What Helps Us Feel Good about Ourselves?

When Things Are Going Well
Have you noticed when you’re in the flow, you tend to be engaging your strengths, your purpose, your passions? And then, it’s naturally easy to feel good about yourself, about your life?

When Things Aren’t Going So Well
And, have you noticed when you feel frustrated, lost, overwhelmed, then you tend to be hard on yourself?

How do we feel good about ourselves, regardless of circumstances? What if we use the tough times as an opportunity to be gentle with ourselves?

What if we purposefully talk to ourselves more kindly – as we would talk to a good friend who is going through something challenging? What if we consciously develop self-compassion for our humanness?

What Helps Us Feel Good about Ourselves?
A couple of weeks ago, I was super nervous to drive over Raton Pass after a freezing rain and ice storm. When I actually got to the Pass, the road had dried, but the trees were gorgeous. They were so beautiful that it changed my whole experience. I finally gave in and stopped the car several times to take pictures of the rare beauty.

I’ve been practicing this for awhile. So have some of my clients. We’ve found it to work wonders in creating a more loving relationship with ourselves.

What about you? Do share your ideas and insights.

Join the conversation – comment below.

Your Greatness As Me

Dear God, free me from
Anything that blocks me
From believing in Your Greatness
That flows through me.
As me.

Show me how to know You,
As me,
With every breath I take.

Regardless of circumstances.

AStrong-030718-500x500

Through the toughest storms,
During moments of Pure Grace,
And everything in between.

Show me how to experience unceasingly
Your Peace, Your Love, Your Abundance.

Show me how to express unceasingly
Your Peace, Your Love, Your Abundance.

Show me how to share unceasingly
Your Peace, Your Love, Your Abundance.

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.
I surrender this to You.
I know it is done.

Join the conversation – post your insights, feedback and experiences below.

What Do Your Clients Really Want?

As professionals, we have a tendency to talk about our services in terms of our tools and processes. Our clients don’t care about how we do what we do. They want to know that we can help them get to what they desire. And to the deeper desire under that desire.

The more you deeply listen to what your potential clients and clients tell you, the more clearly and accurately you will understand their desires and their deepest desires under those desires.

If you’re a business coach, your clients might talk about making more money, doing more fulfilling work or getting more focused. For each client, what is beneath those desires? There are as many answers as there are clients.

Maybe one client wants to make more money to ensure her daughter can go to the college of her choice. Why is that important to her? Maybe she feels it’s her job to do all she can to set her daughter up for success.

Maybe another client wants to make more money to retire sooner. Why is that important to him? Maybe he would love to devote more time to his passion of restoring old trucks.

Maybe another client wants to make more money because she’s single and she wants to take good care of herself.

What Do Your Clients Really Want?

I have a deep desire to make more money so that I can spend even more time with my family and friends in beautiful, spacious natural environments.  (Taken Jan 18, 2017 from the top of Beaver Creek ski area on my 25th annual ski trip with my 3 sisters.)

If you’re a chiropractor or massage therapist, your clients might talk about feeling better or paying more attention to their bodies. What’s underneath that desire right now? Maybe they’ve had a health scare, maybe they want a health partner rather than trying to figure things out on their own or maybe they want to be more pro-active and self-sufficient by learning more about their health.

The more you ask potential clients and clients something like, “Tell me more about why that’s important to you,” the more you can understand their deepest desire and the more you can help them fulfill them.

What’s your sense of how you might go deeper with learning what your clients desire? I’d love your comments and insights below.

Two Ways to Brilliantly and Divinely Transcend Ourselves

“As human beings we are made to surpass ourselves and are truly ourselves only when transcending ourselves.”
  ~ Huston Smith

Two ways to transcend ourselves: Brilliance and Divinity.

Brilliance
The human and personally unique: consistently growing, quantum leaping and expanding the boundaries of our service and contribution. The practice of our craft. Living and working beyond our own innocently self-imposed self-consciousness.

Ah, to transcend myself and experience Oneness with all of this . . .

Ah, to transcend myself and experience Oneness with all of this . . .

 
Divinity
The Divine and Universal: going beyond our human limitations, accessing our innate Divinity and Oneness, where all things are possible.

                             To living our Brilliance and our Divinity . . .

What Good Life Is Just Beyond Acceptance?

Earlier this week, I drove to Denver to facilitate a StrengthsFinder team development for one of my coaching clients. As is want to do this time of year, it was snowing and the roads were icy for about the first 45 minutes of my drive.

I could hear the typical conversation in my head about how it would be fine for me to drive in the snow if it weren’t for all the other pesky drivers. And, perhaps because I had only myself to talk to, I reminded myself that the experience of my life is created from within me, not by external circumstances outside of me (those pesky drivers).

So, I decided to accept the other drivers and drove for a few minutes without saying much to myself. And, then I had an insight.

What if I put my focus on my relationship with the road? What if I noticed that I am One with the whole experience – the road, the snow, the other drivers? What if I allowed myself to receive the beauty of the experience?

Instantly my experience shifted from one of stress and tolerating to feeling relaxed and knowing I am always supported. I had a palpable experience of the state of grace in which I live – if I only but notice.

On my drive back from Denver, I was present to the glory of this moment  with the majesty of the Spanish Peaks near Walsenburg, Colorado.
On my drive back from Denver, I was present to the glory of this moment with the majesty of the Spanish Peaks near Walsenburg, Colorado.

Maybe 15 minutes later, the traffic thinned and there was no longer snow and ice on the road. And, my awareness of receiving WHAT IS stayed with me throughout the rest of the trip.

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

How Do I Truly Experience Home?

I’m just back from a quick trip to Detroit to spend the weekend with my beloved niece, Alisha. For my whole life, I’ve preferred to drive to places rather than fly. I haven’t liked being off the ground, and I really haven’t liked feeling almost claustrophobic in a flying Greyhound.

Until this trip.

Milky way reflection at William's Lake, Colorado

Something shifted. I loved being in the air. I loved looking out into and flying through infinity. Especially at night. I felt at home in the Universe and wished I didn’t have the plane around me.

This shift startled me. What was going on?

Talking to my own coach today, I realized my sense of home is expanding. I can feel the vast nature of my spiritual home. I can feel the unlimitedness of me – beyond my body home, my wonderful casita home and my planet home.

Wow! That is something to write home about . . .

What about you? What does this bring up for you? How do you experience home?

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

The Happy Privilege of Being You

Never before.
Never again.

Brilliant.
Brilliant shining now.

Illuminating
sacred opportunity.
Expressing the beloved
known as me.

Entrusted
to nurture the beloved
into the fullness of Divine Glory.

Bringing forth
the Brilliance of this beloved.

How could the Universe be any less uplifted by your presence than  by these beloved expressions of the One?
How could the Universe be any less uplifted by your presence than by these beloved expressions of the One?

The entire Universe
uplifted by this beloved’s presence.

Brilliant.
Brilliant shining now.

Never before.
Never again.

Brilliant.
Brilliant shining now.

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

My Intertwined Paths to the Divine

Last Sunday, I gave a talk at church about my two intertwined paths to the Divine. The more formal, worship and body prayer path and the church of nature path.

The worship path
From the Catholic church of my childhood, through Christian mysticism, Quaker meeting, a dozen Christian church field trips, Dances of Universal Peace, Unity and Religious Science churches and Kundalini yoga to Celebration Church in Santa Fe (a non-denominational, co-created church without a minister.)

The church of nature path
As a child, I spent hundreds of hours laying under a tree watching the clouds. I also wiled away many summer afternoons on the banks of the Roaring Fork and Crystal rivers making smithereens. As a teenager, I was mesmerized by the stillness in the trees while skiing.

In my late 30s, I discovered the sacred vastness of New Mexico. This is the second time I’ve lived here because it’s the home of my soul. It feel easier for me to know God here – in the earth and the rocks, the sun and the moon, the sky and the stars, the sage and the rocks, the trees and the wind.

When I lived in Denver, I wrote most of the prayers in my first book while sitting under trees in City Park. I would drive up to Red Rocks when I was in a funk to hang out with those awesome red rocks. And, I climbed high enough to look out over the entire city, which consistently shifted my perspective.

It has always been natural and easy for me to connect with the Divine in nature, through nature.

Confluence of the Colorado River and Roaring Fork River.  Who could  not find God here?!?
Confluence of the Colorado River and Roaring Fork River.
Who could not find God here?!?

Back at Celebration Church last Sunday
I loved giving the talk. And what surprised me: 6 or 7 people told me that my story was their story. At first I was puzzled. Had they too visited Quaker meeting and several fundamentalist Christian Churches? Did they know how to make smithereens? Did they study to become a Unity minister?

Then I realized what they were saying – they too are seekers. They too had looked in churches and alternatives to churches and had often found the Divine in nature.

What about you? What has been your path to the Divine?

I would love to hear a bit of your story below . . .

Mindfulness: From the Still Point

“Anything you do has a still point. When you are in that still point, you can perform maximally.”
– Joseph Campbell

Last week, as I was driving through a notoriously challenging traffic crunch area on the highway, I accessed the still point of that particular spot. I actually slowed down to the construction speed limit even though I was in the fast lane.

I wasn’t on the phone, listening to music or eating a snack. I didn’t even take a sip of water. I became one with the highway, the cars around me, my own car. It was as if everything became a synchronized dance. The cars around me flowed with me. No one drove dangerously slow or dangerously fast. No one made any scary, careless lane changes. For 10 or 15 seconds, we all drove in the quiet of the eye of the storm.

Ah, the still point . . .

Working with a coaching client, she felt frustrated about how to resolve a situation with one of her employees. As she accepted her frustration without trying to change or get rid of it, she quit fighting herself. When she realized she had calmed her own inner turmoil, she sighed deeply. And, with her next breath, she knew what to do with the employee.

Ah, the still point . . .

When I sat down to write this blog post, I felt anxious and distracted. I had several topics I wanted to write about and I didn’t know how to choose. As I started to scan the mental hard drive of my mind, I felt this topic rise above the mental hard drive. As this topic chose itself, the anxiety vanished and my whole focus turned to writing.

Ah, the still point . . .

snow covered tree

A few days ago, it seemed way too cold and stormy to take my daily afternoon walk. So, I bundled up and went out anyway. Not long into the walk, I captured the essence of the still point in this photo. Even though the wind continued to whip cold wet snow into my face, I surrendered to the conditions as I received the privilege of experiencing the still point in the middle of a literal storm.

Ah, the still point . . .

What about you? Where is your awareness in regard to the still point within? How might you access the still point within each activity as you go through your day?

I’d love to hear from you.

Post your comments and insights below.

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My book, “Thriving Work” is now available
on Kindle at Amazon for just $3.99:
Click here to order

StrengthsFinder™: Good to Great Enough

When does going for Excellence become a burden?  All strengths have their dark side.  The strength of Maximizer is no exception.  I know this one from the inside, as it is my own number one StrengthsFinder™ strength.  And, of course, I have served as a great match for dozens of clients over the years with Maximizer in their top 5.

Maximizer suffers no fools.  Not even ourselves. 

Recently one of my clients with Maximizer in her top 5 dug in her heels.  For several months we had been doing strengths coaching with her leadership team of four.  When it was time to bring strengths training to the rest of the staff in her small business, she asked, “Why should we do this?  How do we know it will work with them?”

She caught me by surprise.  She loves StrengthsFinder.  It was her idea to bring it to the company.  What was going on?

When I had a one-on-one conversation with her, it became clear that her Maximizer had been triggered.  Sure we had seen greater engagement and more distribution of the workload based on strengths with the leadership team, but how did we know that would carry through to the rest of the team?

She knew that what we were doing was good, but would it continue with the team and become great?  When Maximizer goes to the dark side, the translation of “great” equals perfect.  Managing the trigger requires dialing “perfect” back to great enough.

rainbow

It would be so easy for my own Maximizer to
wish that the second rainbow were as vibrant
as the first.  Or, that I could have taken a
picture of both rainbows all the way across. 
Instead, I call upon my Connectedness and
Positivity strengths and feel happy that I am
connected to nature in this way and grateful
that I did capture the moment in a meaningful
and beautiful way!

By calling on her strengths of Responsibility (to her team and to her original commitment of becoming a strengths-based company) and her strength of Self-Assurance (confidence and trust in her original decision), we are once again moving forward – toward this amazing destination called “great enough.”

What about you?  If you know your StrengthsFinder strengths, when have you noticed one of your strengths being triggered?  How did you get back to making your contribution?

Post your comments, insights and progress below.

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If you haven’t yet taken the StrengthsFinder™ assessment, I highly recommend it!

It costs $19.99 and takes 30 – 40 minutes to complete.
They will immediately email you your top 5 strengths and a report about them. 

I would love to know your to 5 strengths, if you’d like to share them with me!

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Strong from Within . . .

If you are feeling called to go deeper with your strengths at home or at work, let’s have a conversation to explore if the one-on-one Strong from Within coaching program would be a good fit for you.

Click here to schedule your conversation.

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My book, “Thriving Work” is now available
on Kindle at Amazon for just $3.99:
Click here to order