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Pathmaker is a trickster

How do you choose your next steps? Do you make choices based on “what everyone else is doing”? Do you listen to what “they” say? Or, do you step out of the mainstream and listen to the calling of your heart and soul for guidance?

In my early days of writing songs, this lyric spilled out:

Follow My Soul

I’ve traveled in the city and followed other’s steps.
I’ve done each task before me. My life: a success.
I’ve learned well, for I thought all life’s answers were taught.
Now I’m starting over to dream in the clover – I hear new questions again.

The questions that are with me each day and through the night
sometimes send fear straight through me. I know not wrong from right.
Yet I know I must go through this uncertain time
and be with the feeling, as the Unknown’s revealing to me a new way to grow. Continue reading “Pathmaker is a trickster”

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What’s wrong?

My husband is very perceptive. He can sense with pinpoint accuracy when something’s “off” in me. When he does, he often asks:

“What’s wrong?”

Sometimes, the question is helpful and I can identify and share what I’m preoccupied with and which I might label “bad” or “wrong”.  But, sometimes, there is nothing “wrong” at all and the question puts me in a defensive place.

One thing I appreciate about Buddhism is the message, “it just is” rather than “it’s good” or “it’s bad”, “it’s right – or it’s wrong”.

With that in mind, he and I talked about his question and came up with this reframe: Continue reading “What’s wrong?”

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Manifestation of Resistance

Perhaps you have heard the phrase:

What you resist, persists.

When we resist life’s challenges, avoid confrontation and take shortcuts, the underlying problem isn’t resolved. Rather, it persists and eventually returns, perhaps disguised a bit differently. Resisting or avoiding keeps us from living into this message: The only way out is through.

During my training as a life coach, we explored resistance since this keeps people from growing into and expressing the life they want to live. This very helpful visual came with the discussion. Continue reading “Manifestation of Resistance”

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Settling?

Often folks come to life coaching for support in living their fullest life, living into their dreams, moving beyond what feels like “settling” for the life experience they seem to be having. So when I heard this:

You are not settling – you are settling into the life you were meant to live.” ~ Polly Hensen

I also heard a momentary disconnect inside followed by:

“Yes! And …”

“Yes!” to looking back at where we have  been, the talents and skills we’ve developed, the relationships which really matter, the values which we hold near and dear.

“Yes!” to settling into the foundation of who we are now. 

“And …”

courageously discerning how we want to expand from this foundation.

Where are you NOW?
What is your foundation made of?
How are you meant to expand from here?
What support does your expansion need?

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The Downside of Self-Sufficiency

I learned early in life to be self-sufficient, not to need, “Do it yourself: don’t ask for help”. While this may seem empowering, even wise, at first glance, one downside is: I shrunk my world. If I couldn’t do it, it didn’t get done.

Another, though, is that by not asking for help, I didn’t learn the art of co-creating, of “doing with”. This is SO essential for healthy teamwork and family dynamics.

Moreover, Continue reading “The Downside of Self-Sufficiency”