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Beginning … again!

beginnersmindlinkedin

Today, for the second time in 4 days, I drew the “Beginning” card from a 65-card deck. What is the message here? Well, I am going to believe there is a reason. Here is a quote from the reading for “Beginning”:

In the beginner’s mind there are many possibilities, but in the expert’s, there are few. Shunryu Suzuki

So often, life is about figuring it out, learning how, getting it right. We like to “appear the expert” rather than the “beginner” and we practice, study, learn until we “have it down”. While there is value in learning skills that can be applied, this way of approaching life reads as very limiting. If I have “figured it out”, haven’t I closed the door to “What else?” or “How else?”?

As a life coach, it is vital for me to remain in curiosity: “What is really here now?” There is no cookie cutter approach to being with a client except to be in possibility and curiosity and presence to what is really here now. In other words, each session has a strong element of “Beginning’s Mind” and WOW – wide open wonder – for what needs to be created.

I’d like to commit to you today that I will show up with beginner’s mind – filled with wonder and curiosity. What about you?

Where are you an “expert”?
How would beginner’s mind serve you here?
What is your commitment?

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Risk

I read this recently:

When a conflict arises between the need to belong and the need to grow, we have to make a choice.  We must either sacrifice a part of ourselves to maintain our belonging, or we must risk the approval and support of the group by growing.

The inner journey often finds us face-to-face with our deep truth. Choosing personal truth can feel hard as it often means letting go of something else. That something else served us for awhile. It may still serve us in some ways. Yet, in order to cross the next “hurdle” or leap ahead into our future, we need to be willing to release what no longer fits.

What choice are you facing?
What are you hanging onto?
What are you sacrificing in order to hang on?
What risk must you consider?

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What’s really going on?

I ask that of myself … and hope that you’ll do the same.

As you know, I’ve taken quite a break from writing to you. Lately, I’ve been re-reading a few books, including my own, and just today heard this message:

Jeanne, you haven’t blogged lately. I notice that you are resisting. And more, I notice that you haven’t considered blogging to share this truth! What’s that about?

You see, the book:

WhatIsAliveInMeNowFrontCover

speaks VERY clearly to finding our OWN voice, our OWN truth, and daring to live into it. In fact, I wrote it in the spring of 2014 as a journey of my truth throughout that time frame – no more and no less. So, I was reminded today that speaking/blogging my truth with you was enough. Actually, it is “just right”.

Today, that truth is this: I am in a very generative, green, expansive, personal time in my life right now. In the midst of all of this, I am less inclined to write, to tell, to share as I am to experience, to actually LIVE LIFE.  And that is what I’ve been doing. And I haven’t been writing. And I need to let that be okay.

What about you:

What’s really going on?
What is YOUR truth?
What do you WANT to share?
What else?

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What are you bringing to “now”?

Welcome to now. Perhaps you, like me, are back from a break and noticing that September includes new beginnings, activities restarting after the summer hiatus. Perhaps this comes with much excitement and joy; maybe your experience is more like “Shoot! I loved the spaciousness of summer and am not ready for it to end.”

Either way, “now” is here, “now” is what we have to work with and live in. What happened over the summer can be a rich source of guidance to “now” if we let it.

What do I mean by that?

 

I spent the last two months taking a break from blogging and extraneous activities, spending more time just being in my life. During that time I received the gift of grandchild #1 and spent several days with the family. Funny how nothing else matters when new life is present! I also spent one week on sacred in-home retreat while my husband was away. What I know experientially and have more clarity on now includes:

  • I thrive on balance – time for doing and time for being
  • I treasure deep connection with precious people in my life
  • It is vital that I serve others in the world around me AND that I love and care for myself in the process
  • Time out of routine, open to the magic everywhere present is healing, transformative and so very necessary

And, if these things are important, they are important throughout the year. I dare not wait until next summer to experience them again. Therefore, my intention for “now” is to continue to bring balance, deep connection, service, self-care and time away from routine.

What about you?
What did you learn about you that you’ll keep with you now?
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August has arrived …

… and with it the day lilies in my garden:

This morning, reading on the front porch from a book that showed up this past month and said, “Read me!”, pointed me at a quotation that felt right to share with you:

“If the unexamined life was not worth living,
was the unlived life worth examining?”
Paul Kalanithi in “When Breath Becomes Air”

Now, the first part of that quotation is attributed to Socrates and the second part may not be an original by this author. It doesn’t really matter to me. What does matter is that it struck me as meaningful today. At that moment, I knew it was time to stop reading for the morning and write to you.

So here we are. Rereading what I wrote in July, I find this:

“Taking a break, a sabbatical, a vacation is important. Getting out of routine and listening in different ways to Life renews us, heals, provides joy and inspiration of another sort. What I want for you and for me this summer is to experience freedom to choose alternatives, freedom to listen to our own inner nudgings, freedom to experience Life with our whole being – body, mind, emotion, spirit – whatever that means to each one of us. Yesterday, for me, that meant floating down the river on an inner tube with another dear friend and treasuring the sunlight and clouds, the sounds of the birds and the thunder, the conversation and the shared silence.”

Seems to me that says, “Live life!” How are you doing with that? Have you taken a break this past month from routine, from unconsciously moving through the activities of your days? Have you played, explored new places, deepened relationships? Have you noticed the flowers growing? Remember those day lilies? I now know that they are called “day” lilies because that’s exactly how long the flower lives! It opens for one day only, and then closes up and dies. Such a short window of time this beautiful expression is present. If I am too busy to pause in my garden, I miss it. If I am too busy to be present and mindful with each activity, each interaction, each precious moment I am given, I miss Life itself.

I urge you to continue this month to live – to let yourself experience life, feel it with your whole being. Yes, sometimes that means we experience pain or discomfort along with the joy and delight. Sometimes we try new things that we don’t enjoy. Yet, isn’t *trying* the only way to really know if we like it?

So “Try away!” this month! See you in September!