Joy of Being You | Ann Strong

StrengthsFinder®: The Precise Strength in Your Top 5

October 28, 2021March 17, 2016 by Ann Strong

For years I’ve been curious about the brilliance, the genius, specific to each of us in our own unique combination of top StrengthsFinder® strengths. I’ve occasionally glimpsed mine. I’ve often articulated to my clients pieces and parts of theirs.

Not until recently did I realize how many clues can be found in one of the reports we receive from Gallup® when we invest 40 minutes of our time and plunk down our $19.99 to learn our top 5.

Once you’ve taken the StrengthsFinder® assessment, the 18-page Strengths Insight and Action-Planning Guide can be found by logging into your dashboard at the Gallup® website.

The beauty of this report: when it describes Connectedness (my #3 strength) for me, it describes something entirely different than for you (If you have Connectedness in your top 5). For each of us, it’s describing Connectedness with the influence of our other 4 strengths. So your Connectedness reads completely different than mine, because, more than likely, your other 4 strengths are different than mine.

Why does this matter? Because those 5 unique descriptions give us clues to ways that we be and do in the world completely different than anyone else. The 5 descriptions tell us about our completely unique lens with which we view the world.

What happens when we integrate these 5 descriptions? If we squint, read between the lines, become willing to see, have someone else tell us what they see, we will come to know the genius, the brilliance, of this person described in this one report.

It seems easier for many people to take in their report as if they are reading about someone else, rather than themselves. And, many times, it seems to take an outside perspective – someone else who can tell them what they see.

Here’s what I recognized in mine:

The glorious amalgam of Maximizer, Empathy, Connectedness, Activator and Individualization (my top 5) –

This delightful human being (me) takes a stand for the full expression of our human and divine nature. In every way she senses would be effective, she share the wonderful news of who we really are! Both specifically and Universally. She insistently and consistently calls forth the Beauty and Love of who we each are – fully ourselves, radiantly alive and gloriously messy.

What about you? If you’ve taken the StrengthsFinder®, have you read your Strengths Insight and Action-Planning Guide? What are you noticing? If you haven’t taken the StrengthsFinder® assessment and you’ve read this far, I urge you to take it now! See that glorious amalgam of me at work?!?

If you’d like an outside perspective, click here and we can schedule a time to chat!

Two Ways to Brilliantly and Divinely Transcend Ourselves

February 10, 2016February 9, 2016 by Ann Strong

“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 . . .

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’s It Like to Remember Our True Nature?

February 3, 2016February 2, 2016 by Ann Strong

A couple of weeks ago, I gave a talk at church about reading and experiencing the material in the book, A Course of Love.

I choose to talk about this because I know that in this very moment, each of us is so much more than we are currently expressing. Somewhere inside each of us, we know that we are more than our physical, human experience.

In the talk, I share some of my own recent experiences beyond my own physical, human nature …

If you’d like to hear the talk, click the microphone (20 minutes).

What Experiences Spark Joy for You?

December 30, 2015 by Ann Strong

I have been studying A Course of Love with fervor for the past few months. It has both taken hold of me and frustrated me. I hear the Truth of “Love is” and “Dedicate all thought to union” and I don’t always live it. I hear the call to completely drop judgment and I judge that I can’t do that, even though I want to. Deep breath.

Reading A Course of Love sparks joy for me. Discussing A Course of Love with my Course mates sparks joy for me. Feeling into A Course of Love sparks joy for me. So, I’m allowing my frustration without thinking it has to mitigate my joy.

Recently I explored with two of my Course mates the idea of the relationship of needle, thread and fabric as presented in the Course. Somehow, I can feel the service of the needle and the joy of the union of thread and fabric. That’s amazing and glorious to me.

I devote my 2016 to experiencing A Course of Love more and more deeply.

What about you? What sparks joy for you? What is calling you? What devotion is yours in 2016?

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

What Opens Your Heart to Joy?

December 23, 2015December 23, 2015 by Ann Strong

Recently, one of my coaching clients mentioned it was hard for her to keep her focus on what’s important to her. How often does that happen for all of us?

Especially at this time of year, it can be easy to slip into a whirlwind of activity or focusing on what’s missing.

If you’ve taken a moment to read this, take another moment to check in with yourself, become present to this holy moment and notice what opens your heart to joy. Allow yourself to be present with that in this moment.

As I was writing this, I realized I wanted to run outside and photograph the beauty of this shortest day of the year. The clouds and the mountains and the snow – opening my heart to joy . . .

And this moment.

And this moment. What opens your heart to joy now in this moment?

Hmmmm, perhaps a wonderful way to live a life . . .

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

The Happy Reason to Replace Special Relationships

December 9, 2015December 9, 2015 by Ann Strong

Do I really want coffee to be my God? Or, do I want my lover, my Audi A4, my beloved niece or my precious kitty to be my God?

Or, am I willing to know my Divinity?

Both A Course in Miracles (ACIM) and A Course of Love (ACOL) ask us to choose holy relationship rather than special relationships. From ACIM, I’ve been aware of this concept for probably twenty years, but didn’t take it seriously until recently revisiting it in ACOL.

A special relationship is a relationship with anything or anyone that we believe will make us more worthy, loveable, whole, safe, happy, important, powerful and the list goes on . . .

A holy relationship is with our Self. It calls for joining of our mind and heart in unity. The holy relationship makes our Self one with all and brings the holiness of Self to all.

My ego has wanted a whole bunch of special relationships. And, every day that I read more of ACOL, the less that appeals to me. I am sensing more and more what it’s like to be one with all and to bring the holiness of my Self to all.

And, I am in awe of the freedom I’m noticing in my relationships with my coffee, lover, car, niece and kitty! My judgments, demands, attachments and expectations are vaporizing and my happiness is exponentially increasing.

(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?

November 27, 2015November 18, 2015 by Ann Strong

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.

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”)

3 Keys for Learning to Love Life

December 24, 2015October 14, 2015 by Ann Strong

I had one of those life learning experiences this past Sunday, flying back home to the Land of Enchantment from LA. When I checked to see if my flight was on time, the Southwest website could not give me that info, due to a “system-wide technology delay.” The site admonished me to be to the airport at least 2 hours ahead of my flight time.

At the airport, one look at the length of the security line made me think it would take longer than 2 hours to get through that line alone. My first thoughts were, “I can’t do this. I don’t want to do this.” Walking and walking and walking toward the back of the line along the street, my next thoughts were, “It is what it is. I have no idea what will happen. It seems like the next logical thing to do is to get in this line.”

Typically, this type of experience would feel extraordinarily stressful to me. The heat on the street, the chaos of so many people having no idea what’s going on, not knowing if I would have enough time to make my flight, my phone having only about 13% charge, my boarding pass on my phone . . .

I made it through security in about 50 minutes. I was able to show my boarding pass to the initial security person inside the building and the official security person at the security checkpoint with 6% charge to spare. I found a floor outlet everyone else had overlooked to charge my phone to 30% to show the gate attendant. I had time to go to the bathroom and get a bottle of water. And, my flight took off only 10 minutes late.

What a strange and wonderful experience to be loving life in the midst
of circumstances that used to cause me stress.

What would have been 2 hours of extreme stress in the past turned out to be a well-choreographed dance. What had shifted for me?

1. Which thoughts do I choose to act upon? Which thoughts do I allow to pass, giving space for something new?
I allowed my initial thought of fleeing to pass without acting on it. That gave some space in my mind to notice that it was probably most logical to get in the security line, even though I didn’t want to.

2. Don’t try to do better. Don’t make it worse.
I wanted to listen to music to make the situation more bearable. Not an option with so little charge on my phone. Then, I wanted to beat myself up for not arriving at the airport with a fully-charged phone. I did neither and simply allowed myself to be human with lots of other humans, hanging out in the present moment.

3. There is only now. This present moment is my life.
Once I remember that this moment, this string of moments, is my life, I relaxed. I didn’t concern myself with the length of the line. I would either make it to my plane before it took off, or I wouldn’t. Either way, I would be with that in that moment.

I asked the guy in front of me what he was learning about the situation on his phone. I talked with the guy behind me about Denver, his destination, and Santa Fe, mine. I love talking about Colorado and New Mexico. I was patient with myself when I pulled up the wrong boarding pass at the security checkpoint. I was kind to the security guy, even though he wasn’t so patient with me.

I lived in the moment all the way home. I loved myself and I loved those around me, realizing we all were in the same boat. When I noticed someone experiencing stress, I took a moment to see them in a love bubble. I was living my good life in the midst of chaos.

What about you? What do you notice in these 3 Keys?

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

The Natural Organizing and Aligning of Life

October 23, 2015October 1, 2015 by Ann Strong

I’m on the second day of a 40-day meditation for greater awareness of faith. What struck me this morning: how amazingly precisely things Organize and Align in my life without me doing it.

For example: many people don’t know that I chose my last name, Strong, in 1991. I was getting married for the second time, we wanted to share a last name and I didn’t want to take his. We spent months pondering what to choose. We wanted a name with meaning without calling attention to it. I wanted to be Ann Fortunate because that’s how I felt. And, that would have called too much attention to it. 🙂

When we thought of and chose Strong, I thought it was to help him become stronger. Ah, silly me.

We were together four years, and our marriage was miserable. We divorced and both kept the name. Perhaps one of the karmic reasons we married?

Interestingly, I took the name Strong 10 years before Gallup came out with the StrengthsFinder assessment, something that has been so integral to my work since 2008. People often asked me back then why I didn’t name my business Strong Coaching. “Too hokey,” I said over and over again.

Then a couple of years ago, I asked you, the readers of this ezine and blog, what to re-name the ezine. The clear feedback was Strong Notes. It seemed close to hokey, but I thought it was a good change – temporarily. Until I could come up with something better.

Do you see the Organizing and Aligning pattern here? And I was not only not doing it, I was resisting along the way!

How could our lives be any less Organized and Aligned
than the sunflowers and the sun and the clouds?!?

Fast forward to six months ago, and it became crystal clear to me that my next book would be Strong from Within. I finally surrendered. I renamed the company too. Strong from Within may very well be my life’s work – personally, professionally and literarily.

What I became aware of in my meditation this morning: something greater than me is Organizing and Aligning my life. Then, I had a few blissful minutes of knowing what it feels like to have faith in that!

What about you? What do you notice has Organized and Aligned in your life?

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

The Source of Our Experience

October 1, 2015September 23, 2015 by Ann Strong

Recently I had to sort out something between my doctor, insurance company and pharmacy. Not fun. I realized that the root of my frustration and anxiety was about feeling powerless.

While waiting for replies from them, this piece, Returning to Center, came to me. It reminds me that regardless of how it looks, I am Source. When I remember I am Source, my energy shifts and the external world shifts, too.

Instead of continuing to try to strong-arm things into place (yes, I am good at that :), I decided to leave it alone until the next morning. By 9:30 am, they had worked it out themselves.

To returning to Center, again and again . . .

Returning to Center

Off balance.
Out of sorts.
Beside myself.
Ah, to be human.

Remembering.
Center.
Returning to Center.
Ah, to be Divine.

Disconnected.
Defending.
Feeling separate.
Out of control.

Connected.
Clear.
Open.
Returning to Center.

Messy misery.
Miraculous Center.
Ah, to be Divinely human.

Returning to Center.
Again and again.
Again and again.

No judgment.
Returning to Center.

All.
One.
Center.

Returning to Center.

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

What do you notice for you?