Are You Listening to Yourself?

This past weekend I went on a wonderful women's retreat to a beach retreat center with a group of women from my church. I have been anticipating it for many weeks. I have been anticipating it because I knew that it would be a time for relaxing, growth and building meaningful and energy-giving relationships. As I was thinking about that this morning, I began to ask myself...what makes one experience, or the anticipation of the experience, energy-giving, life-giving, and what tends to sap the energy out of me??

As I thought about what I expected, I thought about the lack of responsibility to lead. In my vocation, I am expected to lead much of the time. I also thought about the fact that most of those going were going with an openness to experience, to learn, and to grow.

So, then, I started to think about what hinders me from being this way other times, other days. It isn't just about being in leadership. I love my work and experience as a minister, a counselor, a life coach. And, I can be open and learn so much from those with whom I have this responsibility. So what is it? If I anticipate resistance, if I am afraid of not meeting up to someone else's standards, if I am afraid of not being liked for the decisions I make or the things I say. This is when I start closing down before I even get into the experience. When I go into my day anticipating conflict among those I am leading, or even simply those that I am with, I need to be so aware of how this is impacting me, and the choices I want or need to make to stay on course in the direction that is right for me, for the purpose that is best for my role, for who I am at the time.

So, I ask you... what gives you energy and what shuts down your energy? Several questions to think about to stay self aware of yourself, to stay aware of those around you and to stay on course with what make you true to yourself and your purpose...this is an important part of what is called Emotional Intelligence.

1. Are you aware of what gives you energy and what takes energy out of you?

2.  What shuts you down from being available or open to others? 

3. In any given situation/moment, what are you aware about yourself in how you feel, what you are thinking about yourself and how your body feels in relationship to what you are experiencing?

4.  Did you enter today with anticipation of excitement or dread? How do you understand those feelings? What options do you have to explore that?


Self awareness is the first step towards a strong emotional intelligence and for living life in a way that is energy giving, not energy depleting. This is where we can find that sense of life balance and confidence to be open and grow in strength and character. There are many ways to explore this for yourself, including a close friend or family member, a spiritual leader, a mentor or someone with life experiences you respect. Working with a life coach is one way of addressing your personal growth and goals with intentionality.

I love  the http://www.lifeisgood.com/  pieces that are marketed these days. To experience that life really IS good, one must be both self aware and be open to new growth and learning, both about oneself and about and with others around them. This is an important step towards meeting your life goals and living with meaning and purpose that is right for who you are.

So, what gives you energy and what keeps you from being open to growth and living fully yourself? Listen to your body, your heart, your mind. Listen to what is going on around you and how it is impacting you. Listen!

Making the Change-Being the Change

One of my mentors in believing and making change happen

My Dad on his 90th birthday!

“Out of clutter find simplicity;

from discord, find harmony;

in the middle of difficulty lies opportunity.”

Albert Einstein’s Three Rules of Work

Albert Einstein, who is considered the father of modern physics and the one who discovered E=mc2 and the quantum theory in the world of early 1900s. He believed in something that hadn’t been found, and was willing to seek and take risks toward his beliefs. He set goals to discover and seek what wasn’t yet known or found. What a visionary! I love his “Three Rules of Work”!

Even though we may not have that same kind of profound vision, we each carry beliefs and a desire for something in our worldview and experience. What do you seek? Are you needing change or entering a time of transition? Change is one of the things we are pretty much promised in this in this fast-changing world. Day-to-day, even moment-to-moment. So, what does it take to move towards that change?

Prochaska’s “Readiness to Change” Model can give us some insight into being intentional about how to make, to take some control of the direction you go:

Precontemplation-You are not even aware of the need for change, much less ready to make the change

Contemplation-You recognize that change needs to happen and are considering it, but you may not know what to do to make the change, or are ambivalent about making the change.

Preparation-You have decided to make the change and are making preparations for it by assembling resources, checking out possibilities and gathering information.

Action-You are ready to take action, to practice new behaviors, to step out into something new.

Maintenance-You have established new actions towards your goals in the change and have begun to integrate it into your life.

Termination-You no longer have to focus with intentionality on the new action as “change” because it is well integrated into your normal activities. A programmatic approach is no longer needed.

What is the change you are looking for? Or perhaps one has been imposed upon you. Whatever the reason, you can choose to face it with intentionality.

-Awareness of the need or goal is the first step.

-Then consider all the possibilities.

-Next explore the benefits and risks of each.

-Then make your decision.

-The decision can be changed at any time. Putting a decision to action is the point!

I have found that having a life coach is so helpful in staying focused on what is most important to me in difficult decisions and transitions. A coach both helps me stay true to myself and stay accountable to going forward with my dreams by encouraging me to think beyond what I would do by myself, yet keep it realistic and faithful to who I am.

“…in the middle of difficulty lies opportunity.” What lies ahead for you? Are you making the decisions for your life? Or are you letting life happen to you?

Transitions As Our Best Time of Growth



I went to a friend’s retirement celebration this past weekend. It was a wonderful experience of care and appreciation of one who served 39 years in one agency. That’s a long time any more! This is a huge transition into being his own boss and managing his own time for himself and his family now! What a great time of celebration! On the other hand, one who has spent a long time in one place, especially for this amount of time, may say "what now"?

                                                     

Transitions can be chosen and exciting experiences, and they can be unexpected and disappointing, at best. Either way, they often draw us into a time of saying “what now?”, or at least place us in a position that we are unfamiliar with in our lives. When life is status quo, we can get up in the morning and have some idea of what to expect in the day and what is expected of us in our purpose and list of things to do. Transitions are often the times when we are moved to explore and grow, whether we want to or not.

In the case of my friend, it was a chosen and anticipated time to get up and start his day without getting into morning traffic and go his own pace into the day. For others, this is far from true. There are many types of transitions. One of my friends experienced the loss of his father, and another just heard of the unexpected death of her mother. Some of my clients are dealing with pain and/or violence from their partners in marriage. On the positive side, I know couples beginning their life with a newborn, and others preparing to graduate. Transitions can be painful, are usually uncomfortable, and are the times where most of our creativity and growth occur.

Carl Jung, a psychologist of the early 20^th century, focused most of his work on the midlife of our lives. He saw this as a time when most of us go through a spiritual crisis. That is how he viewed what many call a “midlife crisis”. He saw this as a time when we recognize that much of what we thought we wanted and assumed we needed in life didn’t make sense anymore, and we become “lost” in what we really want out of life. We transition into asking “what now?”

James Fowler, who focused on the psychology of religion and wrote about the six developmental stages of faith, tells us that it is not in the “stages” that we grow in our faith. It is when we are taken out of our comfort zones and are forced to transition from our “old understanding” of God and our connection with that which is greater than ourselves that we are moved to grow in our faith. Our growth is in the discomfort and the searching, not the status quo.

I have heard it oft stated that “birth, death, taxes and change” are the only constants in life. Especially with our fast paced lifestyle in our society, this is so true. We can make a decision about how we want to face our transitions whenever they come. Knowing our resources and how to utilize them is usually important in this process.

Family, friends and my faith community are among resources that I have found to be significant in my own transitions. In this past year, personal life coaching has also been very important in helping me be more intentional about my own growth. I  believe resources and attitude make the difference in how we pull these transitions off. This has been one of my greatest lessons in my journey through my transition of the past year. How do you help yourself in your times of transition? What are your resources?

Simplicity in Life is Often the Most Satisfying

I enjoyed my early morning time in my small back patio area of my townhouse reading my devotions and experiencing quiet time with the flowers, birds, trees and my dog, Precious. Well, I was listening in quiet. On the other hand, the birds were very active. I love this time of year!!

Sometimes the most simple and basic of life is the most satisfying. What is more satisfying then being visited by a pair of bluebirds in springtime? Or what about the incredible colors of red, orange, yellow and purple bursting forth from the new flowers, the green of leaves on the trees after a dormant winter and the fresh spring breeze that hasn't yet taken on the heat of summer? I can do this now because of the events of the past year for me.

Last week I wrote in my blog a quote from John Maxwell about "time management" being an oxymoron. It stated we don't manage time, we manage our lives. It was one year ago this week that I was a part of a "downsize" of a hospital system. It was very painful then. Now, well, I consider it a blessing. Yes, I miss the consistent income and many of the people and the mission of the work I was doing. On the other hand, I was not fully happy because of the tension in the atmosphere of the hospital (like many healthcare systems these days), and that I was not free to utilize many of my skills and experiences there.

I don't fault that system. It is a good one on so many levels. Now I am grateful that I am where I am. I have time to explore, to do what I love, and to stop and appreciate the simplest of things in the present, like the birds building nests, and my dog exploring the weeds for another lizard. It also has allowed me to build my counseling practice and to explore opportunities to provide life coaching and training with those who seek a more satisfying (and simple?) lifestyle.

This time has also fed into my creativity. I have begun to ask basic questions more seriously about what really matters for me. What fills my life with meaning and satisfaction? Where do I get energy? What do I do well and want to do even better? I recently went to a workshop on building up a counseling practice (and coaching/training practice for myself). One of the things David Diana, LPC, one of the speakers, stated was that it is important to have a niche, and to be the expert in that niche. Not everyone will want what you have to offer, but those who do will come to you because you are the expert. The word gets out when there are persons who really like what you have to offer.

This, for me, is part of keeping life simple, staying focused on what is present, and basic to being good stewards of what God has given us. I still have much to learn about keeping life simple, yet full and satisfying. I think it is an ongoing life lesson. I am thankful, though, for the gift I have been given to take a hard look at what is important to me in this past year, and what it has taught me in coaching others in exploring their own lives. This reminds me of an old Shaker hymn, "'Tis a gift to be simple, 'tis a gift to be free. 'Tis a gift to come down where we ought to be..."