn. Based on my earlier theory, the rest of us have caught that contagious conversation unaware of how it is affecting us or our well being.

Even though we move from one chosen undertaking to the next, the conversation that was made up, "busyness," for which many of us have gotten caught up in not dissimilar to a yawn in fact, is perhaps distracting us from realizing that the emotions that go along with being "SO busy" may not be ones that are supporting us in having a fulfilled life.

Think about it, and I request that you be detached from possible assessments such as how you can prove to me that, "yes, but with me I really AM busy! Let me tell you about what I'm doing in MY life!" This contagious conversation may be a clue that we might not be acknowledging ourselves and our ability to see that we are actually the ones who are choosing the conversation, or even the state of being, busy.

The choices that we make of living in a perpetual state of assessment of "busyness" and "so much to do" and "not enough time," etc., seem to me to be the antithesis of living a life full of passion and fulfillment, and seem to distract us from the accomplishments in our lives, much like with a yawn distorting our faces and maybe our ability to see or hear while in the yawn.

So, the next time you hear or say "I'm SO busy," step back, observe and see if there may be another more powerful conversation from which to choose to live. And then let me know what you find out!

"Words do not label things already there. Words are like the knife of the carver: they free the idea, the thing, from the general formlessness of the outside. As a man speaks, not only is his language in a state of birth, but also the very thing about which he is talking."

Eskimo Quote

It's choice not chance

2009-11-24T10:31:00.000-08:00

Have you considered …

…that we live our lives as a matter of choice and not chance? That a future worth living into is something we actively pursue and not wait for?

Do you realize that extraordinary opportunities can be made from common occurrences? That we get to choose to view our lives from opportunity, or we can choose to view our lives from predicament.

Which will you choose?

Oh yes, and it all begins right now. And if you missed that moment to take action on your life 'then', that’s okay, because it can all begin right NOW. Or, right now. And right now.

Begin it now; the moment to boldly choose your life from opportunity.

Wants as compared to Commitments

2009-11-02T11:00:00.000-08:00

How many times have you realized that you've just had an incredible insight that could make all the difference in the world for your life? Insights happen to us every single day, time and time again, and more often than not, we choose not to act on our insights for some reason or another. Many of these insights could actually alter our lives in ways that will support us in what we have been saying we want.

There is little surprise that we don't often act on insights no matter how incredible we think they are, especially when they are driven by what we "want." You see, when there is a commitment, there is something to pull you forward into your future from the present. Have you ever considered moving your wants into commitments?

Going after what we want is a challenge that we face every day. It might show up in the form of saying we want to lose weight or exercise more but when the alarm goes off in the morning, we opt to turn it off and stay in bed because we decide then that we want to be comfortable. Wants are fleeting and pull us around in the moment.

Being committed is another matter. When one is committed, when you have set something up that's bigger than your wants, your commitment will get you up in the morning.

What are you committed to in your life?

If you are committed to your "wants," then get used to it; your great insights will be just that and hopefully, one or two may lead to you being pleased with your life. There is no right or wrong in whether you move into action after having that insight; there is just the opportunity to discover something about yourself that you would not otherwise have had. What would your life be like if you did exercise regularly, or lost weight, or wrote that book, or even took that class on marketing or learning a new language or... or... or... ? When you are at the end of your life, might you look back and have a sense of accomplishment that you might not have had otherwise?

Would you have lived your life with boldness as per Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, who said it this way,

"Until one is committed, there is hesitancy, the chance to draw back, always ineffectiveness concerning all acts of initiative and creation.

There is one elementary truth, the ignorance of which kills countless ideas and splendid plans; that the moment one definitely commits oneself, then providence moves too, all sorts of things occur to help one that would never otherwise have occurred.

A whole stream of events issues from the decision raising in one's favor all manner of unforseen events, meetings and material assistance which no one could have dreamed would have come their way.

Whatever you can do or dream you can, begin it. Boldness has genius, power and magic in it. Begin it now!"

Boldness! Why not? What are you waiting for? Your life will turn out the way you choose it, right now... and now... and now...

What Goethe forgot to remind us about is that it is always much easier to reach your commitments with someone else in your court. It's not impossible to do on your own, and when you are supported by a committed listener, someone who will listen to you as if your life depends on your word, you will be driven forward by someone who stands with you for your accountability.

Observation/Exercise
Set aside some time for you to spend 'mind-mapping' on your life, maybe 30-60 minutes in one of your favorite and accessible locations. Make sure you have a piece of paper and a pen.

Determine what's next for you in your life. Start with something from a recent insight that you have had. What attracted you to that insight? What did it mean to you? What possibilities did you see for yourself that you hadn't seen before? What emotions did it call forth for you?

Stop for a moment, close your eyes and think about the 'yumminess' that your insight brought up.

Write it down. What do you see that would fit in to that perfect world for you; perhaps something grounded in your "wants" but more powerful would be something that will have you look back in your future and examine your life with pride and satisfaction?

In other words, what calls for you to commit to next? What will you "do or dream?" What will you begin? Will you live your life with boldness? Now is the time to discover the "genius, power and magic" of it.

Finally, find your committed listener to be there for you, someone who will listen from what is possible for you in living your life into your commitment.

A Personal Vision for your Future Pulls you Forward from the Present

2009-10-30T08:39:00.000-07:00

What is a Vision? Have you put much thought into why businesses have visions? Many years ago (I don’t even remember when or how), I discovered the beauty of creating a Personal Vision for myself. I think I must have stolen the best of all I’ve heard or learned about visions because it is working for me.

Since my discovery, I now always have a roadmap in my life for where I am headed. When someone has asked me, “How are you?” rather than the perfunctory and uninteresting habit of voicing, “I’m fine,” I have had the ability to answer from the many different challenges that I am facing in my life as I move towards my vision.
Your Vision creates a future that pulls you forward from the present.

Hence, this is one reason why businesses have created 3-5 year visions, so that their stockholders, employees and lenders know the business has something at stake and is worth investing in.
A Personal Vision can be created for a shorter time period of 1-3 years. Questions I will ask you include: What do you see possible for yourself in 1-3 years? Who would you like people to “speak you to be” in 1-3 years? In other words, who are they saying you are? Are you willing to create your own future, or are you only going to allow yourself to drift into whatever takes you wherever it takes you? I call that “surviving.” I’m sure you have seen many people surviving in their lives. They wake up to the day with no purpose, no future, nothing to have them jump out of bed and hit the floor running; only a life of “waiting to see” what will happen. Yawn! BORing and fruitless.

Do you think Babe Ruth had a Personal Vision? From the http://www.baseball-almanac.com/:

“In 1927, Babe Ruth set the first truly long-term single season home run standard. However, his first Major League home run record was established during the 1919 season when he connected a then unbelievable twenty-nine (29) times with the Boston Red Sox. The 1919 plateau was considered at the time an "unreachable mark" until the following year when the Bambino smashed his own record by going deep fifty-four (54) times—then beat that record just one year later when he went deep fifty-nine (59) times. A few seasons passed and the 1920 record seemed safe until 1927, when the Sultan of Swat blasted sixty (60) long balls (details below) in just one-hundred fifty-five (155) games.”

It’s also worthy to note that Babe Ruth struck out 1,330 times; however, that is subject matter for another Laser Coaching Tip!

Creating a Personal Vision takes thought. To “think” as in consciously using your thought processes. Digging into your values, your beliefs, what gives you pleasure, what gives you pause in your life; real unadulterated and rewarding thought.

Exercise:
Begin with one word descriptions of what people will say about you in 1-3 years. For instance, one of mine is “contribution.” Another is “joyful.” Another is “integrity.”

Fill up one full page of one word descriptions by writing down anything that inspires you. Next, pick and choose the words that “call” to you the most and circle them. Finally, put them together in a short sentence. Now I say short because you want to create a vision that you will remember, one that if someone were to say, “Hi, how are you? What are you up to these days?” you will be able to answer immediately.

You will be able to answer from your Personal Vision, from what you have created in your future that is pulling you forward from right now, and right now, and right now, and finally, right now.

Are You Fully Self-Expressed or Are You Like a Trained Flea?

2009-10-19T15:34:00.000-07:00

Did you know that we, as human beings, are a little bit like trained fleas?

Do you know about trained fleas? Here is what was discovered...taking an ordinary jar and placing a bunch of fleas into it, it was found that the fleas would wildly begin to jump in all directions, including out of the jar, no matter how high the sides of the jar. Try it someday if you are curious enough or just begin to observe yourself in your own life as a bit of a trained flea.

This could be likened to how we experience the world as children...with a "YAY!!! LET'S LIVE OUR LIVES FULLY!!! OUCH, I FELL DOWN AND IT HURT BUT SO WHAT? WHAT'S NEXT??!!" Remember those days full of vitality, joy and full self-expression?

Back to the jar of fleas; if one takes a lid and puts it on top of the jar, the fleas will continue to jump up against the lid until they realize that there is something in the way of their full self-expression of jumping. Perhaps their little heads begin to hurt, and they actually start to scale back slowly until they begin to regularly jump to just below the level of the lid.

At this point, it was found that one could remove the lid of the jar and the fleas would still only jump to those few millimeters below where the lid had been. The fleas were now trained and would not jump out of the jar.

What if...

Looking back into our own lives, we ask ourselves where we have been trained. Where might we have scaled back for the fear of hurting our 'heads' on a lid? This may be a situation that was real or imagined. Perhaps the lesson was well worth learning such as touching a hot stove was a bad mistake.

However, where might a lid might have been placed on your full self-expression that was for the convenience of another and not specifically for you. For example, rather than focus on what would happen to you, a caretaker was more fearful of what could happen. Or perhaps we made a mistake in one situation and automatically trained ourselves that we could never attempt that type of situation again.

We might begin to ask ourselves, where have we suppressed our own and others' full self- expression such that we have become trained fleas in our lives and accepted "this is the way it is" regardless of a different time, a different place, a different situation...?

Consider that...

We may not even realize the extent of how we are similar to trained fleas. When an opportunity presents itself to us, we may automatically answer with an "I could never do that," or "I don't like those," or "Oh, that's not for me," or even an answer such as "Are you kidding?" Consider how we may be so automatic that we are not even aware of having been trained. What would happen if with each opportunity we stopped our automatic way-of-being and really put some thought into what was being presented to us before we responded?

Observation/Exercise

The holidays are approaching quickly and many of us will have the opportunity to share time with family. This is perfect fertile territory for beginning to observe ourselves as the observer in our automatic 'trained fleas' way-of-being in life.

The first step to altering a way-of-being is to learn to observe you in your own life. In the next month, begin to observe your conversations to yourself and to others, and how your automatic 'trained flea" ways of responding show up in your thoughts or conversations.

If you don't catch yourself in the middle of it, look back on the conversations or moods that you have noticed were not the most beneficial to your full self-expression.

What happened? How were you stopped or suppressed? Where did you stop yourself? What stopped you? Was something said by someone else that triggered your suppression? When was the first time in your life that you noticed a similar situation? How old were you? What were you doing? Did someone say something to you? How is it similar to today? How is it not similar? Based on your age today, how long have you been living from a suppressed way-of-being rather than living into your full self-expression?
In taking on the exercise, where might you have now gained freedom to be fully self-expressed where you may not have been before? Do let me know what you find out practicing this exercise.

Life is not a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely...

2009-10-16T14:12:00.000-07:00

A wonderful quote came to me by an anonymous author, and it goes like this...

"Life is not a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in a pretty and well- preserved body, but rather to skid in broadside, thoroughly used up, totally worn out, and loudly proclaiming, "WOW!! What a ride!"

The quote reminds me to ask myself how I am living my own life.

I have not sent out a Laser Coaching Tip! since June because I had the opportunity to spend time with my 84-year-old father as he transited through the worst part of a serious illness.

My dad and I didn't get along in my younger years; he wasn't the best father I thought he "should" be. The vein of conversation I had about him was along the lines of, "if he had only helped me with my career choices, or if he had only attended all the father-daughter opportunities that were available to us, or if he hadn't traveled for work so much, or if he wasn't so gruff in his communications with me" and so on, "then my life would have been perfect."

It wasn't until I was able to notice that what was missing was my own commitment to be responsible for what I think that I began to have a fulfilling relationship with anyone else.

Yes, what I actually *thought* about my father (and others) led me to assume that it was his responsibility for me to be happy. With coaching at age 30, I began to observe my undermining internal conversations, and then I finally began to discover what my father had contributed to me. My 7 siblings and I always had clothes to wear, good healthy meals on our table, the experience of traveling the world and life in another country, and an education in good schools. This led me to the realization that I can take on anything and be as successful as I commit to be.

By learning to shift my way of thinking, in this case with my dad, I've been privileged to learn who my father has been in life.

He was born months after his 5 siblings and his parents immigrated to New York from Hungary in 1921. At 18, he joined the Army-Air Corps and became a fighter pilot, flying sorties on D-Day. During WWII, his plane crashed into a barn, and he broke his back. That didn't stop him; he got out of the hospital after having metal rods and clips placed along his backbone to keep his spine straight and went on to fly in Korea and Vietnam. In the early 60's, before the world knew it existed, my dad was a test pilot for the highly secretive long range strategic reconnaissance titanium plane called the SR-71, also known as the "Blackbird." He professes to have taken it to heights of 93,000 feet and to Mach 3.2. He shared with me that he flew "everything in the air" from 1940 to 1970, retiring from the Air Force after 30 years.

He took up skiing at age 60, and it was extremely difficult to catch him on the slopes. I could go on for pages! What I know is that my dad has contributed to me mostly by living the true meaning of "skid in broadside, thoroughly used up, totally worn out, and loudly proclaiming, "WOW!! What a ride!"

He's still recovering, and yet with my willingness to have given up who I thought he should be, I know if he is to pass away before I do, I will have truly earned the privilege of being loved by him.

What if...

We were to learn to consistently shift our thinking to what's right about or what works in our lives?

Consider that...

We will always be able to turn our mistakes and predicaments into opportunities for growth and relatedness.

Observation/Exercise:
In the next month, begin to observe how much your old ways of thinking about others have shaped how you are with them; the conversations, the actions you take on, the thoughts of who they *are* in life.

Next, begin to look from the perspective that you may really not know them as they are today, only who you determined they were years or even months ago.

Notice what begins to happen in your interactions with them. Is there room for discovery? Joyfulness? Compassion?

And, as always, do let me know what you find out practicing this exercise.