Clarity

How Do You Know If You’re Living Your True Nature?

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“A fish cannot drown in water.
A bird does not fall in air.
Each creature God made
must live in its own true nature.”
~ Mechthild of Magdeburg

For us humans, we are the only species that has the joy and the burden of discovering, remembering, our own specific true nature. We each have free will to live or not live our true natures.

We can work a job that hurts our soul or spend a lifetime wishing we had different strengths. Or, we can courageously create work that celebrates our true nature and embraces our strengths.

One of my private coaching clients has Executing and Influencing strengths in her top 5 strengths. She used to wish she had some Relationship Building strengths. Instead of wishing, we began to coach her around how to create good relationships with the strengths she does have. The work has paid off beautifully because her desire for close relationships is part of her true nature.

Another client who has mostly Strategic Thinking strengths in his top 5 strengths spent much of his life feeling bad because he was considered the “crazy thinker” in a room of doers. Today he has started a company that embraces his Strategic Thinking nature. I have no doubt that his name will one day be well-known for the huge contribution of his true nature.

And, another client hired me to mentor her to become a business coach. She would have been an excellent business coach, but her heart wasn’t in it. Today she runs a non-profit that provides addiction recovery and education. She passionately writes and speaks about this issue that is so meaningful to her.

How Do You Know If You’re Living Your True Nature?
Ah, to live our true nature as effortlessly as these little loves! Might we be over-working it?

So how do we each know our own true nature?

By paying attention to what lights you up, what energizes you, what engages you.

When do you feel most alive? In what situations do you make contributions that feel effortless? Or that require focus and effort, yet feel meaningful and fulfilling to you?

When do you feel most you? When do you have the sense, “I was born for this”? When does time stand still for you? Or fly by? When do you feel connected – body, mind, heart and spirit?

How might the world shift if we all were living our true natures? Oh my goodness, that question gets me out of bed in the morning . . .

I’d love to hear your experiences . . . post them below in the comments section . . .

Might you like coaching
to discover, remember and live your true nature?

Let’s have a conversation to see if you and your situation would be a good fit for Strong from Within coaching. My gift to you.

I keep a few openings in my schedule for these important conversations – Access my calendar here now.

(Excerpted from my forthcoming book, “Strong from Within: Simple perceptions and practices for transforming stress and overwhelm into clarity and purpose”)

How Do You Restore Inner Peace? In Just a Few Minutes?

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You may not realize this, but chances are good you already know the answer for you!

Let me tell you my answer, and then let’s explore yours . . .

A few days ago, several challenges occurred on top of each other, minutes before I was to meet with my next client on the phone. Instead of attempting to resolve all of them in that time, I instinctively went outside and laid on the ground.

I am still astonished by how quickly Mother Earth restores my inner peace even though I have known this since I was a little kid. And, I love that my job requires me to be in a state of inner peace!

During those few minutes of laying on the ground, anger dissolved into love and open-heartedness around one situation. A second challenge became easily resolvable. I found kind wording for dissolving a third challenge. And, the exhaustion I had felt disappeared.

All that in less than 10 minutes and I was ready for my client a few minutes ahead of schedule.

That’s how I restore my inner peace.

At some point, this conversation comes up with almost all of my clients.

One realizes that walking her dog, even just around the block, almost always does the trick. Another puts on loud music and dances like crazy for 3 to 5 minutes. Yet another asks himself, “What is the Big Boy response here?” Years ago, one of my clients took her kids to the park. Now that they are growing and grown, she goes for a run in the park.

So, what about you?

For many of us, it’s a physical thing. For a few, it’s some kind of mental challenge. For others, engaging in or reading something that touches their heart or stirs their creativity. For some, it involves extending kindness or care to another.

I challenge each of us to make a written list of our top 3.

How Do You Restore Inner Peace? In Just a Few Minutes?
In addition to laying on the ground, I find sitting on the ground and stacking rocks brings me back to inner peace.

Mine:

  • Laying or sitting on the ground.
  • Shaking out every part of my body to an energizing song.
  • Singing along at the top of my lungs with one of my favorite songs, currently “You’re So Vain” by Carly Simon.

Yours?
Post them below in the comments section . . .

(Excerpted from my forthcoming book, “Strong from Within: Simple perceptions and practices for transforming crisis into clarity and purpose”)

What Helps You Be Super Present?

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Recently a new friend asked me what helps me be present. At first I wasn’t sure how to respond. Then, as I allowed my mind to wander, the floodgate opened.

A cool breeze.  Intimacy.  Awareness of my breath.  The moon.  Gratitude.  A delicious latte.  Reverence. Snow. Deep conversation. Skiing. Meaningful ceremony. Kundalini yoga. Railroad tracks.  Expansive vistas.  The Grand Canyon.

What Helps You Be Super Present?
How could I not be present with these two love beings?!?

My cats.  A long, hot shower.  With my lover.  Dancing.  Music that moves me.  Aaron Neville.  Grief.  Sunrise.  Sunset.  A rushing stream.  The ocean.  Silence.  Tiramisu.  Touch.  Holding space for someone.  Kissing.  A compelling movie.  A shared tender moment.  Sade.  Drumming.  Vulnerability.

Realizing what helps me be present feels so good to me!

What helps you become super present? I’d love to hear from you.

(Excerpted from my forthcoming book, “Strong from Within: Simple perceptions and practices for transforming crisis into clarity and purpose”)

How to Create a Stress-Free Zone in Our Lives

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I learned earlier this week that my car needs a new engine. And, I learned this the way I learn many things – experientially.

Sitting on the side of the road waiting for AAA, I realized that, as we always do, I had a choice. I didn’t have the choice I wished I had – choosing my car to get back on the road, drive to Whole Foods and then drive home.

I did have the choice of where to focus my thoughts and attention. My human inclination was to think of all of the things I should have done differently in the past to have created a different future.

And then I heard, clear as could be, “we spend our lives trying to manipulate the future to correct the past.” In that moment, as I felt the cool evening breeze coming in the car window, I realized the insanity of that.

How to Create a Stress-Free Zone in Our Lives
How rich are our lives when we truly receive the moment, moment by moment?

We have the opportunity in any moment, no matter how much we assess the situation as “bad,” to receive the gifts of the present.

When we are willing to let go of our thoughts about the past or the future, we create a stress-free zone in the present. When we are willing to focus on what is right in front of us, we don’t need to manipulate or change anything. How freeing is that?

(Excerpted from my forthcoming book, “Strong from Within: Simple perceptions and practices for transforming crisis into clarity and purpose”)

How to Free Ourselves from Innocently Self-Created Prisons

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Last week I posed the question, “Do we need to know our purpose to be happy?”

This week, I had planned on sharing the process of learning my own purpose. In light of the controversial sentencing in the Stanford rape case and the tragedy in Orlando, it feels more relevant to share how my purpose might relieve some suffering.

Escaping

My purpose: Inspiring and urging us to freedom from our innocently self-created prisons so that we may be more fully ourselves and make our unique contribution to the planet.

Let’s back up for a moment. What is an innocently self-created prison? Our own thinking that causes our own suffering.

Maybe we are hating the “haters.” Maybe we feel victimized. Maybe we engage in us and them thinking. Maybe we feel less than. Or hopeless. And, the list goes on . . .

I found it heart-wrenching to read the long letter from the survivor in the rape case. And, I read the whole letter because I wanted to bear witness to this courageous young woman stepping out of the victim prison into making a unique, impactful contribution to the planet.

What innocently self-created prisons might you notice you’ve created this week?

I faced this question head-on in 1994 when my 25-year-old boyfriend died of a morphine overdose by his own hand. My shock and grief was so intense that I wished I had died with him.

At one point fairly early in my grief, I had a clear and lucid moment in which I knew that his death would either take me under or make me stronger. I consciously chose life.

I recognized I could bring to the planet something from him. In thinking about his greatest attributes, I realized that he was the most unconditionally loving person I knew. I decided in that moment to be more loving myself from that day forward.

Today, I recognize that love is needed in both these tragedies.

It would be so easy to judge, blame and make wrong. And, it’s almost as easy to see the self-created prisons that led to these crimes. It’s also probably easier to focus on outrage than it is to step out of a self-created righteous prison to make our own unique contribution right now . . .

Do You Need to Know Your Purpose to Be Happy?

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It turns out you probably do need to know your purpose to be happy.

In an informal survey of fellow Yale graduates at their 25th class reunion, Adam Leipzig, a former Disney Executive and currently the CEO of Entertainment Media Partners, discovered that 80% of his classmates were unhappy with their lives. 80%?!?

I decided to do a bit more research. Maybe those privileged Yale grads were an anomaly.

The Harris Happiness Index surveyed 2,345 American adults in April 2013 to find that 1 in 3 Americans considers themselves very happy. In 2011 – 2012, Gallup found that worldwide only 13% of employees are engaged at work. In the US, the number was higher at 32%.

So these stats leaned a bit more toward happiness, but not much.

Here’s where it gets interesting. What Adam Leipzig further discovered: the 20% who were happy knew something about their purpose.

He believes you can learn your life purpose in 5 minutes and he takes you through the process in his TedxMalibu Talk.

I don’t know if that 5-minute process would work for me because I had already learned my WHY in 2013 through Simon Sinek’s, Learn Your Why online course.

That process takes 7 – 10 hours, the course costs $129 and you need your coach or a colleague to guide you through the process. And, having my WHY articulated has been life changing for me. It serves as a compass and daily decision-maker for me.

If you’d like to know more about Simon’s process, start with his Ted Talk.

Before I listened to Adam’s talk, I had never linked happiness and knowing my purpose. As I look at my own life and the lives of my coaching clients and students, I see that there is a very real link. When we are in a low place, our purpose guides us out. When we are feeling most fulfilled, we are more fully living our purpose.

So what about you? Do you have a sense of your purpose? If so, I’d love to hear about it . . . If not, do you suspect you’d be happier if you did know?

What Is the Secret to Life-Work Balance?

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Several of my clients asked me variations of this question in the last couple of weeks. Two are working full time and starting a new business in the evenings. One is scrambling to keep up with the unexpected rapid growth of her business. Another wants to be a better father. Yet another is grieving a sudden loss and feels concerned about spending so little time in her business.

The answer is the same for all of them: this is the wrong question.

Balance rarely exists. Balance might happen for one second in time. The very next second, the teeter-totter will have tipped in one direction or the other. Sometimes dramatically so.

What they really want to know: how can I be effective at all I’m doing and feel good about it?

The answer is super simple. Be Present. Judge nothing.

When my clients are present at their day jobs, present with the kids before they go to bed and present with their businesses in the evening, they feel alive and fulfilled. When they judge nothing, they don’t feel pressure that starts them thinking about life-work balance.

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When I become too focused on work without enough play, Jasmine, my Director of Play insists I become present to her and to playing. When I judge nothing, I do as I’m told!

When my client is present with each task involved in her rapidly growing business, she enjoys her work and success. When she judges nothing, she knows everything is fine as she takes time to go for a run.

When my client allocates time every day to spend with his son, he’s happy about being present with his kid. When he judges nothing, he’s happy to work a bit later into the evening.

When my client is present to and compassionate with herself about her grief, she accepts what is. When she judges nothing, she trusts things are working out with her business, knowing she’s doing the best she can right now.

So what about you?

When you think your life is out of balance because you’re spending too much time or not enough time at work, what might you become more present to? What might it be like to judge nothing? I’d love to hear from you . . .

(Excerpted from my forthcoming book, “Strong from Within: Simple perceptions and practices for returning to the joy of you”)

No Permission Needed

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Confident Vulnerability changed my life. I learned this empowering way of being in my advanced StrengthsFinder® training a couple of years ago. Thank you DeAnna Murphy of Strengths Strategy!

Confident Vulnerability looks like this.

I know what I am. I know what I’m not. I’m comfortable, confident and non-judgmental with and embrace both. I am confident in my strengths and vulnerable about the needs of my strengths and my weaknesses. This also allows me to embrace what you are and what you are not without judgment.

Full disclosure: I am still working on doing all of this more consistently.

And, as I embraced confident vulnerability as a way of life, I quit trying to hide or apologize for my weaknesses. That then freed a bunch of energy to be more fully who I am without messing around in the areas of who I’m not.

And one day recently, it occurred to me that I do not need permission to be who I am, to do what I do, to live how I live, to explore what I feel drawn to explore.

And, neither do you.

How would the world shift if we all lived in confident vulnerability, full out, unapologetically?

What if we weren’t afraid of what people will think?

I do love doing my part.

Last week I was in San Diego attending the Ascend conference. Anyone who knows me well knows that I’m not exactly the athletic type. Well, after hanging with my 12-year-old nephew Justin and 15-year-old niece Hailey, in the few minutes each evening in San Diego before it got dark, I engaged in my new sport.

Yes, I have a new sport.

Ann Strong Blog Post No Permission Needed

Four Square. Yes, the one little kids play. It’s never too late to start. I love this game. Who wants to come to the Land of Enchantment and join me?

No permission needed. Permission slips unnecessary as well!

(Excerpted from my forthcoming book, “Strong from Within: Simple perceptions and practices for returning to the joy of you”)

Who Is the Miraculous

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I am a fierce, creative, powerful and grateful being
Who is the miraculous.

I am the strength, vision and vibration of my dream.

I allow the notion of unworthiness to drop away.
There is no such thing.
Worthiness is inherent by nature of existence.

I know the Divine.
I know my own Divinity.
I know Pure Potentiality
which I shape with my Divine authorship.

Spider Web

I know the miracle of me.
I know the way of magic.

I know my ability to hear and notice
when magic speaks.
I allow the magic to flow through me.

When I resist, second-guess or deny
my Divinity, my magic,
I thwart or block my natural, abundant flow.

When I align with and allow my Divinity,
all nature of magic and miracles
Unfold naturally and consistently.

I am the strength, vision and vibration of my dream.

I am a fierce, creative, powerful and grateful being
Who is the miraculous.

(Excerpted from my forthcoming book, “Strong from Within: Simple perceptions and practices for returning to the joy of you”)

Everything Is Waiting for You

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Your great mistake is to act the drama
as if you were alone. As if life
were a progressive and cunning crime
with no witness to the tiny hidden
transgressions. To feel abandoned is to deny
the intimacy of your surroundings. Surely,
even you, at times, have felt the grand array;
the swelling presence, and the chorus, crowding
out your solo voice. You must note
the way the soap dish enables you,
or the window latch grants you freedom.
Alertness is the hidden discipline of familiarity.

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The stairs are your mentor of things
to come, the doors have always been there
to frighten you and invite you,
and the tiny speaker in the phone
is your dream-ladder to divinity.

Put down the weight of your aloneness and ease into
the conversation. The kettle is singing
even as it pours you a drink, the cooking pots
have left their arrogant aloofness and
seen the good in you at last. All the birds
and creatures of the world are unutterably
themselves. Everything is waiting for you.

~ David Whyte
From Everything is Waiting for You
©2003 Many Rivers Press