Claiming Myself - Mastering My Life - Becoming a Dream Maker (The tE-A Blog)

I have a Right to Exist - I am Equal Damnit!

2012-03-06T00:38:00.002-08:00

I know something is not right when simple things just make me explode. There I was, enjoying a cycle with my hounds when an idiot barrels down our residential road trying to avoid the traffic on (he only saves like 400 meters, but hey, that 3 minutes makes all the difference). Now, like most roads in South Africa, our road has no space for either pedestrians or bicycles and the universe in its wisdom chose that exact moment to ensure that where I needed to actually cycle was in the middle of my lane so as to avoid a pedestrian, two dustbins and one driveway. Normally I am a good little cyclist who acknowledges that I should never have dared leave my house and be so arrogant as to actually use the road. The idiot decided hooted (good thing I don’t surprise easily) and then spent a good 5 seconds waving at me in a decidedly unfriendly fashion as he roared past in his rather common German vehicle. It was when I started waving back that I realised that I am intensely angry with the universe right now, or rather with the people who occupy it! I know! Hardly an enlightened approach to the world but I have never claimed enlightenment, only a yearning for the peace and joy that comes with it..

This is just the story that brought it all together for me. There is also the story of a boy whose nose was broken after being sucker punched at school (in front of teachers) and then nothing happened to the attacker. No-one stood up for him, in fact, everyone around him sympathised with the bully (the poor boy, his parents are divorced, it is so hard), totally ignoring the fact that he also has a set of circumstances that he is battling with. There is also the story of a girl who spends her life making sure that the needs of the people around her are met, sacrificing her own in the process and so losing her identity and joy bit by bit. Three stories where we all somehow are expected to be less than the people around us. Three stories that describe how we teach people that they are more important than we are and that that they can treat us like dirt.

When did we learn this ? When did we learn that we are not equal ? When did we learn that to exist in the world we have to help everyone else get what they want and need at the expense of who we are and what we need ? And why does this make me so angry ?

I fundamentally know that the answer to this is not anger and that if I accepted and knew I was equal I would never have to fight for that equality but it still pushes every button when I see unthinking people attempt to overpower and consume the space and energy of others. You are not more important than I am! I am not more important than you are ! The rage wells up - it always has. I find myself fighting against the idea that it is wrong to fight for one’s own space and needs. I hate this unconscious idea that to look after one’s self is selfish and takes away from others. What about my life ? If I don’t look after my life who will ? Never mind that, would I trust anyone out there to always be taking into account my needs ? How would they know what they even were ? I am so tired of people thinking they know what is best for me or what I can or can not do? I am so tired of being stuck in a box that others have made and then in the ultimate moment of humiliation, made me believe in!

So I sit, and just let the feelings swirl, not denying anything, just accepting what is, knowing that a moment of peace will come. I know that I control the thoughts in my mind and so I start a mantra….I am equal! I am equal! I am equal! And I know that this is a message I need to shout out load. I am equal and so are you! I know this is a message I need to teach! This is a message you need to know!

You are equal!
You have a right to the life you dream about!
You have a right to people in your life who love you and respect you and hear you!
You deserve to be here!
You deserve to be listened to!

Start living as if you believed these rights!

Step into your courage and trust the universe! Start speaking your needs and wants. Yes! You may lose some people (you may lose them all) but here is the thing, you will only have lost the people who kept you small and weak. They were the people who used you. They were the people who got their needs met at the expense of your own. You never needed them! They needed you! It is time you found the right people to fill your life. Know this, you are loved! You are not alone! But you need to create space in your life for the new to fill. Let go and let people who want to hear what you need and who expect you to voice those needs into your life!

I will not stop telling you this until you finally know it, live it and breathe it. You are equal! You are equal! You are equal! Feel it so that you can create it with your actions!

The Art of Mastering Yourself (Lessons from a World Record)

2012-03-04T22:51:00.002-08:00

Late 2004 I finally reached 221 meters and the official woman’s depth world record. It was one of those pivotal moments, a dream finally achieved yet not completed. Something was missing and I could not rest until I found it! The problem was, I was not sure what I was looking for….which makes searching for an answer almost impossible, all I knew is that something as difficult to create as a world record should have had more of an impact on my life. Instead it felt like the most useless thing I had ever done and it was only when I started to try and take that feeling of complete freedom into the res t of my life that I started to understand what I had done. In diving I had learnt to make my own decisions and accept the consequences. I had learnt to let go control of the outcome, focusing instead on the moment. I had learnt to trust myself and keep learning. I had learnt to master myself.

Now I imagine who I would be if I was able to master myself in every moment of every day, a large ask somedays, but not impossible, certainly not if I break my days up into minutes, then maybe hours and just practice, exactly like I practiced for my world record - one aspect at a time.. until I was able to dive deep without conscious effort, as if it were as natural as walking…breathing, being!

Can you imagine what it would be like to be the master of yourself ? To know that in any moment no-one else is pushing your buttons ? Imagine living a life where it no longer mattered what happened (or did not), where it no matter mattered how many annoying bosses and taxis appeared? Imagine the peace, the control, the joy! Imagine how free you would feel, able to imagine anything, able to do anything …think anything, create anything.

Are you still reading or did you switch off, telling yourself that it is an impossible dream. You were not born like that! You were not borne to be a world record holder, your life is fixed, you are who you are and that is immutable. Lies I tell you. Lies! Who you are, how you behave is not set in stone, it is something that can be changed all you need to do is start to practice who you would need to be to create your dream. How do I know this to be true ? Well, how else could someone who was so petrified of the world that it took three years just to sign up for a diving course become the deepest woman in the world?

What if who you are is not set in stone ? What is you can choose your behaviour and so consciously change your experiences ? What if you are the master of your own life ?

Notes on Thoughts - Controlling vs Guiding

2012-01-31T22:27:00.001-08:00

To claim yourself is to claim your mind. To claim your mind is not to control your thoughts but to understand that you choose which thoughts to indulge - you guide your thoughts.... and the starting place is always what do you want ? More importantly, what feeling are you trying to create with that want ? If you know what it is you want to be feeling then you can start to create that with what you have right now, no longer dependant on an outcome of something you rarely control! So...what do you want to be feeling today ?

Why Meditate ?

2012-01-30T07:00:00.000-08:00

Meditation has only one meaning, and that is going beyond the mind and becoming a witness." Osho

For all who travel the path of spiritual growth, meditation is the one practice that seems to be consistently required. Like most people I started to incorporate 20 minutes of meditation into my day without ever understanding why, and then I stopped. I could see no benefit in those often frustrating 20 minutes when the world dragged at me, nagging at my attention. Even on those days where meditation seemed to work, I never really noticed a difference in my day to day. So I reverted to an old habit, reading, in attempt to find someone who could tell me why I needed to meditate.

A quick Google search on ‘why meditate’ did nothing to alleviate my curiosity. Instead of a practical link to my life and my experiences I got vague promises of alleviating my stress and even more interesting, the promise that meditation will enable me to control my mind, which immediately made me ask the question how ? How does twenty minutes a day achieve all that ? I tried TM (transcendental meditation), with which I had some success, and then various other meditations guided, non-guided, open eyes, closed eyes, walking, sitting...and still found that my day to day reality was no different. I still got sucked into the drama. I was still being run by hair trigger emotions. So I put meditation aside and went looking for another answer, another way to find inner peace and control of my experiences.

I found a way to change my experience and claim all those benefits that meditation so vaguely offered and in so doing I also found meditation, almost as an afterthought - turns out, meditation is something I have always done, only I called it diving.

For almost a decade underwater was one place where I found the promised peace and quiet of meditation. Once my head sank beneath the surface the real world disappeared. No matter how stressed, angry, frustrated or sad I was, the moment I was under the water all that emotion dissolved away leaving a perfect quiet where I could hear myself think. Diving was the one place where I was not distracted by the world, it was the one place where I was left with just myself.

And that is the clue, the reason why you need to meditate, to be with yourself. We live in a world where no-one has time to just sit still and gaze into nothing. We always have to be doing. So we never stop and turn inward, never get to meet ourselves. Most of us don’t want to meet ourselves, we are scared that when we finally let go and take an honest look at who is there we will not like what we find but here is the thing, if you really want to live a life of abundance and joy… if you really want to release suffering… you have to claim yourself and to do that you have to see yourself, so that you can start to choose who you want to be and to start practice being that. It takes a leap of faith to let go and enter that fear, but there is a freedom to be found there when you know that who you are is not fixed, that you can change everything you find until who you are matches the life you want to live.

So what have I learnt about meditation ? I have learnt that it is not something you can do with a tape or a cd – the point is to remove the distraction, not give your mind something to else to focus on. Guided meditations have their place, but if your aim to awaken, then you need the silence. I have learnt that I meditate better when I am NOT meditating, so now I take long walks or sit on the lawn and watch the clouds go by and as sit doing absolutely nothing, I let my mind go. It is an art in itself allowing my mind to wander freely, to release control and so not get caught by memories, thoughts and events of my day. On the days I find myself falling back into that well entrenched practice of repeating my day and conversations, I practice taking a step back and watching, often I don’t even bother with those pesky thoughts, instead I re-centre myself with my set of affirmations, I am at peace, I am connected to the Divine, I am protected and then I remember vividly the life I am creating, I picture it in detail, and then I let it go….. and enter the space of creation that a silent meditation can bring.

It doesn’t matter how you find that space where your mind is let go, meditate, run, swim or just gaze at the clouds, it only matters that you find that time to do nothing, creating a silent space into which your true self, your soul, can finally grow.

Name Change for the Blog

2012-01-24T03:47:00.000-08:00

The content stays the same, but my December consolidated the journey I have been on since I got that itsy, bitsy, little label called 'deepest'. The big lesson, the one that has frustrated me because I knew it was there, I just could not find it, was that to get my world record I had to work on both on what I was doing as well as who I was being. It was only when I let go of who I thought I was and starting to act like a world record holder that I was able to get past my self and my limitations and reach my world record. This is the title of my new book, Claiming Myself and the title of the facebook group Claiming Yourself.
To Claim Yourself is to recognise that who you are is not set in stone, it is something you can choose and should be choosing. Your reality reflects who you think you are and if your dreams seem impossible, then it is time to start practicing being someone for whom that dream is normal. It is time to start Claiming Yourself.
I hope you will all come on this new journey with me...and discover who you could be if you just imagined it!

I have started a new blog that links ClaimingYourself.... it will be basically a duplicate of this one ;)

Claiming Yourself - Who are You ?

2012-01-19T04:46:00.000-08:00

We spend our lives trying to either finding out or avoiding who we are, as if it were something set in stone, there to discover and accept, a limit we need to get used to. Perhaps that is why some of us never really connect with ourselves, because we are afraid we will find someone who is 'less', limit, not enough, and then what ?

But what if who you are is not a fixed ‘thing’ ? What if who you are changes as you experience life and learn ? And even more importantly, what if who you are is something you can choose? A fairly radical thought to most people accustomed as we are to being told who we will be and what we can do.

Who we are is not just what we do - there is a soul underneath it all, waiting to be visited and it is 'who' rather than the 'what' that makes all the difference. Until themoment we connect with our soul and start choosing who we want to be, who we are is nothing more than an unconscious program that our unconscious minds repeat over and over ... and over again. Until you start to consciously choose who you want to be and just like you had to practice physical skills start to practice 'being' that.

This ability to focus as much on 'who you are being' as you do on 'what you are doing' was one of the messages that jumped out of the seminar I recently did with Dr Wayne Dyer as a guest speaker. In a moment of clarity everything I had learnt from my deep dive fell into place. I can change who I am. I had already - going from normal to deepest just by letting go of who I thought I was and being who I needed to be. The question of course is how ?
One of the practices that Dr Dyer passed on addressed that all to slipper how and that was the power of the phrase ‘I am’. Just by careful use of that simple phrase you can start to reset your subconscious minds.

So.....

Who do you want to be ? How do you want to experience your life ? Now, you were already there, who would you be ? Instead of waiting for it to happen, bring it into your present with that simple phrase “I am ...”

I am powerful!

I am present!

I am at peace!

I am prosperous!

I am valuable!

The list is endless, so pick three of four and start using them as a mantra through your day. As you repeat them really feel them, feel how it would be..... and never, ever let the phrase I am NOT stay your mind!!! You and only you are responsible for who you are. No-one else!

You are a limitless being, anything is possible when you let go of who you think you are and start to claim yourself !

The Lost Art of Creation

2011-11-30T23:17:00.000-08:00

One of the clearest learning’s I took from Consciousness Coaching was the statement that the universe can not create a negative. The wording is not perhaps clear but the more I work on creating my own life the more entrenched this single phrase becomes.

All around me are people who are trying to give up something. We use words like ‘will power’ to do this, creating a space where the unwanted used to live…and then we never fill that space. We have no idea what we want to replace our unwanted with….and the law of empty spaces is that they will get filled. If you have nothing new to fill that space with guess what ? That unwanted and familiar thing fits right back where it belonged. My question is..why bother fighting to remove it in the first place ? Why not choose what you would like to replace it and work on creating that ? The two can not exist at the same time in the same place and so the unwanted will disappear, replaced with something positive and wanted.

The art to this is in how we talk about what we want. Think about it! When you talk about what you want how often are you really talking about what you don’t want ? Spend today reframing your words and instead of a long list of what you don’t want, take the time to work out what ‘you’ would be like if the things you don’t like are not there…. If you weren’t afraid, what would you be ? Work on creating clarity on what that state would be…and voila…

Lessons Learnt from Diving - The Art of Empowerment

2011-11-29T22:39:00.000-08:00

The moment the euphoria started to wear off was the moment I realised that my world record was not an ending, but a beginning, one that may take my entire life to understand. When I get stuck I tend to look back at my diving to see if what I am experiencing now was something that happened back then and invariably it is. This journey to understand my real life seems to mimic my world record with uncanny familiarity, which is odd considering to become the deepest woman in the world I had to literally lay my life on the line, something a board room rarely requires.

So what is it that makes the difference between an every day diver and one who pushes her own (if not the world’s) limits? What makes a successful diver and how can I take that into my real life ?

Diving is an odd combination of obsessive preparation and then concentrated action. To do a deep dive requires planning, preparation and thought. To dive deeper than most people requires an obsessive mind that continually goes over the plan, trying to find the weak spot, that thing I have not thought of that may stop me in my tracks. Yet, the moment my head sinks under the water all the stress and worry simply stops. The time is now to dive, to trust that I have done what was required and instead to be focused on this moment, attuned to what is happening so I can react in time. The moment my head sinks underwater I feel complete freedom and total power. I have no idea what will happen, yet I don’t try and control it, instead I relax, knowing I have done what I can, it was either enough or it wasn’t. Which is an attitude I battle to find back in the real world. It is as if underwater is the only place I am able to let go and have faith, the only place where I concede that my job is to control myself, not what can happen, so I focus on myself, on having the skills and the state of mind that will allow me to cope with any situation. When I dive, I feel prepared.

Have the last seven years been about finally realising that underwater I never try and control the circumstance, instead I have faith in myself and the universe and so I work with the circumstances I get ? Do I really spend so much time trying to control everything outside of myself that I never do the work that allows me to feel in control of myself and so able to manage anything ?

Is that the lesson I have been missing all this time ? To simply let go control, have faith and focus inwards on creating myself ?

Could all Our Stress and Overwhelmed Feeling be a Symptom of being Faithless ?

2011-11-27T22:56:00.000-08:00

After a long year I find myself reverting to one of my favourite enlightenment / empowerment) intentions, flow, or rather the lack there-of. Around me people are tired, overwhelmed and just done with the year. I feel it myself and it has started me thinking about how I experience life (a consistent theme of mine that normally unearths interesting revelations). The question I find myself asking is why are we all so stressed and overwhelmed? What are we doing ‘wrong’ ? There I sit, doing my best to manage my life, trying to work out all the possible outcomes, obsessing about which will be best for me, which worst and trying to be prepared for anything at any time, normal right ? We prize people who can ‘make things happen’, people who don’t sit back and just accept their fate, but create it. What no-one mentioned is how exhausting it is to control every aspect of life and then, just when it all seems to be working according to ‘the plan’, life throws the ever predictable curve ball.

Looking more closely at this pattern of supreme control I was struck by the sheer futility of it all. There is only so much I can do and all the extra worrying that I put in so very rarely affects the outcome of an event. Actually, now that I come to think of it, those days where I let go and relax seem to be the days that work better. It is almost as if I have the entire thing the wrong way round – as if my job is not to ‘make’ things happen but instead to set things in motion and then go with the flow. All that extra energy and stress I obsessively throw at ‘creating’ just seems to get in the way. I miss things as they don’t ‘fit’ what I am expecting or needing to create. It is almost as if I need to have some faith. And there it was, the word that was missing, faith.

Faith is not a word that sits well in my landscape. I link it to serious religious types and religion is something I walked away from a long time ago. Yet, the more I thought about it the more exhausting this faithless life became, exhausting and futile. The idea of letting go and letting someone or something else take the load became more and more appealing. I could imagine myself living with faith - no longer having to be in control of every moment of every day, trusting that the universe was on my side, trusting that events that as a human I judge to be awful (and so actively avoid) are actually there for a reason and will turn out ok. The more I thought about it (and watched my fellow faithless struggle on) the more I saw how the faithless spend their lives trying to control every moment, caught in an endless struggle to avoid what we judge to be suffering and create what we judge to be awesome and happy. We take on the entire load of creating our lives, worrying about everything thing all the time, never putting the load down or trusting anything or anyone to assist us. The end result ? Extreme stress and finally emotional or physical breakdown.

I am not advocating sitting back and letting the universe do everything! No, rather I think there is a balance to be found, similar to the balance I found in diving. To complete a dive there needed to be a time for planning and thought and then a time where you put that down and just dived, trusting that you could handle whatever came up and as importantly, accepting the consequences without judgment. To dive well you need to be able to live in the present and not be obsessed with the past or stressing about a future that may never happen. Underwater was a place of complete freedom and amazingly total empowerment, which is really bizarre considering that cave diving is one of the most dangerous environments in the world where you have no control of anything other than yourself.

Is that the lesson ? That we spend so much time trying to control everything outside of ourselves we never do the work that allows us to feel in control of ourselves and so able to manage anything ?

What would happen if I could just let go and allow the universe to take some of the load ? What would happen if I stopped insisting that the answers in my head were the only answers and became open to what was in my present ?

Who Owns Your Life ?

2011-11-21T04:12:00.000-08:00

I was watching NatGeo, a short program on the Inuit in Greenland and how their lifestyle of subsidence hunting is being changed by the Western way of life. All well and good, but not really relevant as I sit here in my nice lounge watching DSTv, until right at the end when a former hunter finally gave up and got a job because “he could not pay his bills, his rent, his phone bill and pay for food”. That simple statement opened a door in my mind and I found myself asking the question, who owns my life ? It seemed absurd to me that people who had never been beholden to anyone all of a sudden could not carry on their old way of life because now they had rent to pay. When I look at my life I realise I don’t own it, the bank does. If I stop working I cannot survive, I don’t own my house, I don’t own my car and even if I did, I could not run it as I would need money for petrol, now horses, they can feed on the grass, for free (more or less). I have spent my entire life striving to own it and be independent, yet if the Spar shut down, how would I eat ? How would I survive without money ? I don’t think I (or anyone else) could ?

The Art of Detachment

2011-10-04T23:40:00.000-07:00

My passion is to be an explorer whose sole job is to create myself - independently of what other people think, of societies labels and expectations and any other definition that tries to box me and create limits. It is enough that my identity has a PhD in creating limits. Enlightenment has created a lasting inspiration for me on this journey and one of the key principles in enlightened being is the concept of detachment, which is not something that comes naturally to us human beings. Our identities love being attached to ‘stuff’ and outcomes that we invent and then sustain in the safety of our minds, throwing enormous amounts of energy at the images and stories of how it will be. Hardly surprising then when we are devastated when we get a different outcome.

DETACHMENT IS NOT POSSIBLE WHEN WE CHOOSE NOT TO LIVE IN THE PRESENT!

This idea scares me (or at least my identity) as it makes living detached (or as I prefer to call it, in Acceptance) a remarkably simple thing. Yes, changing the habit of a lifetime is not easy, but I think I may work on just being in the Present for a while and letting go of the stories that project me into a future that does not yet exist. The idea of being Present excites me…I get to experience all the abundance in this moment, things I would normally not even be aware of because I am so focused on something that might never be.

What could you do today to spend just one hour in the present moment ? How could you move from being part of the stories your Identity spins in your head to being an observer instead ?

Creating the Right Relationships

2011-09-27T00:48:00.000-07:00

How different the world would be, if we gave other people permission to live their lives without requiring them to be bound irrevocably to us. When did we get taught to collect people and hold onto them so tight that we never let go ? Even when it would be best for everyone to go seperate ways... creating space that is now available for someone new. Yet we hold on with some idea about endless loyalty, not understanding that relationships are supposed to be two way streets, things that add value to your life as well as the other person's.

Even more odd, we create relationships with the wrong people in the first place, people who do not think like us and sometimes, do not even see us, it is almost as if we got taught somewhere to grab onto anyone who comes along and then do whatever it takes (sacficing ourselves if necessary) to keep them. Then, after we put in all this work, we wait in frustrated expectation for the person in front of us to do the same thing, repay our sacrifice and start to notice us and fulfill our needs, just like we fulfilled theirs. When they don't, we don't move on, no, we stay and try harder, slowly loosing ourselves and our belief in people.

What would happen if instead of filling our lives with people we instead carefully selected the people we want to share our lives with and in that selection process, we actually were honest about who we are and what we want (from life and people) ? Yes, we may 'scare' away a lot, but the one's who stay will be worth spending time with.

When last did a course or book create a lasting change ?

2011-09-08T03:13:00.000-07:00

The biggest frustration I have had over the last decade or so (which is how long I have been on this journey), has been the fact that no matter what course I do or what book I read, when the novelty has worne off, I still feel trapped and in the same place I was before (admittedly now a tad poorer). I accumulated this wealth of knowledge but I had no cooking clue how to apply it in my day to day life, which meant no clue how to create the change I was so desperately looking for. It was almost as if the world to which I was looking for answers really had no clue itself. It certainly did not want me to figure that out and it especially did not want me to break away from the herd and find my freedom.

The further down this path I go the more I realise how trapped in illusion we are and the biggest illusion was the thought that I had to ‘find myself’ before I could change my life. Not that anyone could tell me how to, so I watched what other people were doing... and became fascinated byt the enthusiasm people applied to this single task (not to mention decades of their lives). My problem was that no-one seemed to be actually finding themselves, instead they seemed to be lost in the process - always moving but never getting anywhere. And then, assuming that they actually did finally find ‘themselves’, they were now right back where they started. In fact, all that hard won knowledge was now nothing more than intersting, they still had to do the hard work to create the person they actually want to be.

I started to take a real good look at the books (and courses and guru's) and realised why I was so frustrated - not one gave me a tried and tested practice that I could use to create the change that they expounded with enthusiasm. I was trapped in world of theory when what I wanted was something real. WIthout fail, every book told me how it would be, never how I could get there!

All the experts, all the courses, all the books and not one said, just do it! Stop faffing and go out and create yourself! Stop looking for an answer from everywhere else, the only place you will find your answer is inside yourself. Stop looking for the reasons and events that created you – who you are is who you are, you can not go back and change a thing but you can stop procrastinating and finally accept what is and most importantly accept responsibility for where you are.

Not one said you are here! This is what you created and it does not matter that you created it unconsciously – it is what it is! The only way to change it, is to start CONSCIOUSLY CHOOSING. The only way is forward and that requires you to start Living! Live Consciously, Live Enlightenment, Live Empowered...but LIVE!!!

And so I stopped buying into the illusion. I stopped living Hope’ium and created the practice I call Living Enlightenment. It allows me to let go of the past and create who I want to be in this moment, for myself! Living Enlightenment allows me to Live Empowered, even when the world falls apart and the carefully crafted illusion I have that I have some control evaporates...because with Living Enlightenment I practice being able to choose who I want to be in every and any moment of every and any day.

I may never become a butterfly, but in a world of caterpillars I choose to be the best caterpillar I can be!

The Power of a Label – Attachment vs Acceptance

2011-08-25T00:18:00.000-07:00

This year seems to be about creating freedom, which first requires that I understand what I mean when I choose to be free. The more I work with this specific Enlightenment Intention (Free) the more I understand that for me, freedom is about letting go of identifying with the labels I live. To live empowered (and so to live enlightenment) means I get to choose when and what I identify with. It also means I can stop defending and protecting the labels I have...which seems to be an integral part of my being and the biggest contributor to my state of suffering. What do I mean by a label ? Well in my mind I define myself as a superior business analyst, which means that is something I have to defend and continually see reflected back at me by the peoplei work with. The problem is that this is just one of the labels that define me. For the most part, I don't even see the label that is wreaking havoc in my world. Work is the perfect example.

Over the last 15 years I have established a reputation (in my own head naturally) for excellence and over performance. So now that I find myself in a large corporate I am battling. Firstly I am no longer visible, secondly, my success is integrally linked to the performance (or more often than not, non-performance) of people I can not influence. My frustration has subsequently hit all time highs and with that frustration comes an extreme effort to be heard and create change.... which is always (and I have 15 years of experience creating this) dramatically self destructive. The less I am acknowledged and heard, the harder I push back .. the more drama and conflict I create.... and so we spiral down and down and down until finally I can not cope anymore and fed up I leave and start all over again...in a new place that this time will be filled with the right people – people who understand, who are high performers (now their is a contradiction of note, an A-type personality that bonds and cares about the well being of others), who will create that safe place of belonging where I can blossom. Yes, fairy tales are alive and well in my psyche which is quite a depressing thought after over 20 years in the so-called ‘adult’ world.

To cut a long story short, at the end of all this I am left with the feeling that I am really schizophrenic (or is it just multiple personality disorder?) because it feels like someone else is creating all this and I am an innocent bystander who is left to clean up the mess. I know there is something I have to let go of, I just can’t see it and if I can’t see it, I can’t stop holding on!!

So when well meaning friends and confidantes tell me I need to leave, that this place does not appreciate me, it is not worth it, I stay. My answer is not in escaping. We live in a world where it is to easy to run away from our problems and distract ourselves with a new place, a new challenge (a new significant other). I need to stay right here and confront this part of me. I need to live in the flames and see what happens if I refuse to give in, if I refuse to live this. So here I sit, refusing to jump ship, just breathing and allowing my world to flow, refusing to give up and escape to another job.

There is another reason for staying - the corporate world is the one place that still swallows me up whole. It is the one place where I can not seem to Live Empowered. My world record create a moment where I was able to escape being invisible and less. For the first time in my life I was truly empowered. That lable of deepest was something I choose for myself, something I fought to bring into being. It was the first taste I had of freedom and an experience I wanted in all areas of my life. Which is why I created Living Conscious Enlightenemetn.
Now at work, I am finally starting to get a glimpse of what it will take to recover my power and my first step is going to be a hard one - to stop identifying with the labels I carry with me into work. Which means creating awareness in every moment so that I can stop just being a collection of unconscious habits. I need to own the me that created this mess and start to slowly release her.
It is with relief that I can fall into the process of Conscious Enlightenment and with my own coach (there are just some days I can not escape my own mind by myself and need an unbiased observer to ask me the ‘obvious’ questions) I am going to focus on what it is I want to create - because it is not enought to know what I don't want. You can not create a negative and if I want to live something new, I have to know what that new is so that I can start to make choices that create that. Only and only in that process will the old disappear.
It is going to be hard to ignore the temptation to search for the labels that are creating this drama and instead work on disinvesting and disconnecting and creating consciously who it is I want to be. But, I suspect that the labels will show themselves when the time is right and when I am able to let them go. Until then, my focus is going to be on stepping into my power and consciously creating me. That way if it all goes pear shaped at least I made the choice - it was not something that happened to me. I find my life easier to accept when the consequences are a result of the choices I MADE! I can accept being wrong, but when someone or something else chooses for me and I have to pay the price, then I am not such a graceful looser.

How do you escape the trap of being ? Start to consciously choose and trust that you will find the baggage along the way. Anything else is a trap, keeping you from going forward, keeping you from your power to create your own life and your own experiences.

The follow up blog - Understanding redecoration, makyo/ ego & being here

2011-08-18T05:22:00.000-07:00

One of my favourite passages from Spiritual Enlightenment – The Damndest Thing’ by Jed Mckenna...just is so irreverent...and very funny.

“Have you heard of the term makyo?” I ask her.

“Yes, isn’t it something to do with...?”

“It’s a Zen thing. Very handy term. In Zen, no one is interested in spiritual growth. No one is interested in self-exploration or self realization. They’re not trying to become better people or happier people. They’re not following a spiritual path, they’re following a wake-the-hell-up path. They’re completely focused on the hot and narrow pursuit of enlightenment. There’s no consolation prize, no secondary objective. Full awakening is what they signed up for. Of course, as students, they have no real idea of what such a pursuit actually entails, so it’s the job of the master to see that they stay on course. With me so far?”

She nods a little uncertainly.

“The Tao warns to beware the flowery trappings of the path, or words to that effect. There are many things to see and do on the path to awakening. It’s all new and magical. There are points for instance, where you can stop and develop what you might consider special powers; prophecy, telepathy, mediumship, magical arts, plate spinning, whatever. During Zen meditation – zazen – the student might merge into timeless unity consciousness. He might unravel all the complexities of his life in a single glorious sitting. He might feel that he has vomited a gigantic ball of molten lead that has resided in his chest for years. He might descend into the pits of hell and slay all his demons. After such experiences, he might run to his master to share his victories and experiences, only to have the master splash him with cold water by calling it makyo.:

Marls is frowning now, realising that she’s the one being splashed with cold water.

“When a Zen master uses the term makyo, he’s telling his students that the previous gems they’re stopping to pick up or the pretty flowers they’re pausing to collect only have value or beauty in the world they’ve chosen to leave behind. The Tao says ‘beware the flowery trappings Because, in order to possess them or benefit from them, you mist cease your journey, stay in the dream. Ultimately, they’re just a distraction from the tricky business of waking up. Breaking free of delusion takes everything you have. The price of truth is everything. Everything. That’s the rule and it’s inviolable.”

She looks sad. I continue in a gentler tone.

“I’m explaining makyo because this is what’s happening here. You have had some profound insights in meditation and you have brought them to me. Understandably so. Western spirituality seems to equate enlightenment with self perfection, so it’s natural to assume that ridding yourself o mental and emotional baggage is the way to go. But what I’m telling you is that, within the context of searching for enlightenment, your experiences are makyo. You bring me these priceless jewels and I am telling you that you should flush them down the toilet and move on.”

I pause to let that sink in. The point here is less to aid Marla in her quest for enlightenment than to help her see that she’s not on one. I sometimes wonder if I would make a good Zen master but I don’t think so. Or maybe I’d be a great one, depends how you look at it. My emblem would be a graphic depiction of the Buddha’s head lanced on a pike, complete with dripping blood and dangling viscera. The motto beneath the emblem would be “DIE!” Students would line up outside my door and as soon as the first one opened his mount I’d start shrieking at the op of my lungs “You’re not him! You’re not the real guy” You’re the makyo guy? You’re just the dream character!” I’d probably start hitting the student with a stick at this point, which is one of the perks of being a Zen master.

“You’re supposed to be dead! Why aren’t you dead? Why are you coming to see me? You’re the problem! Get out and come back when you’re dead. That’s the guy I want to talk to, not a stupid dream character. Now GET OUT!”

That essentially defines the quest for enlightenment; the you that you think of as you (and that thinks of you as you, and so on) is not you, it’s just the character that the underlying truth of you is dreaming into brief existence. Enlightenment isn’t in the character, it’s the underlying truth. Now, There’s nothing wrong with being a dream character, of course, unless it’s your goal to wake up, in which case the dream character must be ruthlessly annihilated. If your desire is to experience transcendental bliss or supreme love or altered states of consciousness or awakened kundalini, or to qualify for heaven, or to liberate all sentient beings, or simply to become the best dang person you can be, the rejoice!, you’re in the right place; the dream state, the dualistic universe. However if your interest is to cut the crap and figure out what’s true, then you’re in the wrong place and you’ve got a very messy fight ahead and there’s no point in pretending otherwise.”

Cracks me up everytime.... DIE DIE DIE...bwahahahah

I also find it totally reassuring. We get to stop where we want on this journey. We do not have to commit to awakening. The whole point of being here, human is to enjoy the drama and play with our lives... there is no point being enlightened...or rather, in this reality of illusion...to be enlightened is to be outside of the fun.

Excerpts from Books – Redecorating the Office/ Stepping into Enlightenment

2011-08-18T04:27:00.000-07:00

One of my pivotal books at the moment is ‘Spiritual Enlightenment – The Damndest Thing’ by Jed Mckenna. Seems to just hit the spot about where I am and how odd it feels right now – a stranger in a world where everyone else seems to be comfortably normal. Thought I would pass on this extract... it revolves around the only practice he believes creates an enlightened individual, spiritual autolysis, which is in essence the destruction of the ego. Ego is the enemy and until it is destroyed and the illusion it creates dies, there can be no truth and so, no enlightenment (that is a really bad summary of a truly awesome book that will challenge what you think you know to be true). He is trying to explain the process of becoming enlightened to a student...

‘“Let’s try out a new analogy. I’m making this up on the fly so bear with me. Here’s the situation: You’re sitting in your skyscraper office a hundred stories off the ground thinking about how successful you are and how your life is just grand. With me so far? In terms of satisfaction, you’re very satisfied. You have it all; fancy office, great views, the respect and admiration of those around you, everything you ever wanted. Okay?”

“Okay.”

“So, you’re like that – happy, content, sell-satisfied – for however long; months, years, decades. But then one day, for whatever reason, dissatisfaction begins to creep in. Something about your office starts to bug you. It starts with little things. You’re dissatisfied with your curtains, they don’t go with the credenza at all. “What was I thinking?’ you wonder. ‘How could I have been so blind?’ And now that you’re looking more closely, it’s obvious that the carpet is a fiasco and the artwork is just an embarrassment. One minute you’re happy, the next you’re very dissatisfied. Extremely dissatisfied. This office is simply not an accurate outward representation of your inner professional. You’ve outgrow it.”

“It actually sounds like a pretty cool office ”

“Yes, well, that’s what everyone else things; your friends, colleagues, your family. They think you’ve got it made and that you’re nuts for wanting to mess with it. Of course, you’re only dissatisfied when you’re in the office. You pretty much forget about it when you’re anywhere else. Right?”

“Right”

“and you’re following the analogy, right? These things can be a bit wobbly the first time out. Your office represents your relationship to the larger questions of life and your dissatisfaction represents –“

“Got it.”

“Good. So what’s the answer? What do you do about this very dissatisfying office of yours?”

“Uh, I don’t know.” He shrugs. “Redecorate?”

“Yeas, that sounds right. But this time you’re going to be ery serious about it. You’re going to bring in a top-notch decorator and strip the place down to the floorboards and start from scratch. You’re not going to be a mere dabbler; you’re going all the way with this. You’re a serious professional and you deserve a serious office. See what I mean ? See how what started as a gnawing little dissatisfaction has grown into a life transforming event??

“Oka, “ he says dutifully.

“So that’s what you do. You go out and buy books and magazines on interior design. You talk to people and attend lectures and events. You hire the best decorator you can find; someone you resonate with deeply. You yourself are being transformed by this experience. You yourself are growing, developing, expanding. It’s very challenging, but you’re taking a no-nonsense approach. It’s slow going, but little bu little change is occurring. Your office is starting to look and feel like a genuine outer representation of your inner professional. It may take years to get it right, but nothing wills top you. This is too important. In fact, it has become one of the most important things in our life, right up there with home and family. See what I mean?”

“Yes,” he says eagerly. “The master decorator represents the guru and the redecorating process represents the spiritual transformation we undergo when we truly begin to challenge our beliefs and seek higher knowledge. What started out as a kind of gnawing dissatisfaction has grown into the impetus for important change and although it may seem like a bad thing at first, this is how the process of change works. This is how we develop, how we grow.”

“Exactly, “ I say. “Nobody acts from contentment. We need problems to solve or else we vegetate. That great office was once something we strived to get, then it was achieved and enjoyed in contentment, but then discontent sets in to let us know that it’s time to move on.”

“So, “ Says Kamiel, “that’s what the teachers are talking about when they discuss the dissatisfaction needed to spur us on, right? It might seem bad or uncomfortably, but it

S really a good thing?”

“Sounds right,” I say.

“And that’s the sort of determination and focus that’s required in order to awaken from delusion? To become truth=realised?: He smiles, excited, like he’s just now getting the big picture. “So that’s what you mean by purity of intent!?

I smile back.

“Fuck now. That’s what I mean by recipe fore failure.”

His dismay is instantly apparent. I’ve cut him off in the first rush of a new grokkign and now he’s confused and hurt. I did this intentionally. I didn’t allow myself to be drawn into this “A lot of teachers say’” conversation just wanting to make a point’ I wanted to counterpoint. That’s what the dialogue has been up until now because I wanted to make a clear distinction. This is the critical distinction between seekers and finders. This is where the line is drawn; a line the existence of which ‘a lot of teachers’ don’t even suspect.

That’s the sort of pathetic, half-assed approach that is absolutely certain to keep you confined to your current state. That’s the sort of approach that everyone takes and that’s why they fail.”

He visibly and audibly gulps. “Oh.”

“ The very people and institutions that are supposedly dedicated to waking us up are doing exactly the opposite. They are lulling us into a more comfortable sleep. That’s what we really want and that’s what they really provide.”

He doesn’t seem pleased. “oh, God...well then...then what drives the process of true awakening?”

“Purity if intent, but what does that really mean? Oka, you’re back in the office again, totally satisfied with everything. Life is great. Okay ?”

“Yeah.”

“Okay. So now dissatisfaction starts to creep in on you, but this time the dissatisfaction stems from the fact that you smell smoke.:

“The building is on fire now?”

“Wake up and smell the coffin, Kamiel. The building has always been on fire, you were just repressing that knowledge until now. But now you’re aware of it and it’s causing you some dissatisfaction. Quite a lot, in fact, and more with every passing moment. Now for the first time you realise that the flames are right outside the door and the temperature is rising. Acrid black smoke is pouring in. The door busts into flames There is no exit. Now you’re very, very dissatisfied with your office. In fact you’re starting to hate your office quite profoundly. See how this dissatisfaction – this gnawing discontentment on the, uh, feeling level – is of a more immediate and compelling nature then the dissatisfaction brought on by the decor?”

He nods mutely.

“Sure. Now your dissatisfaction with your office is quite intense. Searing really. In fact, your dissatisfaction is so intense that it feels like you’re n fire, like you can’t stand to be in your own skin, like anything would be better than more of this. Now you have no thought at all for career, home or family. Die to a change in your personal circumstances they’ve all been reduced to complete irrelevance. Belief’s and concepts disappear and even death is suddenly small. You’re very focused now You’re in the moment, very present. The flames are feet away. Your dissatisfaction with you office is well beyond anything even a master redecorator could handle for you, agree?”

He nods.

“and there’s no return is there? No going back. No do-over. The fire is here. It’s a fact. Do you see that?”

He nods again.

“And you’re completely alone in all this. There’s on rescue. Your office is engulfed in flames and there’s no one here to save you. Not Jesus or Buddha or the Pope or your mama. This is your dissatisfaction. This is your problem. This is your agony. This is you about to burn to death, okay?

“Okay.”

“Okay/ So what do you do?”

“huh?”

“Your world is burning. The whole office is in flames. You’re in a hopeless, no-escape situation. The pain has started and will only get worse. I think we can safely say that your dissatisfaction is now quite pronounced. What do you do?”

“Christ, I don’t know. Go out the window?”

“really?”

“Hell, I don’t know. What else?”

“Yeah, I guess so. You’re in this inferno of an office while outside the window is blue sky, white clouds and freedom from suffering. That seems like the only possible solution given your very dissatisfying circumstances. But-“

“But what?”

“Well, that’s not Hollywood glass in those skyscraper windows. You start flinging yourself against the window but it doesn’t give. Your dissatisfaction is of such intensity that you might break bones and crack your skull from hurling yourself desperately against the window, all to no avail.”

“Yeah, then what? What happens?”

“Well the obvious thing is that you might simply perish in the hellish inferno. No law against dying.”

He look sate me desperately.

“Or, maybe you have some object that allows you to break the window out. Or maybe the sheer intensity of your – what are we calling it, dissatisfaction? – allows you to break through the unbreakable window. So, boom!, you blow out the window. Now there’ s nothing left in the equation but you, the raging fire and a hundred story plummet to the sidewalk below. Everything is suddenly quite simple. Perhaps for the first time, your life is perfectly clear.”

“Yea? Then?”

“Burn or jump, I guess.”

“Burn or jump?”

“Do you see another option?”

“Burn or jump.” He says flatly.

“When you become so dissatisfied with your office that the hundred story plummet and the sidewalk seem like the better option, so dissatisfied that you actually hurl yourself out the window, then you know the level of dissatisfaction necessary to awaken from delusion.”

He is silent for several moments, head bowed, thoughtful. “I guess dissatisfaction isn’t the right word.”

“Maybe not, “ I agree. “I call it purity of intent, but that doesn’t really capture it either.”

“And that’s something every enlightened master went through?”

“You say it like there are countless enlightened masters dotting the spiritual landscape, but there are extremely few and now you know why.”

“Jesus,” he umbers, seemingly sincere in his effort to truly appreciate what he’s just been told. “Jesus”

I deliver the moral of the story in three easy pieces.

“The price. Of truth. Is everything.”'

Makes me think that until now, all I have been doing is escaping...redecorating the office, creating a temporary solution that reappears eventually.... I am fixing the symptom... not the problem... but I do not want to pay the price.

Being Empowered – Using the power of your Voice and Choice!

2011-08-08T02:23:00.001-07:00

The entire goal behind te-a and Conscious Enlightenment is to create empowered individuals. Which requires a number of conditions to be met.

The first and most important of these is to understand what empowerment is. It is not something that you can be given! No matter how long you wait for that guru, that father, boss... whoever it is, no proverbial knight in shining white armour can ever give you empowerment. Empowerment is something you have to take for yourself. It is an attitude, a knowing deep in your soul that you are worthy, that you have a voice and that you have choices.

Yes, you have a choice!

This concept is perhaps the hardest for individuals to ‘get’. Where is the choice when you get laid off and no longer have a home? You have to go to work otherwise there is no food on the table, where is the choice in that ? Where is the choice when you live in a township, have no education and so no way to get a job and provide for yourself and your family?

The thing about choice is that you have to be aware of who you are and your surroundings in order for you to begin to see the choices that are available. The entire mindset that we have no choice is based on being unaware. We live in a kind of default program, living what we expect to be true without ever questioning our assumptions. We are unaware of who we are, we are unaware of what we think and we are unaware of what we say and what we do. We do not see the connection between what we say and what we do and the experiences we live. We see instead people (often defined by colour and gender) who speak differently, who act differently and we want to be those people without understanding that really the only thing that differentiates us from them is the way we think about ourselves and our world.

When you live a life of unconscious unawareness, you live a life of permanent reaction, never questioning, never asking if this is true, never wondering if there is something else out there, always wishing and envying those who have. When you are living unaware your seldom believe that you have the ability to create the life you envy. So you never make new choices, instead you say and do the same old things and so create the same experiences and limitations.

Yes, you need to work to get the money to pay for the bills, but is it true that you have to put up with humiliation and derision and unpleasant people ? No! Do you have a choice, yes! The choices range from the extreme (making a stand and accepting the possible consequences there-of) to finding an alternative job, but there are choices.

When you are living in extreme poverty the choices become more limited but they are still there. You still have a choice in how you engage with the world, in who you are being. You get to choose if you are going to be defeated or simply make the best of a horrid situation and if you watch the people who choose not to be defeated, you will see that somehow that choice seems to lift them out of where they are, creating opportunities that open up more choices... and creates a more empowered and abundant life.

Until you as an individual can make a choice (be it where you live, what you do, who you marry or how you vote) based on what YOU want and not based on history, skin colour, gender, culture, circumstances, family, religion or any of the thousand labels that limit your, until then you will always be trapped. Choices need to be free of all those labels, all that history and all that guilt. Choices need to be about what you want ! Which is a question most of us never engage with.

Living in the new South Africa I feel this lack of conscious choice. When I look at my country (one I have a passion for and could never leave), I see one that is still divided by gender and race. I see a nation that approaches each election knowing things are not right but unable to make individual choices based on what they want. Instead we make choices based on loyalty and race and so we create a country where loyalty and race are king, instead of a country where we demand performance and equality. Yes, that is perhaps a simplistic view, but think about it? How do you make the decisions in your life ? Do you think that as a woman your place is defined ? Or that you can not move up the ladder at work because you did not have the right parents, the right school ? All of these assumptions create labels that define and restrict you. All of these assumptions about why you can not create change disempower you and make you into the never ending victim. The people you envy are people who have things because they never believed in those limits and they were prepared to make choices (often hard choices) to do whatever it took to create what they wanted.

At the end of the day, limits are choices. The trick is to become aware of those limits and so either accept them (and the consequences they bring) or make a new choice.

Perhaps I see this from a perspective where I am already empowered, yet there are moments where I feel completely defeated by my world. The goal behind Conscious Enlightenment was to take the empowerment I created in diving when I attained my world record and transfer it into any and every moment of any and every day. In the real world it is too easy to forget I have a choice an instead fall into the never ending victim thinking that is so pervasive. There are way too many days where I find that the world is a place where there are too many people making choices for me - my boss, my colleague, the President of my country, the President of the United States. I seem to live in a world where other people’s decisions create turmoil in my life. I have to live with the consequences of other people’s actions. I have to stand up and explain why I am not performing yet it is not my fault, these were not my decisions. I live in a permanent state of victimisation.

So I actively work on trying to find choices! I may not be able to control the effects of other people on my life but I can make the choice to let go and instead use that energy on trusting myself and creating a flexible attitude. I can let go of the outcome and focus instead on who I am being and my reactions to events. Instead of being a bitch about it, I can focus on how to make it work for me and so create an experience that is calmer and more pleasant not only for myself but for the people around me. I can make a choice to express my needs instead of getting more and more frustrated as no-one seems to care and I become more and more invisible. These days, the choices I seem to be making seem to be less about changing the circumstances around me and more about changing how I react to those circumstances. I want to be living a life where circumstances and other people do not define who I am and so do not define my experiences. I want to have control back of me.

I want to be empowered. I want to use my voice to make the choices that are right for me. And I want the people around me to start seeing that there is always a choice and to be Empowered is one of them!

What do you Want? Do you know ?

2011-08-02T23:43:00.000-07:00

It is one of those days, when I get lost in my thoughts, trying to find my way forward. Inevitably I find myself coming back to that one question, “What do I want?” It is a question that always interests me because, if take a step back and just watch the conversations in my head I notice how hard it is for the various me’s that live in my thoughts to stop focusing on what is wrong and what I don’t want!!

Engaging with that one question was an eye opener for me (and I have to thank my life coach Savannah Steinberg for nagging me with it until I started to really answer). It has also been an evolution. The first couple of times I started to answer I answered with things. I want this job, here. I want this house, here. The problem I find now is the same problem I faced in diving. What do you do when you have a world record ? Where do you go ? What do you create? I have a job I basically enjoy. I have the perfect house (for me at least), so what do I want ? I have run out of ‘things’ to desire and chase after!!!! Is this the end of life ?

What if I changed the answer to the questions? Rather than providing the answer, what if I let the universe find me the ‘thing’ and instead defined who I want to be and what I want to be feeling? I know already that I do not have enough imagination and that my answers will be more of the same...what if I released the universe and allowed it to find me an answer I could not imagine, an answer that would give me the inner world I am looking for.. what then ?

So my challenge to you is simply this, take ten minutes and sit with that question, what do I want ? Then take it one step further and sit and really understand what you are hoping those answers will do to your inner world ?

What do I want ? I want to be living in contentment, peace, laughter and safety (not the physical sort... I want change... a different sort). I want to be adding value and influencing my workplace. I also want to feel free. What do you want ?

Living Acceptance

2011-07-27T05:15:00.000-07:00

The more I Live Enlightenment, the more Enlightenment Intentions I find. A quick recap for those of you who are not familiar with the practice of Living Enlightenment. This is a daily practice that uses the concepts and habits of being behind Enlightened Being as a focus points. The principle is to stop waiting for some mysterious event to happen to transform you into an Enlightened individual and to start practicing the core skills and habits that would be natural one day when you finally do become enlightened. This is not so much about creating enlightenment as it is about creating empowerment using Enlightenment as an inspiration. The Enlightenment Intentions are the focus of the practice and are single words that create a focal point around which you conscious choose your actions and words.

Currently there are 21 defined Enlightenment Intentions and whilst I use all of them I find that some come up with regular frequency. Acceptance is one of these. The aim with Living Enlightenment was to create a practice that would change how I experience my life. I wanted to step out of suffering into joy and contentment, but I found that I could not easily define this new experience I wanted. I knew exactly what I did not want, so I had to first start with defining this new me. I needed to understand what she would be doing and saying. The process of reframing what I did not want into positives I could create resulted in the Enlightenment Intentions.

Acceptance is not a new concept (especially for those of you who do spiritual reading), however what was new was the thought that I could actively and consciously create this in my life. For some reason I had always expected things like Acceptance to arrive one day, when the new me was finally bestowed on me (not that I knew how that would happen or what would create that either…. I had a vague idea that I needed to be doing things, achieving things…world records, a directorship in the workplace…. )

But back to Acceptance. It is one of my favourite Enlightenment Intentions to practice and dare I say, one of the hardest. It does not matter how many times I revisit this simple little word, I always learn something new. When I take a look at my own life, most of the anguish (and dare I say, suffering) I experience is caused by the fight I am in with the world. In my mind a story goes round and round… this is not the way it is supposed to be! It is supposed to be different! I am supposed to be different! The problem is, the more I fight, the harder life gets and the more miserable I get.

But during those moments where I can just relax and Accept that the world is what it is...I find that I can consciously choose to let go of having to judge every moment...then something new happens - I find laughter and joy bubbling into my day. It is more than that though. The moment I relax and just ‘Accept’ where I am (and what I have) is the moment I can really start to engage with what is and it is in that moment I find I can create a new experience. When I am not fighting, I can make new choices, act in a different way and say different things. The lesson of ‘Accepting what is’ was THE thing that took me the longest to learn on my way to a world record. For years I was the good girl, patiently waiting for things to change and be the way I thought they should. I should have a team of eager and enthusiastic (and supportive) divers, I should have someone like world record holder Nuno Gomes there to guide me and ensure I did not make any mistakes, I should have the equipment I needed... the list of the things that would need to be in place before I could really get going was quite long. And then one day I got fed up waiting! It was now or never- I either went ahead and made a pan to dive with what I had or I gave up and walked back into my rather boring and normal life. Needless to say I chose to let go of all the things I should have and instead work with what I had. I chose to ACCEPT where and who I was and in that moment a weight lifted off my shoulders. I was able to start making decisions, all of a sudden consequences I had been avoiding were easy to accept. The result ? My 146 meter dive, which was a dive that petrified me as I did it on my own (breaking all the so called rules), but that was the dive that got me full corporate sponsorship, a dive team, gear and my first world record attempt.

These days I take the practice of Acceptance into my work and personal life. It is not easy to sit in a meeting and make a choice to not be irritated or defensive but instead take a deep breath and just accept everyone without fighting and get on with my job… but it is rewarding.

So how do you bring the energy of Acceptance into your life? What is it you practice? This is not something I can answer for you. Living Enlightenment is a choice that you make to explore who you are and what the different Enlightenment Intentions mean for you. The place to start is with a set of questions that are open ended. Keep on asking the questions becoming aware of your answers as they change and you grow. So….

What would open up for you if you started being Acceptance ? If you let go of resisting, let go of attachment and just breathed who would you be ? What would you be saying and doing? Where in your life would Acceptance bring change? If you were already living in full Acceptance of your life, its circumstances and the people that surround you, what would your life be like? Now.... how can you start to bring that intention, that energy of Acceptance into this moment, this day?

Getting Started Living Consciously - Managing Emotions

2011-07-18T00:18:00.001-07:00

Over the last decade (if not more) I have been obsessed with one thing, escaping suffering. For most of my life I have felt like a stranger in my own life. I have no control! Everything I say or do is driven by one thing and one thing only. My emotions!

In my search to escape suffering I have read most everything I could find in an attempt to escape. I soon realised that I hadn’t a clue who I was being emotionally. Around me people reported that I was angry or sad, but I was oblivious. How had I become so disconnected from myself. With an effort I started to pay attention to these pesky things called emotions, and soon realised why I had spent to so long with amnesia – they were out of control. Bottled up for so long, my emotions were so desperate to move and flow, to be heard and acknowledged that I felt almost completely overwhelmed. Ignoring how I felt because it was uncomfortable feeling was no longer an option. So I let them go, let them be what they needed to be. I let the memories come and go, holding onto nothing, just acknowledging that this is who I am, who I was…. And to my surprise after a while they were spent out. There, but no longer a controlling force. They no longer demanded my attention. I had survived the emotions that my child’s brain had told me would destroy me!

When I look at the journey I am on, I realise what an important first step just acknowledging your emotions is. These days I talk about making choices in spite of my emotional attachment to ideas, people or places, but that is not an option if you are not able to let your emotions just be. My goal is to be Living Conscious Enlightenment which means that my emotions no longer dictate what I say or do (some days are easier than others). To get to that point I had to first dive into those emotions. I no longer fight my emotions but to get to that point where I could choose who I want to be in spite of what I was thinking and feeling, I had to first step into my biggest fear, feeling.

Avoiding emotion is something a lot of us learn as children, indeed, it was the only way I could survive my parent’s divorce. I remember taking pride in never feeling, never crying – I could handle anything. And then, one day I could not. The problem was that hiding from my emotions had become a habit. The mere thought of experiencing one of those troublesome and unwanted things petrified me. How ? What was I supposed to do with them? How was I supposed to control them? For my whole life I had learnt that emotions were bad. They got in the way, they got me into trouble. They were the reason I overreacted at work, they were the thing that made me break out into frustrated and angry tears at the drop of the hat. I was spending so much energy keeping them in I had no energy for anything else. No-one ever told me that emotions are a part of being human. They need not control your every response, your every moment. Emotions are water, they need to flow and slowly, step by step, I let them in.

It started simply enough, with just acknowledging what I was feeling when I was feeling it. Then as I started to become aware of this world inside me, I started to allow them to express themselves. First in the privacy of my own head (where there are no witnesses and no judges telling me I am wrong), then in public. I can’t say my first attempts were very successful. I had never had any experience or practice telling people how I felt, so I had no clue what words to use. But as I gave myself permission to exist and feel, it started to become easier. Is this what all those books on Emotional Intelligence were talking about ?

These days I find that I still have too much energy in my emotions, which means that often the words I use come out with too much force, so I am not focusing on taking the time to acknowledge and be present with my emotions, to let all that energy spend itself before I express myself. Some days that is not possible and on those days I just give myself permission to exist. It is no longer about getting it right, it is now about not backing down and letting my fear get in the way. Every time I engage with both my emotions and express what I am feeling (and needing ) is a success and every time I do it, I get a little better at it. One day I will re-read this and wonder how emotions were ever an issue. I hope I remember the journey to get to that point and how it took a conscious choice and yes, courage. No-one ever said that Living Enlightenment was going to be easy, but as I walk this road it seems to get less difficult, or maybe the rewards become more present as I reconnect with me.

Transforming Self Doubt - Creating Conscious Deserving.

2011-07-04T02:50:00.000-07:00

The other day I was asked an interesting question, what is stopping me? From the long list of really, really good reasons only one turned out to be true, my self doubt. Simply put, I don’t know what it is that I have to offer and until I know that there is no way I can stand up in front of the world (and its inherent critics) and exist. This fact fascinated me. Could self doubt really be such a powerful force ? In that moment of awareness I suddenly saw my life from a slightly different angle and from there, doubt was a persistent presence that had kept me trapped in mediocrity and sameness for my entire life. Doubting my worth had been the trap that had held me on my world record journey. It alone is able to stop my momentum. I don’t even need to step out into the range of the world’s critics. In my head I have my own critic and she is always asking me simple, unanswerable questions... Why am I different? What have I got to offer ? Why am I special ? In my mind I am a normal, flawed person who has a long way to go. In my mind I have a list of things that need to be improved on, a set of reasons why I will never be really special and could never be better than the person next to me, never mind the greats out there. Who am I to challenge people like Oprah, Deepak Chopra or world record holder Nuno Gomes. They are special! They are not me! I am nobody!

As I put words to this thing called self doubt I am able to finally see it’s shape. When did I learn to see only my faults? Why is that my default view of life? Why is being the best me I can be something that will inherently disempower the people around me? And why does the mere idea of standing out from the crowd and living up to my potential fill me with guilt... awful, gut wrenching guilt and embarrassment. Somehow I believe that being me is be an act of deliberate defiance, one that is intended to out shine you and so make you look stupid. There, hidden underneath it all is this voice saying over and over again, do not make him (or her) look bad, adjust who you are so they always shine, never, ever make someone else look or feel stupid simple because of who you are. An impossible (not to mention draining) task.

How insidious this way of thinking is! Hardly visible to the conscious mind and almost impossible to get a good grip on. With effort I wrench myself back into this moment, a moment where I have the ability to consciously choose. I am no longer living default me. I now choose to be conscious. I choose to be empowered. I choose to live enlightenment and this self doubt can not exist in that choice.

To Live Enlightenment is not about focusing on what you don’t want, it is about focusing on (and so creating) what you do want. Here I was focused exclusively on this beast called self doubt. I had lapsed back into my default unconscious mind. Time to stop and step back into consciousness. You can’t create a negative, so the first step would be to find the opposite of this thing called self doubt. If I no longer was filled with self doubt, who would I be? The word that came to me was one of my Enlightenment Intentions, Deserving. The moment I choose to be deserving I change how I view myself. I no longer see the list of things that are wrong with me, instead my focus is on a list of reasons why this will work, why I am the right person for the job. With that single word I no longer see you as someone whose power comes only when I make myself less so that you feel more. Your power is a part of your being, something you can choose at any moment. In fact, that single word, Deserving, opens doors for all of us. We are all deserving, no-one more so than any other. The only difference seems to be that some people understand and live this and others, wait to be declared deserving by some external agency and so never step into their greatness.

Is it really so simple ? I knew the answer to that, a resounding Yes! My biggest fight in getting you to believe in living conscious enlightenment (and so stepping into your power) is to get you to let go of what you think is true and just get on with it. What if you could choose in any moment who you want to be, who you are ? What if it is the conscious act of choosing that changes your experiences? What if choice is the only way to step into your power ?

True empowerment is the ability to consciously choose in any moment of any day who you want to be. True choice is where you ignore what you don’t want, ignore the endless reasons why not and instead focus on why it is possible.

So this week is about letting go of waiting and instead living Deserving! Anyone want to join me and see what happens ?

People are Seriously Grumpy

2011-06-20T04:05:00.000-07:00

In an effort to bring more joy into my day to day I spent last week focusing on (amongst other things) creating a sense of inner calm and peace. I was really surprised by one of the consequences. Until I started to practice not being at war with myself I never really noticed how angry, impatient and totally disturbed most people are. Take an hour and just listen to the people that surround you. It does not matter if you are at home or at work, or somewhere neutral like a supermarket. Even better, take an hour and listen to how you speak to other people....now take the time to notice how you speak to yourself ?
How many of the conversations you hear are about what is not right, what is wrong, how the individual concerned is being done in by someone (it always seems to be a conspiracy) ... or how someone else is an ignoramus and should not be allowed oxygen?
As a culture we seem to be rude to people without thought, coming from a place of righteous indignation - a place where it is ok to treat someone in a way that would horrify you if you were at the receiving end. This is a place of no tolerance and even less love, a place where people deliberately waste your time and are deliberately incompetent.... a place that never sees the other person as someone who loves, feels and perhaps hates having to answer a phone to be berated and belittled by yet another annoyed customer.
The more I watched the world around me the harder I found it to maintain a sense of inner calm and peace. Each word became a torrent of ‘violent’ energy that was intent on assimilating me. I found myself becoming as angry and discontent...
Do we really have a right as individuals to do so much judging of other people ? Do we really have a right to expect them to live to our standards ?
Are we really so blind to who we are being that we don’t see ourselves becoming what annoys us in others?
I have to say that I am left with a large dose of disappointment and a feeling of complete futility. As a species humankind seems to be irrevocably lost in unconscious being that fosters hate rather than kindness and acceptance. Yes, I know...that is a judgement in itself. We are all on our paths living what we need to live in order to learn what we need to learn....only somedays ... somedays I want to shake people and say wake up, smell the roses, snap out of it! Then on other days I wonder if it is really worth it ? Is it possible to make a difference? What is the point of even opening a door, most people won’t see it and if they do, can’t be bothered to find the energy to change and step through it.
So I think for today I will go back to creating inner peace and calm. I have a feeling the answer is there, inside me.... that it does not matter who you choose to be or what energy you choose to put into the world. It only matters who I choose to be.... so I think today I will smile at random people and tell them how beautiful they look today...and maybe, just maybe... they will let go of some of that anger.

Breaking Free of the People Trap

2011-06-13T04:08:00.000-07:00

One of the things that fascinates me about me is how desperate I am to escape, well me. It seems as if I am trapped in a personality that creates experiences I realy don't want. This instinctive me defines how I react to the most normal of situations. Take work, here I find mysef being pulled too and fro thanks to a difficult working relationship that has contaminated my entire experience. Thanks to some fuzzy role definition I find myself in an almost continuous fight for territory with a peer which makes for an exhausting day.

My strategy for avoiding this instinctive me is to simply not to put myself in situations that trigger her. Which is fine with friends and even family but totally not possible at work where I have no choice but to engage. The question is how ? I know they way I go about it now is destructive and not pleasant, but what are the alternatives ?

So I took a look at this unconscious me and realised that she seems to be a person who can only exist in the presence of other people. People and the emotions they trigger define her, creating this perpetual existence that is just more of the same. An existence I can no longer live. As I contemplated (with dread) returning to work on Monday, I realised that I needed to find a way to escape thispeople trap. I no longer wanted to be defined by the people around me and most importantly, I no longer was willing to give up my abilityt to choose who I am in any moment. It reminded me of a story I had read.

‘One day when Buddha was giving a lecture and a Brahmin got up and began insulting him. He raved for while and when he had finished the Buddha said,

"If somebody laid out a banquet in front of me, to whom would it belong?

"Obviously it would belong to the person who put it there," replied the Brahmin.

"And if the person offered it to me," continued the Buddha, "and I declined to accept it, whose would it be?"
"Well obviously it would remain the property of the person who put it there."
"Just so," declared the Buddha. "just so." ‘

That story had always hit a nerve with me, but now it seemed to take on new meaning. I was taking other people's emotions and reactions personally, I was accepting these, reacting to them and making them my own. But where they really ? What else could I choose ? Who could I be if I were not instinctive, unconscious me ?

One of the steps in my personal journey to Conscious Enlightenment has been the understanding that I can choose to override my default program. It requires a conscious effort on my part. Which started me thinking not about what I wanted to escape, but where I wanted to escape to. If I wanted to stop other people defining me and get my power back, then what would I need to start doing?

My starting point as always was to really engage with what I do not want and turn it around, into the state of being I would be in if I were not that. I did not want to be fighting the whole time, instead I wanted to be living in a state of peace. I was tired of other people having the power to take that calm away from me. The more I thought about the me I could be the more resistance I started to feel. Instead of calm I found I was fighting myself.

"Why on earth should I let them just ‘win’. They were not right. If I just let go and walked away I would loose, loose my place on the ladder of success, loose my pride. I would be ridiculed, thought less of. It was my job to stand up and fight for my job, for recognition. It was not fair that I just let them sit back and stuff it up without doing anything. " The tirade went on and on... and I let it.

I let this other me go and just watched as she ranted and raved. Was this who I really wanted to be ? Did I really want to be wasting this much time and energy on a job that did nothing more than pay the bills ? Did I really want to be wasting this much energy and space on the people I worked with, people who I had no real attachment to ? Even worse, I was bringing this bad energy home into my real life. I was letting these people and these situations control who I was! Watching her live inside that small and miserable box I knew that I I no longer wanted any of that and if the price was to let go and walk away, then so be it.

It occurred to me then that to create the calm I needed in my workplace I would first have to create calm within myself, which was going to be extremely hard. I was in a state of permanent fight, the arguments from work playing over and over again in my head ... not even requiring the people from work to be present. So much for being calm and at peace with the world.... and thank heaven for Living Enlightenment!

With a deep breathe I stepped out of my analysis mode and into my doing mode. Thanks to almost two years working through the Living Enlightenment process withim my own Enlightenment Project i knew what I needed was a single focus, a single word that I could take into work and have in my consciousness, something to practice being.

For the first time I realy started to focus on who it was that I wanted to be? What was it I wanted to be practicing ? Which enlightenment intention would create the peace and calm I wanted ? As I spread my enlightenment intention cards in front of me I found three that ‘popped’ for me, Respect, Flow and of course Calm. Both Calm and Flow are intentions I work with quite a lot, but Respect, that one did not sit well with me. I found myself imagining the instinctive me barring teeth and retreating at the mere thought. Surely not Respect ? Respect was something that was earned. It was a reward given when due and my problem people at work definitely were definitely not to be rewarded with something as valuable as respect.

My adverse reaction to that simple word meant one thing, this was the word I needed to be working with. Now to sit with the how !

To escape unconscious, instinctive me I would have to remain conscious and Aware. I could not afford to just let go and fall into the instinctual me, no matter how much I wanted to. I would also have to take a deep breathe (or three) and Accept that this is how it is. I had neither the right nor the mandate to try and change the people around me, that was their job. I would have to accept who they were without fighting that... it was what it was...and what it was exactly what it needed to be.

I let myself just be with my intention.... I wanted to maintain my Calm, I wanted to keep in a state of Flow but mostly, I wanted to be the energy and intention of Respect.

All that remained was for me to start working the Living Enlightenment process and create the context for my day. So here it is, my commitment for the world.

For this week I will:

· Live Awareness for 80% of my day, no matter what the situation

· Live Acceptance for 80% % of my day, no matter what

· Live Calm Harmony for 80% % of my day, no matter what

· Live Respect for 70% of my day, no matter what.

It should be interesting to see what the universe brings... and how this Respect challenge and my unhooking from the people trap actually brings.

Living through Conscious Enlightenment

2011-06-06T00:01:00.000-07:00

Well after almost two years of silence I am back. The years have not been wasted - I have been working on finding a way to create lasting change. My problem was that, after a world record, intense reading and some awesome courses, I still felt like little old me. Yes, I had found empowerment, but it seemed to only exist within the world of diving. I needed it to extend into any moment of any day, especially those moments where life got difficult (you know the one’s, where you get a phone call saying your husband was in a car crash and you feel the floor fall out from underneath you).

I knew that my world record held the key, it felt like a map, all I needed to do was decode it, then I could disconnect it from diving and be able to apply its lessons to my entire life. The result has been not one but two books, Conscious Enlightenment (which describes the journey and lessons I took from my record to create the change I was looking for and is still in progress) and then a work book called Living Enlightenment, which is something anyone can use to develop new habits of awareness and consciousness.

Asides from my world record there have been two other major influences in this journey of mine. The first is a book by the Dalai Lama, The Art of Happiness – A Handbook for Living, which was my first real introduction to the concept of Enlightenment and the release from suffering it promises. The second was a series of courses without which I would never have been able to escape where I was. These are the Awareness courses run by Marc Steinberg through his company CCI (www.consciousnesscoaching.co.za). I can say that without those three influences, my record, that book and Marc’s course I would never have been able to get here.

So where is here? Here is a place I call Conscious Enlightenment. I found that the thing I feared most was not being able to control my life and I realised that I never would have control over the events I experienced. It seemed rather obvious when I finally got to this point, I had a lifetime of memories in which there was nothing I could do – watching my mother in intensive care, watching my husband to be battle to recover from his car accident. These were just two of those events where I felt totally lost. Instead of reaching for a therapist, I reached for my life coach and she asked me one question that really hit home, “What do I want? What do I want to be feeling?” In a moment she turned my life upside down. Until then I had always been focused on what I did not want. Until then I had been focused on things and events outside of my life to create a new feeling, a new set of experiences. Now I had no control of the outside world. If I wanted to escape the state of suffering I found myself back in I would need to stop focusing outside and focus on me. It was a scary thought. I did not know who ‘me’ was. I had never been taught to even look toward me for an answer.

That was when I knew what I wanted, the person I wanted to be was Enlightened. For me enlightenment held the answer. If I could just understand how to become Enlightened without having to sell up my life and wash myself in orange on a mountain somewhere.

The end result is Conscious Enlightenment. It is a practice that enables you to slowly transform your wisdom and experience into a series of practical habits with a focus on who you would be if you were already Enlightened. It is not about being Enlightened, that is a state of being I am still starting to slowly accept that one day I may get to, but rather, it is about becoming MORE enlightened.

Who would you be if you were Enlightened you would be calm, at harmony, kindness, joy, laughter, trust, tolerance ? How would that change your everyday life ?

I wrapped all this into a practice called Living Enlightenment which allows you to start to practice, no matter where you are at. It uses a set of 21 Enlightenment Intentions (which are simple words that you can easily keep in your awareness during the day ) as focus points for creating change. The process leverages the skills I learnt as a Consciousness Couch and is based on the key learning’s from my world record. It is simple, although not easy (creating lasting, personal change is never easy). Living Enlightenment is about creating choices in any and every moment because it’s only when you realise that you have a choice no matter what the moment that you can truly step into your soul and into your power and that is was Conscious Enlightenment is all about, creating authentic empowerment.

So welcome to my new project, The Enlightenment Project.

What happens if you stop resisting ?

2009-11-05T23:58:00.000-08:00

I woke up this morning and it seemed to be that letting go of control did not mean giving up responsibility. I woke up and thought, what would it be like to live each day being fully present and accepting ? Like a wandering monk who does not know what his day will bring ? Will there be food and if so, what ? Will I like it ? Does it matter ? He wanders and trusts… and accepts!
I woke up this morning and thought - I am amazing ! I am special ! I am brilliant! So why do I spend so much time and energy resisting these facts ? Why do I struggle and fight ? And I thought to myself, “Wow!” Imagine being a child and living that !! Imagine knowing every day from my parents and teachers that I was amazing, special and brilliant ? Who would I be right now ? And then I thought to myself, does it require me to believe. And I knew that it did not! It does not require me to believe it to be true to be so. I am amazing, special and brilliant!
I woke up this morning and knew that the Universe gives and supports! It is man and his thoughts and beliefs that resists and taints, creating scarcity where there should be only abundance. We are the one’s who limit our lives, no-one else.
I am wondering now how I can take those dreams and make them real ? My thoughts create my life, yet my thoughts have been a lifetime in the making. And it feels like I am two people, one who is trapped by earth, thoughts and scarcity, another who flies, laughs and revels in unlimited abundance.
So today I am just going to practice choosing power - letting go and staying responsible, being present, not resisting and accepting. Today I am going to accept my life, its abundance and brilliance! Today I am going to let go and see what happens!

Practicing Choosing Power

2009-10-27T08:36:00.001-07:00

The day I finally became the deepest female diver in the world, was the day I started to realise that there was something more to the story than just moving limits. Yes, setting a world record is an accomplishment and it required effort and commitment, but the journey was more than just a physical one. In fact, mastering the physical side was the easier of the challenges. Our society is geared toward learning facts and practicing skills. The real challenge came when I realised that being good at it was not going to get me my world record, there was something else I needed to be doing.

Now in my own mind I was the epitome of normality (albeit a little more stubborn than most and with a natural talent for scuba diving). Even today I do not feel different which means if I could break a world record anyone could ? Well maybe not a world record per se, but their personal equivalent of one.

Which left only one question, how ? How did I go from being ordinary, paralysed by fear and petrified of being visible, to the deepest woman in the world ? And could I use that journey to replicate that success in any area of my life ? What had I actually done ?
The answer it turns out was remarkably straight forward, three words in fact. I had practiced, choosing power. Let me explain.
Do you have permission to practice ? What if life was not about getting it right first time every time ? Who would you be if you had permission to practice ? Who would you be if you were supported ? What if it was nothing was wrong when you got it wrong ?
The key word here is practice and with that comes the freedom to learn, make mistakes and grow. It is a freedom that comes naturally when what you are doing is not ‘serious’. In the business world, permission to practice and get things wrong is most definitely not the norm. Yet, I have occasionally worked with people who did not expect immediate perfection and who allowed things to go wrong. That was normality for them and it was as if a huge burden was taken from me. These days I let go of the fear of being wrong and just allow myself the space to practice. What would happen if you did the same ?

Which brings us to the second word, choosing or Choice – there is always a choice, you just may not like it. The thing with choice is most of us have forgotten we even have it. I know I had. There I was sitting waiting to be rescued, wondering why the world was not falling all over itself to help me. I had chosen (albeit unconsciously) to play the very familiar and comfortable role of the victim and simply did not see that I had another choice.

I could wait until I was accepted by the male diving community and given permission to dive deep (a wait that had taken 6 years and showed absolutely no sign of ever being granted) or I could choose to let go of wishing things were different, accept what was and work with that. The concept of free will or choice is one of the hardest things for individuals to accept. It is far easier to just accept the carefully thought out and perfectly good reasons why you can not change. In fact, there are more good reasons not to do a dive that will break a world record than do it.
The last word is Power or rather Empowerment. Empowerment is not something you can be given, it is something you have always have. You have it right now, no-one has taught you how to use it. You become truly empowered when you give yourself permission to exist and practice, you exercise your right to choose. Power comes when you let go of the illusion that you are able to control the outcome. This is a lesson that most of us never get to learn in the ‘real’ world. It is however an essential lesson that must be learnt if you want to something as dangerous as break a world record.

You see, when diving sub 150 meters (in a water filled cave) you are doing something that a handful of people have done before. Of these, around 50% died on the dive. Yes I can practice my skills until they are instinct. Yes, I can discuss the theory with anyone and everyone to make sure I totally understand the risks (known and unknown) and have processes in place to manage those, but at the end of the day, diving sub 200 meters is something that only a handful of people have done. There is simply not enough experience on which to base decisions. Instead a large chunk of your knowledge is nothing more than assumption. Add to that is the very real fact that every human body is unique and that your body reacts to the same dive differently with no obvious cause you get a situation where you have to simply trust that you are prepared enough and then go and see what happens.

No matter what I did, how controlling I was, there was always that unknown factor that we could not predict, so, if I had no control over the outcome, what did I have control over ? This is not a situation that is unique to diving, in business, meetings, car accidents, life happens. You can not control some events and can not control other people, so what happens if you let go of control ?

If I am not focusing all my energy on maintaining control (or the illusion thereof), what am I doing ? Looking back at my world record journey I realised that I had spent years focusing on what I was doing or rather being better at what diving than everyone around me (sound familiar ?) yet I remained exactly where I was. It did not seem to matter that I was better or knew more theory. In fact, I was watching people who knew less and dived worse, overtaking me. Which is when I came to the realization that perhaps it is not only about skills, perhaps it is as much about who I am being, how I am behaving ? I may have no control over other people and the outcome of an event, but I did have free will. I could choose who I was being ? Which was a rather alien thought as I had spent 30 odd years of my life believing I was who I was and could not change that.

Was true empowerment, true power, really about my ability to choose who I was being? The thought did and still fascinates me. If I knew who I wanted to be in every moment, then would I ever fail ? Even if I did not get the outcome I wanted I still would have been successful because it had never only been about the outcome, it was as much about who I was being ? Even more importantly, when I looked back at my world record journey I realised I had spent years stuck trying to get deeper not because my skills were not at the right level, but rather because who I was being was not at the same level. I only reached my record when I started to act like a world record holder. When my being matched both my knowing and doing I was able to shift my limits!
To set a new world record I had let go of getting it right first time and give myself permission to PRACTICE. I had let go of controlling an uncontrollable situation and instead step into my power by choosing who I was being and how I was behaving. I had to stretch my mind (knowledge), body (skills) and soul (being). What could you do if you started to Practice Choosing Power ?

Habits of Being - Acceptance !

2009-10-21T06:25:00.000-07:00

It occurred to me that not many of us truly accept who we are now never mind who we have been. Yet when I think about the possibility of not having to watch everything I say or do or having to apologise for who I am or where I have been... I get a feeling of immense calm. How grand would it be to be OK with who I am and who I have been ? How different would my conversations be ?

What would you have to do to truly accept who you are and who you were ? For there to be nothing to hide from or apologise for

The Pillars of Creation - Knowing, Doing, Being

2009-10-14T06:33:00.001-07:00

How do you create limitless being… limitless abundance and limitless success ? Albert Einstein believed you could not solve a problem using same thought processes that created it. Society today would have us believe that success is a function of how good you are. Our lives are geared toward collecting the right skill set, yet how often do you hear people bemoaning a lost promotion, wondering how he got it with his inferior skill set. Companies seem to be filled with people who excel at what they do but never seem to rise up the corporate ladder.
So if is not only your skills that bring you success, what is it ? Could the difference between you and the corporate mover be who you are both being or to put it a more popular way, your attitudes ?
In 2004 I became the world’s deepest woman with a dive to 221 meters. I had created an impossible dream yet I could not transfer that success from diving to the rest of my life. Which is when I started to take a serious look at how I got my record. After all if I could do it once, I should be able to do it again..and again.
So, what did I learn becoming the deepest woman in the world ? That to shift limits you need to align all three parts of your being - your body, your mind and your soul. Or put another way, you need to ‘Know’ (mind), you need to ‘Do’ (body) and most importantly you need to ‘Be’ (soul)!.
The first two are familiar to us all - getting and practicing new skills. Diving was a passion of mine so I focused on my skills and really getting to KNOW how to dive. I wanted to be a good diver so I practiced that knowledge. That combination of knowing and doing got me to the point where I knew I could break the record, but for the life of me I could not get deeper. Something was in my way.
Now you may be thinking that because I broke a world record I am somehow fundamentally different to you. The truth of the matter is that when I started my journey I was probably less suited to be a world record than many people I knew. I was confused, lost, miserable, defensive and paralysed by fear. Hardly attributes you would attribute to a world record holder. I did have two things on my side though, I knew how to dive and could do any dive thrown at me. Yet I was still stuck.
The turning point came on New Year’s Eve, 2000. I was looking back at yet another year of not going anywhere. I was tired and miserable and had had enough! I needed to either give up on my dream or do something different, so I decided then and there that 2001 would not be a repeat of the last 4 years. I made a commitment to do whatever it took to get one meter deeper, no matter how petrified I was. In one simple step, with one simple New Year’s resolution, I fundamentally changed my life. I started to learn the Art of Being!
Until then I did not even realise that I could choose who I wanted to be. I was envious of people who seemed to be born with the ability to ‘be’ successful and resigned myself to the fact that I was not borne that way, so I could never be that. I am what I am and that is unchanging and limited , or so I thought. The idea that I could choose to behave differently and so experience different results was one I came to in desperation. I started to act as if I was already a world record holder so I could go out and do the dive that would actually get me the record. In essence what I was doing was living two habits of being, Courage and Trust. . I chose to trust the whisper that was telling me I could do this and ignore the torrent of voices who declared I could not. I chose to practice courage by doing what I wanted rather than giving in to fear. I did not have to get it 100% right, I just had to practice and not give up.
Hardly aware of who I was being, I was practicing choosing who I wanted to be and the results blew my mind. In the space of 4 months I had done the dive I had been avoiding and with that found a corporate sponsor and had a world record attempt planned for November.
These days when people talk to me about how stuck they are I ask them if they know who they want to be ? Do you ? Are you even aware of who you are being ? I am not talking about labels or job descriptions here, but rather core habits, call them behaviors or even reactions. An example perhaps ? When something goes wrong who are you ? Are you judgmental ? Do you punish ? Are you kind ? Do you accept that mistakes happen and focus on how to fix it ?
Which set of reactions is going to get you the results you want ? Now, what if you could choose your reactions ? What would open up for you if you could create new habits of being ?
Keep it simple! Think about a situation that keeps coming up for you. Now think about who you would like to be in that moment. If you were an actor what words would you be using, what emotions, what thoughts ? Ignore the thoughts that tell you that is not possible for you to be that or that it is too hard. Get it clear in your head, so clear you can write down step for step who you are being. Now summarise that into one or two key words. Some of my favourites are “Acceptance”, “Patience”, “Forgiving, “Non Judgemental”, “Tolerance”, “Kind”, “Calm” and “Gracious” . They replace habits like “Fear”, “Anger”, “Defensive”, Intolerant, “Punishing”, “Controlling”, “Insecure”
My key words are Acceptance and Kindness. Every day I practice treating myself with kindness. I give myself permission to get it wrong. I give myself permission to exist. Every day I practice accepting where I am, who I am. Nothing is wrong. Every day I practice giving love and kindness to everyone I meet.
Some days I do better than others and that is OK because every day I am practicing who I want to be. I no longer measure success only on attaining material things, so every day I am successful because I gave myself permission to BE!
What if it really were that simple ? What if by focusing on all three parts of your being, your mind, your body and your soul you can create a life you want to live ? Who do you want to be ?

Who Are you Being ?

2009-10-07T03:35:00.000-07:00

So what if, through all the coaching and courses, books and shows we are just missing the point ?

What if it is not about what you are doing, the job description or even the dream you have ?

What if it is really only about one thing, who you are being…the rest is all a game, designed to see if you know who you are and who you want to be !

What if the rest is all just ways to practice ? And enlightenment is when you can truly choose who you want to be in any moment. Then the rest is pure free will and design and you can truly create whatever you want! This is the point where you are free. No longer attached to who you need other people to be or what you want from others to feel safe and secure and OK. In this moment you are able to let go of what you want and make it about what the other person needs…and in that moment you give the other person space to give back what you needed…only now you no longer need it, it exists inside …because you know who you want to be. You are free!

And when I talk about who you are being, people look at me blankly, they know their labels, their roles, not their essence. What do I mean ? Well, imagine you want to be ablet to handle difficult meetings, conflict and negotiation. What traits do you need to using to succeed ? Patience ? Tolerance ? Acceptance ? Trust ? Who are you choosing to be ? No matter what ? And what changes when you focus on that and let go of the outcome of every event ?

Enlightenment & The Garden of Eden - thoughts from insomnia

2009-09-23T00:52:00.001-07:00

I was sitting under my mind tree, a large baobab, cross oak reminiscent of the Faraway Tree of my youth (yes, it does have a slippery slip). This is the place I go to in my head when I need to reconnect, think and listen (meditate if you will). Some days it is busy, full of people visiting, playing and chatting. Some days it is quiet, just me, the tail of the resident leopard, the sound of the birds and the distraction of the squirrels going about their business.

As I sat under the tree I could feel the sand grains, warm and tickly under my feet and between my toes- the sun’s warmth played across my skin accompanied by the ever present breeze wafting lazily by.
As sometimes happens a lady approached and sat beside me (and I do mean, lady, elegant and serene). As also often happens with unexpected visitors I found my thoughts wandering in a totally different direction, I found myself thinking of how hard it is to accept abundance as my right rather than a reward ? There are so many authors, gurus if you will that continually remind us that our thoughts create our reality, that this is a safe world, full of abundance, yet we live with scarcity and fear. How did man get soo far off the path of what is supposed to be ?
What ? The Garden of Eden ? What has this got to do with enlightenment ?
And then it came to me, the garden of Eden was a place where abundance was everywhere. Here all the concepts I hear and read about are real, abundance is your right, not a luxury reserved for a few.
“Is that what enlightenment is ? Us returning to the Garden of Eden ? “, I asked, but she just smiled, encouragingly I thought.

“So what was the lesson for Adam and Eve ? What was the mistake ? Why even tempt them in the first place ? And why has it taken so much time for us and so few of us to find our way back ?“

“Faith”

Now faith is not a word I am comfortable with - a hectic Catholic family will do that to you. It is not a word I even really understand, unless…. unless faith is what happens when you trust (let go of being in control) and accept (stop fighting).

Is that what Eve did not do ? She questioned, stopped listening to her inner voice and rebelled ? I was at the edge of understanding… struggling to grab hold of the answer.

Images flitted back and forth. I was standing at the edge of a river, rushing gently, struggling to stay by the shore. Eve, standing by the tree, listening to another voice, questioning if this was what she deserved or was there more ?

“Let go Earth Angel, let go and have faith. Go with the flow, trust the river of life will take you where you want, dive in and experience its abundance”

Could it really be that simple ? Then again, trusting, letting go, accepting, stopping fighting, remembering to listen to my soul rather than the messages around me… none of that is easy, but perhaps it is not quite so difficult.

She was gone when I looked back, my elegant lady in white. But the memory of her and the Garden of Eden remains strong. Today, just today, I will practice the word faith. And then tomorrow…and the day after until it is no longer a struggle, until it flows, like the river of life.

What If We Did Not Have All The Facts ?

2009-09-09T04:49:00.000-07:00

Back in the day (way back, when the world was still dark and scary) I read an interesting statement. That people if given two equally valid intepretations of the facts to hand, most of the time, most of the people will choose the story that was worse. Interesting yes ? Which begs the question, how true are the intepretations or stories we tell ourselves ? Do we even have all the facts ? What if it were impossible to see the whole truth ?

I am reminded of one of my favourite buddhist stories (this is my version of it :) ). There was a poor farmer who laboured all day in the fields. He and his wife finally had a son who grew up and helped his Dad in the fields and so the family was a little richer. Everyone said what a good thing that was. Then the son had an accident and lost his leg. Everyone said what a bad and sad thing that was. A few months later a war broke out and all the sons in the village were sent off to fight, few returning.... except for the son who had lost is leg..... so was him losing his leg good or bad ?

As always, this has come up for me based on my last two weeks, one funeral and one really sick boyfriend and a whole lot of emotions, stress and strain. I found myself creating one singular intepretation of what I was experiencing...it was hard not to because how can loss not be bad ? But what if the situation I was witnessing and experiencing, what if they were the lesser of two evils..... crap though they both were ?
And what if I look back at the 'horrid' events of my life, the one's were I barely knew how to get from hour to hour never mind day to day.... what if they were too filled with God's Grace and what happened was the lesser of two evils ?
I am not sure I can rescript my entire life to work this 'what if' into it.
Indeed, these last two weeks have seen me doing something I hardly ever do....seek refuge. It is a Budhist thing that I have found gives me space to breathe....you seek refuge in Budha (or Jesus, any deity that works for you really) and in doing so you hand all the worry and stress and doubt over. You stop trying to work out what will happen and what you should be doing, what is best. You just let go and TRUST that it will work out for the best...and all you have to do is be the best you can be in that moment...not worrying about the next, just the one you are living now.
So I have a new what if, What if I do not have all the facts ? What if I am not supposed to ? What if the secret to peace and calm and a life without suffering is to not question or label things good or bad...but rather to hand it all over and focus on who I want to be in that moment ? What if it really were that simple ?

Creating Peace, Tolerance and Understanding

2009-08-06T01:55:00.000-07:00

Having a boyfriend in Afghanistan, listening to the stories of poverty, misery - a nation trying to just exist, survive, bring up families... I was struck at how we may have just - just - gotten it all wrong! We fight hate and intolerance and seem to just create more. My first response was to surround my man with love and protection, seeking to hide him from the people who would harm him for no other reason than he is an ex-pat. But what about all the others ? I can not hide and protect them all. The hate, the anger will still be there, looking for targets. Was I not doing what we have always done ? Reacting .... not acting ?

So, my choice is this. To send love, light, tolerance and understanding to places and people filled with war, hate and anger. If we want to change our world we have to start to work towards a new vision of thatworld. Instead of focusing on what we don't want, we need to focus on what we do want... on who we would need to be to create that energy... a world that accepts, loves, is tolerant, forgiving and patient.

So...if this touches your heart light a candle and keep it lit.... to create light and energy that sends love, tolerance, calm, forgiveness and peace out into the world...like a rain of sparkles...to touch those who need it and open a door. Like Ghandi said, be the change you want to see in the world.

My candle is white. It sits surrounded by rose quartz, washed in salt water and dribbled with lavender. When the wax runs out I will use that light to light another candle and then another. If the candle blows out I will relight it and re-say my prayer.

To God, Michael and the angels above
To Mother Earth and Jesus, the one's I love
Help my prayer create an energy long abiding
That sends peace and love forever entwining,
With forgiveness and tolerance the energy seeks
hate, war and strife, restoring the meek
Be it Afghanistan or Africa let my prayer have the reach,
connecting and healing, happiness preceding
War to thwart and lives restore
The light of my prayer opens the door.

Could you create a candle of peace ? Could you keep it lit ? Could you keep a light alive to send love, peace, tolerance and forgiveness to places and people beset with war, hate, anger and crime ?

What you Say or How you Say it ?

2009-08-03T23:56:00.000-07:00

I was reminded the other day of my past and a phrase I used to hear quite frequently, “It is not what you say, but how you say it !”. Well that little phrase had me flummoxed. I had no clue what it meant or how I was supposed to say what I had to say differently. For the longest time this inability to communicate effectively and speak my truth at the same time had me totally stuck.
Hearing that deadly phrase again evoked a whole set of new responses as I listened to the story behind it…and added some new context. Books like ‘The Dark Side of the Light Catchers’ present a principle that =we get irritated by the things in others that we deny in ourselves. So to claim all sides of ourselves and become whole and so (in my words) have the ability to choose how we react rather than just unconsciously act, we need to give ourselves permission to be those parts of ourselves we normally reject. The bitch side is a good example of one that most of us try and suppress.
So there I am, saying what I want to say but coming from my suppressed and hated bitch side. Now what is it you are hearing ? The words or the intention ? When I switch places and am now facing the bitch in full swing I am no longer hearing what she is saying, but the anger and spite that she barely recognises in herself. My reaction is not to the words but the intent behind those words and the intent behind those words is very, very rarely directed at me. The intent behind your words is how you feel about you!
We are all quick to jump onto books like Debby Ford’s and give ourselves permission to express ourselves in whatever fashion we choose so as not to deny our shadow selves – after all, the reaction is just your shadow and has nothing to do with me. But we then seem to abdicate responsibility and find ourselves being the victim of our own choice. That is of course when we have the awareness to choose a behaviour which most of us do not.
My thought is this, that if you are going to give yourself permission to exist (and that is something we all have to do), then also give yourself permission to choose your behaviour based on the consequences you want to experience. Do not avoid a conflict because it scares you - rather avoid a conflict because you can get the same result in a different, more gentle way. When you choose your reaction you are truly empowered. At that point you are no longer a victim of your own habits and other people’s reactions. The trick is to become aware of your intentions when you choose your words, hard but not impossible. Which is why I love coaching…because it gave and still gives me the space to become aware and so choose who I want to be !
When you are truly empowered you choose your habits, you choose your experiences and you choose your life. How grand would that be ?

I am special...but so are you !

2009-07-17T07:12:00.000-07:00

I have spent a lifetime not being special. Which sounds odd considering I hold the womans record for depth. So why do I feel that I am not ‘special’ ? The answer that bounces into my mind is that for me, to be special is to be better than some-one else and in my world that is just not done. You do not elevate yourself above the rest. You wait until you are elevated and then you are shocked and demure and embarrassed. To be special I have to be better than you but I fundamentally know that I am not better than anyone. Nor am I particularly different. So rather than be special my life has been about blending in and being mediocre… excelling but never too much - never enough to make anyone else feel less. So I spend my time finding the things I have in common with you and hiding the things that are different just in case I make you feel less.

But what if being special has nothing to do with being better or worse than anyone ?

This thought fascinates me. What if we are all borne with a different set of gifts which make us the same yet totally unique ? And what if, what if the people who excel at attaining abundance only do so because they are instinctively listening to their uniqueness and playing to that, rather than trying to follow a recipe and fit it?

My thought is that if we were all on the same level we would never change, never learn, never advance. So as a society we have to have the explorers who stand out and dare to be different, dare to do new things in a different way. 100 years ago no-one had ever climbed Everest. Today it has gone from the impossible to merely difficult and dozens summit every year. It took one person who was different and not afraid of that difference to create the possibility for anyone to achieve the impossible. We now all have a bit of Hilary in our consciousness and being.

This whole thoughts began with my search to claim unlimited abundance and a phrase that did not sit with me - that in order to have unlimited abundance it had to be for my higher good coupled with the fact that I would never have it if myself worth did not believe itself deserving.
I have a problem with the former because as a spiritual being I was not borne with limits. I was borne to experience the universe in all its abundance – anything I want is mine for the asking, so how then how can unlimited abundance not be for my higher good ? Unless of course acquiring said unlimited abundance means I never ever follow my path and just ‘retiring’ for life, then I guess it makes sense. Never give me the abundance until I accept who I am and my gifts, the things that make me special.

The second limitation is self esteem, which makes more sense to me because if I do not think I deserve abundance I will make sure I never excel or stand out and so receive it. The problem is, how do you change your self esteem ? Yes, you can read book after book and say affirmation after affirmation and do the therapy thing, but how often does that create a lasting change in your being ?

Which brought me right back to being special and the gifts that make those differences.

What if accepting the fact that you are special and so is everyone around you, is the first step ?
What if you can only claim unlimited abundance when you accept who you are and start to work with what you have that makes you unique ?
What if the very thing that makes you special is a gift and one that you were given so that you can pass it on ? What if (yes I know, a lot of what if’s) but what if there have to be people who stand out and who are fundamentally different because they are the ones that create change ? They are the one’s that create a new potential for anyone and with that new potential what becomes possible transforms ?

What if by being me I open a door for others to transform who they are - to become more empowered, more joyful, more abundant ? What if that was you ? That you had something I desperately needed to see and hear to change who I was so that I could be more me ?

I am left with this one thought. That when I do not accept my gifts, my uniqueness, I deny you the opportunity to expand your awareness and being. There has to be someone to shine the way so that others can follow and as more lights start to shine the differences start to disappear. The very gifts we thought special become nothing more than normal and the cycle starts all over…with a new generation of explorers who bring a new set of gifts that we could not possibly imagine!

Who would you be if you accepted who you were and stopped fighting ? Who ?

Who Are You ?

2009-07-14T04:37:00.000-07:00

I was reading an advert for a conference promoting woman as leaders. Other than being expensive and filled with woman at the top of their game (OK, woman with impressive titles which may mean the same thing), I could not find a single topic that caught my attention. There was nothing personal about any of the topics. Instead of finding out more about the woman and their path to success I was seeing superficial stuff - stuff I could read from pretty much any book. This was supposed to inspire me ? As I read it struck me that this conference was highlighting what society reflects - that who you are is not important but rather where you are! I went from frustrated to depressed.

Surely enabling and empowering woman is not only about transferring skills ? Surely it is about allowing woman to really see who they are and connect with their power to achieve and do (so that become that), rather than titles and corporate ladder and promotion and all that normal so-called good stuff ? Because when you live and breathe your own uniqueness and power you get all the nice stuff and at the same time you love who you are and your life…which translates to happiness and joy (whether or not you make CEO).

Do you know who you are ? Not what, but who ?

Can you list all the things that define you and make you unique ? What are you good at ? What are you not so good at ? And as I type I realise I am asking the wrong questions because all those relate to the past. What is really more important is knowing who you want to be - because that creates action and movement, growth and transformation.

Do you know who you want to become ?
Do you have a vision of that person, how she talks, how she thinks, what she does every day ? Because if you know that you can choose to add a part of that to your day. You can start to practice who you want to be and before you know it you will be that person without thought. The old you will have transformed - be a distant memory.

As a coach, I don’t want to be showing people only how to become a CEO. Yes, realizing your goals and being successful is part of it, but there is something more. Something more substantial and important and valuable. I want to be showing people how to ‘be’ and how to really choose who they want to be!

Can you see the difference ?

Imagine what the world would be like if we were focusing on being the best person we could be ? Imagine what your life would be like if you were focusing on ‘being’ love and kindness, power and strength ?

Practical Coaching - Choosing Your Day

2009-07-13T03:00:00.000-07:00

The joy about being a coach (and limitless being in training) is that I have access to the same tools that my clients have.

One of the most mind blowing of these is the concept that we get to choose the context of anything we do. The basis of this is the simple fact that whilst we may have no control over our thoughts and feelings (or even the world per se), we can control our words and when we choose our words we can choose the definition (or context) of anything - from our relationships to our day to the way we are going to experience a meeting or even a person. Key to this concept is the thought that if we do not choose, the universe just serves up our default experiences – so more of the same. By choosing we can override our unconscious experience and create something new.
Sceptical ? Well so was I until I actually tried it. There is something powerful and present in consciously stating that today I am going to have a successful, joyful, abundant day. Today I am going to be love. Today I am going to define my relationship with a difficult colleague in a way where I am patient and listen and nothing is wrong. These definitions sit in your conscious and subconscious mind and when the day starts to fall over they come back, nagging, creating a new awareness which gives you the chance to choose not to succumb to yet another cruddy day…and instead to choose and live your context.

So why not try it for a day (or two or even three)?

Just wake up and choose how you want your day to go, how you want to feel, who you want to be. If you like, give it a percentage (if it feels too intimidating), something that is do’able and streteches you no more than 20%...and then tomorrow practice again… one day you will wake up and that is now your default experience..how awesome would that be ?

Why I Can Not Survive Without My Coach

2009-07-10T04:21:00.001-07:00

I was chatting about coaching and the benefits there-of and casually mentioned that I get coached, which came as a surprise to the people I was talking to. Perhaps it is because I already have achieved something grand and audacious (my world record) so there is a perception that I already know how to ‘do’. Perhaps not. Why do I need a coach ?

Reason 1 – Accelerated Transformation.

In the year that I have been coaching and coached I have grown/ moved/ changed substantially. The way consciousness coaching works makes it impossible to hide if you really want to create change in your life. You create goals and stands for who you are as well as what you want to achieve and so face your demons, fall down, talk about it next coaching session and re-strategise. It is intense and rewarding and a journey that would have taken years if I had done it on my own.

Reason 2 – Clarity.

Often I have the concept of what it is I want to achieve, but defining it and getting it clear takes ages and many conversations over wine and sushi. With my coach I can really get to what it is I want and really become aware of what is in my way when it comes to thoughts and feelings. After which creating a strategy and set of stands to deal with who it is I want to be and what it is I want to create is much, much simpler.

Reason 3 – Results.

Yes, I do make commitments and they tend to fall by the way side as the world drags me off course with its usual thousand little insignificant but urgent problems. When I am in a coaching cycle I have to report back to my coach on how well I have stuck to my word. She is not judgmental, it is what it is…. But just knowing that someone is listening and watching creates the impulse to complete and get things done.

I know coaching works because I work coaching. Whether it is a goal you want to achieve (better golf game, better sales, that promotion) or whether your goal is more spiritual and personal (better relationship, less fear, better able to deal with conflict) or whether you do not know what it is you need to change, just that you need to change who you are so that you can change what you experience – no matter what it is, coaching can create a tremendous, life shifting change. Limits after all are just choices and I really enjoy shifting mine. So thanks to my coach…who is patient, compassionate and stands for my greatness no matter what!

The Power of Completion

2009-07-09T02:12:00.000-07:00

One of the basic principles in coaching is to finish what you start. Not finishing is a symptom of our modern day lives. We start projects, ideas, books and get distracted, de-motivated and just move onto the next thing.
The problem is that these incompletions live on in our subconscious minds. They hold space, until there is no more space for new, more productive activities.
My week has been dedicated to completing projects I have started. It is (as most things are) a work in progress, but I have made some headway....and the feeling is grand.

What could you finish right now, today ? What is has been on your list to do for so long it is embarassing ?

Deserving Abundance - Expecting It! Receiving It, Coaching for It!

2009-06-29T00:15:00.000-07:00

All the coaching in the world is not going to get you your dreams if you fundamentally disbelieve that you are worthy. This believe that we are not special enough to deserve abundance is ingrained in our lives, so subconscious we barely see it even if we do experience its effects on a daily basis. What do I mean ? Well, have you ever had a goal, find yourself almost there and then is spectacularly explodes on you ? Otherwise known as self sabotage, this is one of the hardest limits of all to overcome.

I am currently sitting with my lotto ticket in hand which is an example to prove the point. Why am I special enough to win millions ? There are so many other people out there who are in way more desperate straights than I. Which is not to say I have not gotten debt that I would like to be rid of, the point is I am surviving, semi comfortably. I have a house, a car, enough food, so when I buy my lotto ticket each week I am not really expecting to win because I am not really deserving. And the universal energy feels my doubt….hence not lottery win. Ok, so maybe it is not quite that simple, at least with the lotto.

To quote my favourite author Wayne Dyer, ‘You can’t discover light by analysing darkness’ (get the book, Being in Balance). The first paragraph of that chapter on abundance goes as follows:
“If you had to search for light, the one thing you’d obviously shun would be the darkness. You’d know for certain that spending your time analysing in the dark wouldn’t be the way to experience the light. Now exchange the words light and dark for abundance and scarcity” In his words, you become what you think all day long and most of us are not even aware of the thoughts we think and so the destiny we create for ourselves.

Being creative, we have a list of solid, logical reasons for this scarcity, starting with ‘Its God’s will’ and passing through “There’s a limited supply”, “I don’t deserve it”, “I have limited abilities” and of course “It has always been this way”
But what if abundance was ordinary ? What if it was part of your divine birth right and not something you had to struggle for ?

What if we took away the labels we attach to abundance ? I

What if abundance was not a reward for the deserving who are in someway special or better ? What if abundance were the norm and this world of scarcity the extraordinary ?

So I shout to the world that I am claiming my birth right, my abundance not because I am special but because I exist and as the words escape something inside me shifts, grows, becomes lighter.

Abundance is my birth right! It does not make me different or special, just normal, ordinary…like you! Isn’t it time you claimed your right to abundance ? Isn’t it time we spiritually shifted the balance from one or two individuals to all ?

And yes, coaching is one powerful way of integrating this acceptance into every day!

Being.....Limitless...step by step

2009-06-25T00:07:00.000-07:00

The question as to whether or not we are limitless is one that has fascinated me for a while. I have a world record but does that mean I was borne different, special ? Or did I just find a way to make something extraordinary happen for me ? If the latter, then it could happen for you. So how do you become a limitless being ? For that matter, how do I make being limitless a way of life rather than a once of event ?

Perhaps it all starts with a question, can you see the box in which you live ? Most of us can not. Indeed, the limits we take as permanent are practically invisible. They hide in phrases like "I could never do that, i am .... " and the list of reasons is as varied as the people who apply them. I am too old, I am too young. I have a family to support, I do not have enough experience or the right qualification. If there is one thing us human beings are good at, finding logical and reasonable reasons for staying exactly where we are is one of them. But what if none of those reasons were true ? If you are truly happy with the life you are living then read no further...but I suspect that most of us are resigned to the lives we are living rather than ecstatic about them. We resent the limits that keep us imprisoned but have no way of escaping. Yet we never challenge them. We assume they are true, unmoving, permanent! Are they ? Really ?

Escape is however simple if not easy. It revolves are one simple concept, to move from where you are right now you have to take one step...then another....then another. But it all starts with that first step. You have to DO! Which is easier said than done. So, how to get that first step sorted ?
Do you have the desire, the passion that will drive you and keep you at it until you succeed ?
Have you taken taken stock ? Have you sat down and listed everything you thing you need to have in order to get going ? Then listed everything you actually have got right now ?
Do you dare ? Have you taken what you have right now and worked out what you could actually do with what you have ?
The final step is to DO! There is no escaping it, if you want to climb the mountain you have to take that first step. You may be walking toward a helicopter but you are still moving, away from where you are, one step closer to where you want to be.

Is there a trick to taking that first step ? The one that petrifies you and keeps you in your comfort zone ? Not really! That is why the desire is so important. Many people refuse to take it saying they do not have the courage, but courage is not the absence of fear, merely the knowing that something is more important than fear and the doing in spite of the fear. Of all the steps to being limitless that is perhaps the most important, that and knowing that you can act independantly of your thoughts and your feelings. If you really want it, you can make it happen.

So, what is it your really want ? And what is the smallest step you could take right now to start you moving in that direction ?

Intellectual Spirituality vs Enlightenment

2009-06-22T04:03:00.000-07:00

I was watching Oprah looking for an answer or perhaps it was inspiration, either way, Oprah is normally a good bet. She was talking about Spirituality, something I am quite excited about since learning about SQ or Spiritual Intelligence. For those of you who have not yet heard, SQ is a third way that our minds think (and yes, it has been scientifically proven to exist, so I am not talkign about something esoteric here, but something physical and real).
[IQ (intellectual intelligence) allows us to think serially, answering known problems using known answers. EQ (emotional intelligence) allows us to think associatively and is linked to our ability to respond to emotions and people. SQ allows us to create new solutions. ]
As I listened I started to get frustrated. I was hearing more of the same vague stuff - How Spirituality is about being connected to all living things, to a higher force, it is about a new way of living with more love.... blah, blah, blah. My frustration was not that what they were saying was not true, but rather that I could not connect to what they were saying. The experts were repeating the same vague statements that I had been reading and hearing for over a decade. The same vague instructions and promises that seemed some days to be nothing more than a pipe dream, an illusion of hope.

I started to get the sneaky suspicion that universally enlightenment (for want of a better word) was deemed to be an elite sport that could only understood once you were there. For those of us at the base of the mountain it sounded like a good idea (in principle) but not one with any real benefit. I mean it would be nice to live connected to something bigger…or would it ? And how exactly would being love and light make my day better when I am stuck in traffic or in one of 'those' meetings at work ?

Perhaps it is my thing to attach spirituality to enlightenement, but they do seem to go hand in hand. The concept of enlightenment has fascinated me for almost a decade. From all my reading I know one thing for sure - there is no definite, guaranteed path to achieve it. Everyone seems to have a different approach and each approach seems to be pretty much hit and miss. You take the rest of your life off, go live in a monastery and meditate until enlightenment mysteriously arrives. Seems rather like sitting at a closed door and wishing it open to me. And the few who do appear to have reached it seem to then immediately loose their ability to connect to the rest of us and so, when they talk, concepts that are blindingly obvious to them are incomprehensible to us – as if they are trying to explain the colour blue to blind people.

As I listened, I was struck at how similar all the 'experts' sounded. No-one was saying anything new. No-one had any new insights, yet these were the experts, people who had dedicated their lives to spirituality and enlightenment. So why did it still sound like Greek ? I found myself questioning if they actually 'got it'. Because surely if they 'got it', they would be able to explain it. Instead it was if they got it intellectually but not where it counted, in their hearts and being. Yes each path to enlightenment is unique, so I guess it is kinda hard to explain and give the key to someone else which is where I started to seriously question. Is it ?

Is enlightenment so complicated that it can only be obtained by a select few ? I was hearing once again that the path to spirituality was courses and of course lots of meditation, yoga and retreats are required. Seriously ? I live in the real world and no amount of yoga is going to get me to enlightenment. Nor do I have the time or finances to monk myself for 5 years to get there, wherever there may be. So what if these so called experts had not actually reached an physical understanding of enlightenment, only an intellectual one ? What if they were intellectual enlightened and not spiritually enlightened ?
The concept fascinated me. Because if I was spiritually enlightened, then being enlightened would not be hard work. I would have a level of awareness and compassion for myself that would make each day a joy to live, no matter what happened in that day. As I listened to the story of how our souls are released through pain and sorrow something sounded off. I felt that what I was hearing was another trap, another story. I was hearing something intellectual, something not understood. In that moment I got the edges of a knowing. What if pain and sorrow, good and bad, joy and delight are just labels we give situations ? We attach the pain, we attach the joy, we attach the judgement and we create the limits and prison that confine us.
But surely it could not be that simple ? Surely enlightenment was an exclusive thing, not something you could grasp the edges of whilst listening to Oprah ? But what if it was that easy ? What if when we were borne the only thing we had was our soul. It laughed, it played. It did not wallow in sorrow. As a child we could be one moment happy, the next sad. We did not attach ourselves to our emotions. They just were.
What if what we got taught was all wrong ? What if instead of being taught how to be grown up and free what we really got taught was how to be trapped, just like all the adults before us ? Think about it. We get taught the rules of the world and with each rule we lock away a part of our joy, our freedom, our soul. We create this thing called an ego which is less than what we were. It knows only what it has been taught, only the limits and rules of how to exist in the world. It is a thing full of fear, fear of getting it wrong, fear of making mistakes, of not fitting in. When we finally enter adulthood we have lost our essence, our joy, our creativity, our soul. We are trapped by our emotions, some of which we label as good, some of which we label as bad. We then spend the rest of our lives avoiding the bad emotions, suppressing and denying them and dwelling in and chasing the good one’s.
We react each day based on our ego’s emotional pattern with little awareness and no ability to choose a different way. So, what if enlightenment was not something that you got from meditation and separation and religion ? What if enlightenment and spirituality was nothing more than shrugging off the limits of our ego ? What if all we needed to do to be enlightened was not be controlled by our emotions and instead to be able to consciously and actively choose every day who we want to be ? What if enlightenment was true empowerment and something we were all borne with and so can all reconnect to ? To change your habit of being is not easy, but it is do’able. This I know thanks to my own coaching journey. And when you have a vision of who it is you want to be and how you want to react every day, it is not work or something that you need yoga and a retreat to create, it is a choice and because you have a vision, a direction, the journey is easier.
What if the way you are living your life today is not the only way ? What if there is a more peaceful, more joyful, more successful way ?

IQ, EQ and SQ

2009-05-27T04:05:00.001-07:00

IQ allows you to answer questions...EQ allows you to interact with people...SQ allows you to change the limits...

Working with boundaries, not within them

2009-05-27T04:02:00.000-07:00

I blogged recently about SQ or spiritual intelligence..something that appealed to me instinctively, but something for which I could not find a definition.....how does this work for you ?
Neither IQ or EQ, separately or in combinations, is enough to explain the full complexity of human intelligence nor the vast richness of the human soul and imaginations.
Computers have high IQ – they know what the rules are and can follow them without making mistakes. Animals often have high EQ – they have a sense of a situation they are in an know how to respond appropriately. But neither computer nor animals ask WHY we have these rules or this situation or whether either could be different or better.
They work within boundaries, playing a finite game. SQ allows human beings to be creative, to change the rules and to alter situations. It allows us to play with the boundaries, to pay an infinite game. SQ gives us our ability to discriminate.
It is in its transformative power that SQ differs mainly from S. As Daniel Goleman defines it, my emotional intelligence allows me to judge what situation I am in and then to behave appropriately within it. This is working within the boundaries of the situation, allowing the situation to guide me. But my spiritual intelligence allows me to ask if I want to be in this particular situation in the first place. Would I rather change the situation, creating a better one ? This is working with the boundaries of my situation, allowing me to guide the situation.
from Spiritual Intelligenvce. The Ultimate Intelligence by Danah Zohar

Practical Coaching - Creating Mind Space

2009-05-15T02:08:00.000-07:00

I want you to think about how you spend your day or rather what you spend it thinking about. How often to you ‘get on it’ or to put it another way, how often are your buttons pushed and there you go, again. In those moments (which can fill a day) do you have choices or control ? Are you being who you want to be or who you always have been ?

Ja, ja I hear you say. All well and good, but that is the way it is! My buttons get pushed and off I go! That is who I am!
‘Really ?’
So, could you not ‘get on it’ ? Just could you ? Is there a future you that could be calm and ‘in control’ ?
For most people the answer is yes and if the answer is yes, then could you let go of this learned response next year ? This year ? Next week ? What about once today ? Just once ?

Don’t know how ? Well, what about when your button gets pushed and you get onto it you just breathe for 30 seconds ? That is all. What if for today all you did was acknowledge when you were on it and try and stay off it for 30 seconds. And then at the end of the day you score yourself, 1 to 100 as to how well you did on that. Give yourself a goal, you will stay off it for 30 seconds every time you get on it….for 50% of the day…or 80% or 30%.

And tomorrow ? Well what about staying off it for longer ? And the day after…stretch yourself a little further…. After a week…where could you be ? Who could you be if you had the time to choose how you were going to act rather than just reacting ?

The Evolution of Spirituality

2009-05-11T02:32:00.000-07:00

I was introduced to something new the other day, SQ. We are all very familiar with IQ and even thanks to names like Daniel Goleman, EQ, but SQ is very, very new. It fascinates me because up until now there has been something missing in the way we see ourselves and the world around is.
Spirituality is something that is private and sensitive. It is associated with churches and religion and not really open to discussion. Yet could spirituality be something more ? Could it be independent of a brand ? Could it be the only way we truly evolve into our selves, into our most powerful selves ? I have long known that where you pray (or how) does not determine your location on the spiritual ladder. We all have met people who seem to have an inner peace and strength that is just different…. And they are not restricted to any one brand.

The founders of the concept are Danah Zohar and Ian Marshal and their books are not easy to get hold of. I am waiting eagerly for mine to see if there is a nugget in there that will fill the gaps left by IQ, EQ, meditation, Buddhism and Christianity. Perhaps it is time we started to talk openly about how we see our souls and spirits. Perhaps it is time we started to explore how we can become more Christlike or dare I say, enlightened.
What would it be like to live in a world where every day was one filled with inspiration, empowerment and exploration ? Where every individual knew that they could choose who they were in every moment of every day and chose to be love in everything they did, thought and said ? What would it be like if we could accept what is without having to judge it or make a story about it ? What would it be life if Nothing was ever wrong ? If we trusted ourselves firstly, God second and then money and meda ? What would it be like if we stood for our own greatness instead of waiting to be rescued ?
What would it take to create that revolution in consciousness ?

What does this have to do with coaching ?
Well, quite simply. I have spent almost a decade researching and reading and never found a way to get that knowledge into my daily habit of being...until I started to be coached. There I found how to turn everything I have read into a vision and from there...into daily experience...I found a way to create inspiration, empowerement and exploration in my own life. I thought what I was doing was changing my emotional intelligence....now I am thinking what I was really doing was changing my spiritual intelligence...

Are You Truly Empowered

2009-05-08T05:12:00.000-07:00

It struck me that there are three words an individual can live his or her life by. Inspiration, Empowerment and Exploration. It then struck me that I was not 100% sure that I understood what those words really meant. Take empowerment. It has been around for a while. We talk about empowering others, workforces, the poor. Here is an incredibly powerful word that has just been abused. Can you really be given empowerment ? Surely it is something you have to give yourself ? The whole point behind empowerment is that individuals take charge of their own destiny and by that very definition empowerment is never something I can give you. Yes ?

I was thinking about this in the context of my diving. I got my world record because I stopped waiting around for someone to come along and make it all safe and give it to me. I made the conscious decision to take accountability for who I am and the decisions I was going to make. It scared the bejeebers out of me. Now, what if truly empowering someone means you give them the space to work it out for themselves. You let them stand on their own two feet. You don’t tell or give, you guide. You never, ever take away that persons responsibility or accountability. Is that not true empowerment ? As an individual you are now expected to choose for yourself. And yes, you may get it ‘wrong’ but is there really a wrong ? What if there were no good or bad outcomes and it is just our interpretation of those that makes them so ? What if with every choice there came a lesson and with every lesson you learnt more, about who you are, about where you want to go and how to get there ? What if true empowerment simply meant choosing, accepting the results and choosing again ?

How does this relate to coaching. Well within consciousness coaching there is the concept of ‘standing for someone’s greatness’. For me that is believing fundamentally that every person is unique and that it is part of everyone’s responsibility to find their own recipe for success. A coach does not give you the answers, we allow you to find your own. For a client this is one of the most frustrating parts of the coaching process. They want me to tell them the answers. They expect me to have them. But the power of coaching is that I get to teach you how to empower yourself. You get to find a recipe for success that takes into account your weaknesses and focuses on your strengths. That recipe takes into account exactly where you are at now and always includes where you have come from. When I empower you I trust that your answers are always right and that they will always take you where you want to go, even if some of the outcomes you experience on the way are unpleasant.

So, are you empowering yourself ? Or are you waiting…for someone to come along and give you your freedom ? What could you take responsibility for right now that could give you your power back ? Who could you be if you accepted your own power ?

When Did You Choose the Life You Are Living ?

2009-05-08T05:11:00.001-07:00

written May 4 2009

One of the underlying themes in consciousness coaching is that you can choose the life you want to live. It is an extremely hard concept for most of us to understand as it is not something we were ever taught. Think about it. When did you choose the life you are living this moment ? When did you sit down and say I am going to be 40 years old, in debt to my eyeballs, stressed beyond belief, husband, two kids, boss from hell and a 30 year vision of more of the same ? When did you choose to become an accountant or lawyer, doctor or receptionist ? How did you choose ? Based on what you were good at ? What made you happy ? Or what would make you the most money ? Who chose your life for you ? The media and movies ? Your parents and family ? Your friends ? Or did you just take the first job you found and stayed with it ?
Now…what if it was not too late to change ? What if you could learn to choose what you want ? What if there was a way out ? What if you did not have to relive every day as the victim or martyr ? What if your live did not have to be Groundhog day ?

Where are the Spiritual Women ?

2009-05-08T05:10:00.001-07:00

written April 23 2009

I was watching a rather interesting doco the other night ….it involved a Church of England priest looking for spiritual enlightenment, which is right up my alley. Enlightenment fascinates me. Where is it ? How do you find it ? Why is it only a Eastern concept ? Why does it not exist in Christianity ?
There this vicar was in the Shaolin monastery and it suddenly struck me. Where is the female Buddha ? Where is the female Dalai Lama ? Why are all the religious figures I know and admire MEN ? Why do men have exclusivity on leadership (thought and practical) ?

Being Light and Love

2009-05-08T05:09:00.000-07:00

Written April 20 2009

I am always amazed at how interlinked events are in the universe. A couple of weeks back I reversed my rather large vehicle into a parked car, trashing their driver door in the process. I went into a flat spin, imagining an outraged that I would have to deal with. Turns out the owner was an extremely nice, considerate man who phoned me later when I was home to tell me not to stress or worry. Accidents happen. I was amazed.
Even more so when I found myself sitting at a petrol station at 6h15 watching in disbelief when I was told that they had just put 50 litres of petrol into my diesel engine. I was on my way to Botswana and had a border to make. My stress levels went through the roof. I was angry, upset…and completely forgot that a week earlier I had been the person who had made a mistake…and the kind gentleman who had not made it my fault, but rather allowed me to own it and move on. It was then that I realised my personal vision was not quite strong enough to survive those little events that derail us. It was also then that I realised that perhaps I was living my life the wrong way round. That the things I made into big events are actually quite, quite small….like having 50 litres of diesel put into my tank. What if what was really important about that event was acknowledging the people involved, giving them the space to be human and make mistakes ? What if I needed to live “nothing is wrong” ? What if I had to live being light and love ? GULP!
What I was doing was creating a new way to work my life. I already had Nothing is wrong as one of my key stands, but now I had two more. Own it and be light and love…. And the universe was about to test me to see if I was really serious.
The first test came when some gentlemen decided to ‘free’ my gps from my vehicle through the rather infamous smash and grab technique. That was 10 am, Wednesday 8th April (yes, just before Easter). I passed with flying colours. No stress, calm. At 2pm I got a phone call to say my boyfriend had had an accident. Turns out it was way more serious than I was led to believe. I spent Easter and the subsequent week in hospital panicked and stressed...my new stands forgotten in a backwash of emotional distress. Turns out this was only the 4th worse week of my life (my Dad’s death claims the first, my Mom’s death the second and a hijacking the third). The last thing on my mind was being light and love. The last thing on my mind was making right rather than wrong.
I am now home! The boyf is getting better day by day and will be fine and I am left with the feeling that I missed an opportunity. I can see where I need to be, owning the places I find myself in (whether or not I created that situation), being light and love. I am just not quite able to execute all of that yet. I am angry with the person who asked my boyfriend to do him a favour and tow a vehicle quickly down to Nelspruit on a dodge trailer. An act of kindness that almost cost a life and has serious monetary side effects (boyf can not earn money for the next 3 months). Right now it is a struggle to let go of the need to be right, the need to have someone to blame and hold responsible. Right now it is hard to just let go, breathe and find that quite place…where light and love flow, where nothing is wrong, where I trust the universe, myself, life. So right now I am going to be kind to myself and let it be what it is. There is nothing wrong with where I am at!
Where are you right now ? What anger is preventing you from owning where you are at, and so changing it ? What could you do right now to be light and love ?

What is Coaching ? Knowledge vs Habit

2009-05-08T05:08:00.000-07:00

It struck me the other day how easy it is these days to accumulate knowledge. Powerful and successful leaders have all written books outlining how they made it to the top. The shelves of bookshops are filled with books on leadership, team building and how to be a success. Which means that it is not due to a lack of knowledge that individuals are not getting it right.

Training programmes abound with the stated intent of teaching you how to become a better leader, a better individual, you name it there is a book to make you better. Yet in business today these skills (be it leadership, team work or just the ability to get things done) are still rare. So what is the missing ingredient ?
It takes more than a theoretical knowledge to make it in today’s world. You can read as many books as Echardt Tolle can put out and still not change who you are. You can read every book by Jack Walsh and still not get out of the typing pool. The missing ingredient is the ability to turn words and theory into practice … which is where coaching is so powerful.
As a coach my job is to take all the knowledge you have accumulated (be it through books or actual experience) and create a space that allows you to create and then practice new habits based on that theory. As a coach my goal is to give you the opportunity to connect with your courage and remember what it was like as a child to learn, to practice and to experiment until you found a way that worked for you. As a coach it is my job to let you create your own unique recipe that works to your strengths and allows you to fulfill your grandest vision of who you could be.
Sounds very salesy perhaps but here is the thing, it works. I am always amazed at how much knowledge people have. In fact often the hardest part of my job is listening as they debate with themselves, throwing this piece of knowledge against that in an effort to decide what it is they should do. At the end of these solo debates my clients have a habit of looking to me sadly and saying “I just don’t know what to do”. Which is when I have to find a way of repeating back all the ideas and suggestions they presented but just did not see.
My job as a coach is to listen and summarise and most importantly just allow every client the space they need to start to remember how to create. The realy scary part is that the power to create as an individual is no longer a process that many are comfortable with. Indeed, learning how to take your knowledge and create something new that works for you seems to be a skill that few of us have. Those that do have it are idolized. Yet, sooner (or later) every person I coach takes that first step and just tries. They take a stand to see what would happen if they did something new. They step away from the situation (and how they used to handle it) toward what they want and how they are going to get there using the knowledge they have. It is one of the most rewarding moments to witness.

So next time someone asks you what coaching is all about, remember this. Coaching allows you to take your knowledge and turn it into a practical skill and that is something that is priceless in today’s fast paced and competitive world.

Creating Choice - Disconnecting From Thoughts

2009-05-08T05:06:00.002-07:00

written March 11 2009
If you read the blog for long enough you will find that I am fascinated with the concept of thoughts and emotions. In particular how trapped we are by them - they seem to run our lives and I don’t know about you, but I sure did not give permission to belong to a dictatorship. I want choices!
It is the norm to assume (without questioning) that who we are is our thoughts and emotions. If we have sad thoughts we are sad. If we have angry thoughts we are angry. We have no CHOICE and instead ride a roller coaster of emotion that has (well for me at least) a nasty habit of sabotaging life. I started my journey with just one thought, to escape these emotions or at least find a space where I could hide, re-group and then go back into the fight. The problem was I had no idea most of the time what I was feeling. I was emotionally blind. I could not name the emotion I was feeling at any one time (the amusing part was that the people around me could ).

There was another reason why I wanted relief. This journey really started with my Dad’s death…which was yet another drama. Think emotional father getting his second divorce and not coping with it. Insert alcohol (large amounts) and a persistent suicidal tendency. Now throw in a dicky heart and you have the summary of 4 months of my life as I struggled to hold onto my Dad. He died! Suddenly of a massive heart attack and in the wake of his death I found myself in a storm of intense, unforgiving grief that threatened to totally overwhelm me. It would not be the last time I found myself in a storm of emotion. Back then I had no way of coping never mind escaping. Just a persistent, stubborn desire to keep going until it passed.

That was when I started to cultivate the observer. What! I hear you say! Well, somewhere in my voracious reading I came across a book by Dr Wayne Dyer and in it he asked a simple question, when you say ‘I am feeling sad ‘, who is the I ? The very sentence implies that there is a you that is experiencing the emotion and another one who is watching it all…. Another one who is NOT the emotion. I was not really convinced that something as spacy sounding as meditation was the answer,so I did not go that route. Instead I found myself creating a screen in my mind across which I let my thoughts and emotions fly….i could watch them without becoming them. It was tough at first. The damn things just did not want to be watched. They wanted participation and energy. But slowly I was able to disconnect. I was not only my thoughts and feelings.

The thing is that as a coach I find that all my clients are battling with the effects that their thoughts and feelings have on their lives. Simply put, thoughts and feelings drive our decision making (often to the detriment of our goals). As my reading expanded I came across an article on yoga meditation and a section about colouring thoughts/ emotions that just appealed to me. As I highly visual person it just sounded so much easier to see my thoughts in a colour ?When you are meditating (because putting your thoughts on a screen and watching htem is a form of meditation) you do not connect to your thoughts. You do not judge them or have opinions about them. They just are. A cup is a cup whether or not you like the colour or form or size. It is what it is independent of your emotions about it. The thing is, when you start observing your thoughts and emotions they will come with judgements and opinions. You will find yourself categorizing a thought. Ohh, can not think that, that is bad! Oo, I like this thought. And in that process of giving each thoughta label we are dragged back. We are no longer unbiased observers. When I give each thought a colour and intensity I create a new way of observing that allows me to see how a thought affects me in my day to day life. A thought that is strong and affects me negatively gets Bright, angry red, a gentle thought a lighter violet. In this space I now have space to work on removing the attachments and judgments that come with these pesky thoughts and feelings. They become a part of me yet not all of me. They lose their control and I have the space to make my own choices. I have the space to create my own destiny.

So, how much colour and intensity do your emotions and thoughts have ? How much control to they have and how much you ? How much time do you spent cultivating that quiet, persistent observer ? How much time do you take to stand for your own greatness and power ? More importantly…what is stopping you from starting ?

Never Failing Is Possible!

2009-05-08T05:05:00.000-07:00

Sat Feb 21 2009

It occurred to me that there is an art to never failing and it is wrapped up the context you create for yourself when you undertake a task. For most of us engaging in the world is not a conscious exercise. We get up. We go to work. We strive toward a vague idea of more money and that promotion. We are in fact just going with the flow just like all the people we know. Along the way obstacles are thrown our way and we find that we often hesitate to take risks or really, really try for the things we want. We even go so far as to keep our real desires hidden from ourselves, keeping them vague…so that when we fail (note, when not if) the sting is not so harsh. We had never really committed so we never really failed

As a coach one of my goals is to assist you in getting clarity on what it is you want which is often a challenge. I find that most every person has a hard time articulating their wants (it took me a while to get used to being so blunt and forward). There seems to be an inbuilt and unconscious habit that stops us from clearly defining what we want. As if that clarity will evoke negative attention from the universe. It is as if intense clarity is nothing more than setting ourselves up for failure.
But what if creating a clear vision of what you want actually releases yourself from ever failing ? Think about it - if you know where you want to go then is how you get there so important ? So long as you get there ? (I am talking about ‘how’ in terms of how long, how straight ? I am not referring to that infamous phrase, ‘the end justifies the means’).
You see I find that people are afraid to try because they might fail and then the moment they fail they stop. But what if you were not supposed to inherently know how ? What if the whole point is that you get to experience and learn for yourself ? What if you are not supposed to succeed first time around ?

We live in a world where learning as an adult is frowned upon. There is this unvoiced expectation that individuals always know what they are doing, even when they are doing something new. As if the mere fact that it has been done before means every one should automatically know how.

So what if you decided to reject this assumption of expertise ? What if, when you created this vision or context for yourself of what you wanted, you included a statement that created you as an explorer and made it an adventure ? Because explorers are allowed to ‘get it wrong’. In fact, the very essence of exploring is to try new things without an expectation or investment in success. As an explorer you are not expected to already have the answers because you are choosing to head into unknown territory and learning along the way is a part of the challenge and adventure.

So….there you are with your clear vision and an explorers mind set. You can now step into action because even when you do not achieve what you set out to achieve you are getting results and learning. Every time you take a step you are getting more information that improves your odds of completing the next step and getting to your goal. Every step you take, whether you get the expected/ desired outcome or not, takes you toward your goal, even if it is just to eliminate an option.

The first step is often the hardest as you may have a clear vision about where you want to end up, but no cooking clue what the first step really is. So you take a learning step. You try something and see what happens. Something you think will get you closer to your goal. It may, it may not but with every step the next step becomes clearer and your goal comes closer.

The world around you may be its normal critical observing self. Labeling your efforts as success or failure, but you do not care. Because every step is a success! The word failure no longer is part of your experience.

Here is my challenge to you – to become the explorer of your life! To give up labeling the outcome of your efforts and instead just focusing on keeping moving toward what it is you want! Try it! You may be surprised by the results.

Helping vs Coaching

2009-05-08T05:04:00.001-07:00

Feb 18 2009

It always astonishes me what lessons there are to be learnt in coaching, this weeks is how entrenched the concept of being helped is in our society. Here is the thing, in coaching you are not given answers. You are not helped. If there is one fundamental philosophy in coaching it is that as a coach I stand for your greatness. What that means is that I give you the space to find your answers. When I give you an answer I am disabling and disempowering you. I am saying that I know better and how could that possibly be ? How could I know where you are at ? Where you have come from and what would work for you ? All I know is what worked for me and as a totally unique individual that may or may not connect with you.

What I am discovering is that as individuals we somehow get taught not to trust our own answers. We would rather have someone else’s answer – those are somehow more powerful. Your answer is somehow better than anything I can find for myself. We seem to inherently believe that we do not know enough, that we are less than the guru or mentor we look up to and aspire to be. So when someone comes along who gently refuses to give answers and help we do not know what to do! We resist, fight back! We demand help! Yet help is the one thing that will always, keep you disempowered and reliant on some-one else. When you rely totally on outside help to change your circumstances you create an even stronger sense of victimisation and resignation. You are always waiting! You are always relying on someone else! You are always out of control and subject to someone else's whims and abilities. Your success depends on theirs.
My stand remains the same - I stand for my own greatness and the greatness of the people around me! I believe that we were all meant to reconnect with our own power and that is a vision I can not let go of. So, why do you value other people’s answers over your own ? More importantly, what answers could you find for yourself ?

Practical Coaching - Setting Your Context

2009-05-08T05:02:00.000-07:00

Feb 2 2009

Context is a term one learns early in consciousness coaching. Using it becomes part of your day, however explaining it is hard. Perhaps an example will make it easier. You have a meeting scheduled that you are dreading. Your boss is there and you know he is going to start taking you apart accusing you of not delivering. Based on your previous experience you have created a context for that meeting - one in which everything is wrong and you are being attacked. Even before a single word has been said, this context starts to drive how you respond, feel and behave in that meeting. What happens next becomes a sort of self fulfilling prophecy. You walk into the meeting defensive. Your boss opens his mouth and yes, he is out to get you. You respond as always. It is a disaster of a meeting (just like all the others).

Now, what if you could create a different context for the meeting ? Even if your boss is actually out to get you (sometimes paranoia is reality) the way you interact can fundamentally change how the meeting progresses. But as we all know, changing how we behave is not easy. It becomes automatic. The only way I know how to change this automatic behaviour is by setting your own context. How do I know this works ? Because not only do I use context successfully, I have watched my clients use it successfully. It all starts with one simple statement - what you want to get out of the meeting! Who do you want to be in that meeting ? What do you want to feel when you walk out of it ? Think about it! If you want to be confident, calm, non-aggressive and walk out of there with your self respect then immediately the way you behave when attacked or taken on will change. You simply will not be dragged into a slagging session and when you do not respond the way the meeting expects you to you, the people there have to change they way they behave. In that moment you have changed what happens next. In that moment you have created a space for a different outcome.

Creating a context is based on one very simple fact! If we do not define how we want to experience something it will be defined for us based on every other meeting or similar event. If you take the time to set your own context you override that ‘automatic’ programming and create an opportunity for change to occur. It sounds like simply stating a context would not be enough to change anything. When your life has been run by thoughts and feelings it sounds daft to think that it is at all possible that you can create a new context simply with words that overrides thoughts, feelings and the past. But it can! When you know what it is you want you have a direction. With that direction you can actively choose how you react so that you are fulfilling that intent and in that moment you change what is possible. Try it! After all, you have nothing to lose!

Why God Does not Help!

2009-05-08T05:01:00.000-07:00

Sun Jan 18 2009

This may make no sense for people who have not done the Master series. For example, standing for some-one's greatness means not running to their rescue and the ladder of power is one of my favourite things..it takes you from our seemingly default state of resigned victim hood in which we just wait to be rescued to a place of power, responsibility and creation. Enough said! There are two inspirations for this. One, the movie Constantine (which i have watched a number of times) and two my Habit of Being Me ( a protocol I designed that i use every day to give my day context and complete it so that I carry nothing over).

I started my journey with the vague goal of enlightenment or at least spiritual enrichment... failing that, just some form of happiness. A long, long way down that path things started to come together.
God said, ‘Ask and yee shall receive!” and I was given the ladder of power.
God said, “I am the word” and I was given speech acts, integrity and the power to create whatever I choose.
God said, “You are created in my image” and I realised that my state of powerless victimhood was nothing more than an illusion. My power had always been there, all I had to do was remember. All I had to do was to ask!
God said, “Choose!” And finally I did!

Was he always there ? Waiting patiently ?There I was waiting for some higher power to rescue me, take me from my misery when all I had to do was ask ? Was he always patiently standing for my greatness, while I wandered lost in the dark ?

I am filled with gratitude! Indeed, overwhelmed at how things all connect. I asked and got way more than I was ever expecting.Now I can take my place and stand for my own greatness, knowing that I am supported. Nowing that my power is mine!

A Different View of Meditation

2009-05-08T05:00:00.001-07:00

Written Tue Jan 23 2009

Ten years ago meditation was not that mainstream, these days more and more people are discovering the benefits, yet to many it is still a mysterious practice. I started meditation almost ten years ago and am still hard pressed to ‘explain’ it. My journey started with Transcendental Meditation which is based on a mantra (in my case a word) that you repeat over and over for 20 minutes. The course is over a week (if memory serves), with meditation every evening so you get lots of practice…which is critical for a beginner in meditation.Why is meditation so hard to describe ? Because it does not fit into anything we normally do. When do you take 20 to 30 minutes to just sit and do nothing ? In our fast paced society we do not allow ourselves chill time. We have to be productive! We have to be busy. There is not time for 'day dreaming' which means taking time off just to watch your thoughts is not usual.
So... some basics of meditation. You can meditate for 5 minutes, 20 minutes, an hour…it all depends on you. Meditation is something that should fit into your day and we all have busy days. Even 5 minutes will make a difference.

The intention behind meditation is to relax and to create a space in which you can start to observe your thoughts and feelings. Why ? Because we are not our thoughts and our feelings and meditation is a particularly powerful way to give you the opportunity to discover that. When you inherently know that you are not your thoughts and feelings you can choose other ways of reacting and behaving and that is where you start to experience true power.

There are as many ways to practice meditation as there are flavours of ice cream (ok, so probably not in South Africa so much :) ). I started with a mantra (which I still use almost daily) but have moved onto breathing meditations. In this form you focus on your breathe - breathing in and then when you breathe out you just feel yourself releasing and expanding. I started off with closed eye meditation, these days I prefer a sitting, open eyed meditation where you focus on a spot about 1.5 meters in front of you, and start to breathe. My other favourite (especially when i do not have time) is to do 5 minutes just sitting in front of the mirror...that is one powerful 5 minutes let me tell you.

What confuses most beginners is that they are expecting something - a result! They are expecting to experience a specific thing (enlightenment, peace, harmony). But with meditation what you get is what you get! It is different every time you do it and the point is not to achieve anything, the point is to meditate. One of my favourite books (Shambhala, The Sacred Path of the Warrior) says it best. They work with a seated practice of meditation, eyes open.

‘In meditation as you work with your breath, you regard any thoughts that arise as just your thinking process. You don’t hold on to any thought and you don’t have to punish your thoughts or praise them. The thoughts that occur during sitting practice are regarded as natural events, but at the same time, they don’t carry any credentials. The basic definition of mediation is “having a steady mind”. In meditation, when your thoughts go up, you don’t go up, and you don’t go down when your thoughts go down; you just watch as thoughts go up and thoughts go down. Whether your thoughts are good or bad, exciting or boring, blissful or miserable, you let them be. You don’t accept some and reject others. You have a sense of greater space that encompasses any thought that may arise.In meditation you can experience a sense of existence (or being) that includes your thoughts but is not conditioned by your thoughts or limited to your thinking process. You experience your thoughts, you label them “thinking: and you come back to your breath, going out, expanding, and dissolving into space. It is very simple but it is quite profound. You experience your world directly and you do not have to limit that experience. You can be completely open, with nothing to defend and nothing to fear. “

When last did you create a space in which you accepted yourself, all parts of yourself, unconditionally ? Just the thought of creating that kind of gentle lovingness toward oneself gives me goose bumps. How different would the world be if we started our adult lives with this kind of personal compassion already in place ? How different would my life have been ?

2009-05-08T04:59:00.001-07:00

written Jan 7 2009
I have just completed one of two coaching sessions designed to complete 2008 and set a brilliant context for 2009. I am amazed at how one hour can change the way I perceive a year of my life and I am left with this thought:
" It is only when you have experienced the right place that you have the distinction that allows you to identify when you are in the wrong place. So if you have only ever been in the wrong place… how are you to know that there is something else, someplace else you should be ? How do you know that there is a better place, one where you will feel alive, excited, enthused ? If all you have known is duty, boredom and normality and that almost low grade misery that seeps into everything you do and think ? "
All I know is this...if you keep on doing the same things you will experience the same results!!!! The only way to find the right place is to stop doing the wrong things. Who was it that said, sometimes you have to take that step off the cliff and trust that you will learn how to fly, failing that, trust that you will find a place to stand.

What I 'Got' For Xmas

2009-05-08T04:58:00.000-07:00

There is a phrase that stuck with me from my coaching courses, ‘Getting it’. Getting it is not the same as getting information. I can tell you something, but until you ‘get it’ it is useless to you. The process of ‘getting it’ can not be rushed….and you only get what your coach has gotten. Here are some things that popped for me while driving on a long, dusty (and bumpy) bush road…wondering where all the animals were.

- I really got just letting go and not being stressed, worried and having to judge everything and everyone. It all takes way too much energy. Now to answer the question ‘ why on earth do I end up there all the time ?’ Why not just let it go and be with what is! With that thought came a whole lot of relief…imagine not having to analyse everything and give it a rating all the time ? Imagine if I was always in ‘Nothing is wrong ‘ ?

- I really got the tiring nature of keeping up with the Jones’s. In the bush there is no need to consume…in fact, every night when we are burning rubbish I was really getting how much we waste. Everything is packaged, everything we eat and consume takes space and plastic and more wrapping. So this year I am going to practice keeping it simple and not consuming so much…will let you know how it goes.

- I really got the idea that we are all warriors and that everyone of us was borne worthy…. We are all inherently good, inherently respectable, inherently full of worth. Will post on this topic more as I get through the book I was reading this holidayMay 2009 be the year you ‘get’ it !

Letting Go

2009-05-08T04:57:00.000-07:00

Have a pen handy ? Pick it up! Now....drop it! Easy right ? One of the hardest (and simplest) concepts to grasp with coaching is how easily we pick things up. We get on it! We hold our pain, our misery and our past tight, tight, tight. When really all we have to do is put it all down for a while... and focus on what we can do right now.Or put another way. I realised a while back that I had completely disconnected from feeling. I just pushed all the hard one's aside...away! The problem was, feelings need to be felt and the longer and harder you push them away..the harder and stronger they come back at you..wanting to be felt. So I learnt to pick them up, to feel them and discovered I was in a place where emotions were overwhelming things. I was continuously feeling...anger, sorrow, pain! It was only when I started coaching that I figured out that I had control. I could put them down whenever I needed. Not push them away or hide from them, just put them down for a while. I had the control. I could choose when to pick them up (and you do need to take time to pick them up).

As we fast approach xmas old family troubles and stories start to emerge. For some the holidays are emotionally traumatic... so what would happen if you just acknowledged the story and pain..and put it down ? What would happen if everytime you found yourself in the story, 'on it' you made the conscious decision to put it down and to put it down as many times as you find you have unconsciously picked it up ?

What would happen if you gave everyone else a clean slate, a fresh chance ?

May you all have a fantabulous christmas and a spectacular New Year!!!

2009-05-08T04:56:00.000-07:00

written Dec 02 2008
The new year is upon us…and with champagne and presents come New Year’s Resolutions. Which, as we all age tend to get more ignored and laughed at as the years go by. This time of year I am reminded of how powerful the right New Year’s resolutions can be. You see, it is thanks in a large part to this little, much maligned promises that I have my world record.
The year 2000 had not gone well for me. As the New Year arrived I found myself reviewing what I had actually achieved over the last 365 days. Not much! I had been busy, I had been frustrated and nothing had changed. Another year and nothing had changed. I realised then that I needed more focus. I needed to get to the end of 2001 and have something to show for my life. So I made three New Years resolutions. The first only scared me a little and was designed to get me moving again. I commited to doing belly dancing with my 3 month old niece (and looking like a complete twit). The second was my medium challenge, starting to write again (and face my internal judge). The third was really why the other two existed… get deeper than 121 meters. That was the one I had been chasing for 2 years. That was the one that scared the bejeebers out of me. My goal was not to reach 140 meters that year, but rather a more manageable ‘get to the end of the year not having given up, having done whatever I needed no matter how hard for me’. The most amazing thing happened. I learnt how to belly dance (and loved it), I started to write (and found myself all over) and I faced my fears, got not only 140 meters but as a result, in November 2001 I got my first set of records. I made 186 meters and a new cave record for depth for women.

So, with another year fast ending and a clean slate fast arriving… why not see what you can make of it ? What did you achieve this year ? What hopes and dreams seemed to slip away ?

This time next year, where would you like to be ? In the same place or somewhere slightly different ? What would happen if you dared to be…just for 2009!
What could change if you made coaching a habit

Getting It vs Understanding

2009-05-08T04:55:00.000-07:00

written Nov 27 2008
Who we are is not how we behave. How we behave is a habit, a habit of being and habits can be changed.

I remember a long while back sitting in my office in absolute despair. I just did not know what it was I was doing wrong…nor did my boss. We both knew I had to change something, that they way I was - the way I reacted and behaved - was not creating the results I wanted, but for the life of me I did not know how to be different. I did not need counseling or therapy. I needed a new way of being. I needed a new habit of being me.
I had heard Einstein’s saying that the height of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results, but that was no help. I was stuck on how! How to behave differently when my entire life was about getting me to where I was at! I remember the frustration because it was not that I did not want to change - I just had no clue what the new me looked like or behaved like.
Understanding that they way we behave creates the results we experience is not a conscious understanding, especially if the way you behave has gotten you to a certain level of success. But sooner or later, we all reach a ceiling and if you want to carry on rising something has to change.

Which is where coaching comes in and especially consciousness coaching. With consciousness coaching the focus is on creating an awareness of how you behave now and the results you actually want. The phrase ‘what do you want’ sounds rather obvious but think about it ? When you talk do you talk about what you want to happen or what you do not want to happen ?

One of the least known rules of the universe is what you think about expands! So when you are thinking about what you don’t want, you get more of what you don’t want. The other thing about thinking about what you don’t want is that you create a vacumn. You are taking away something…. and immediately the universe starts to fill up that space. But it has nothing new to fill it up with, so you get more of the same.
When you are trying to change the habit you have of being, you need to focus on what it is you are trying to create. When you do that the old behaviour no longer has a place to exist because you are replacing it rather than evicting it…and life is much, much smoother.Which brings me back to a new habit of being! The way we behave is not set in stone, we can change it! If we know what we want, we know what behaviours we need to get there. So what is stopping you from getting it ?

Illusions

2009-05-08T04:46:00.001-07:00

written Nov 26 2008
Sometimes I just open a book and see where the page lands. It can be quite interesting. The book was Illusions by Richard Bach (stunning book.... a definite must in your library)

"Snap out of it. Wake up. It's all illusions."I was irked.
"Donald, there's just a few minutes more and then we can talk all you want. But let me watch the movie, OK ?"He whispered intensely, dramatically. "Richard, why are you here ?"
"Look, I'm here because you asked me to come in here! " I turned back and tried to watch the end.
"You didn't have to come, you could have said no thank you."
"I LIKE THE MOVIE..." A man in front turned to look at me for a second. "I like the move, Don; is there anything wrong with that ?"
"Nothing at all, " he said, and didn't say another word till it was over and we were walking again past the used-tractor lot and out into the dark toward the field and the airplanes. It would be raining, before long.
I thought about his odd behaviour in the theater. "You do everything for a reason, Don ?"
"Sometimes."
"Why the movie ? Why did you all of a sudden want to see Sundance?"
"You asked a question."
"Yes. Do you have an answer ?"
"That is my answer. We went to the movie because you asked a question. The movie was the answer to the question."
He was laughing at me, I knew it."What was my question?"
There was a long pained silence. "Your question, Richard, was that even in your brilliant times you have never been able to figure out why we are here."
I remembered, "and the movie was my answer"
"Yes."
"Oh"
"You don't understand" he said.
"No."
“That was a good movie," he said, "but the world's best movie is still an illusion, is it not ? The pictures aren't even moving; they only appear to move. Changing light that seems to move across a flat screen set up in the dark ?"
“Well, yes." I was beginning to understand.
“The other people, any people anywhere who go to any movie show, why are they there, when it is only an illusion ?”
“Well it is entertainment,” I said
“Fun. That’s right. One”
“Could be educational.”
“Good. It is always that. Learning. Two.”
“Fantasy, escape.”
“That’s fun, too. One.”
“Technical reasons. To see how a film is made.”
“Learning. Two”
“Escape from boredom”
“Escape. You said that.”
“Social. To be with friends, “ I said.
“Reason for going, but not for seeing the film. That’s fun anyway. One”

Whatever I came up with fit his two fingers people see films for fun or for learning or for both together.

“And a movie is like a lifetime, Don, is that right ?”
“Yes”
“Then why would anybody choose a bad lifetime, a horror movie ?”
“They not only come to the horror movie for fun, they know it is going to be a horror movie when they walk in,” he said
“But why?...”
“Do you like horror films ?”
“No”
“Do you ever see them ?”
“No”
“But some people spend a lot of money and time to see horror or soap-opera problems that to other people are dull and boring?...” He left the question for me to answer.
“Yes”
“You don’t have to see their films and they don’t have to see yours. That is called freedom"
“But why would anybody want to be horrified ? Or bored ?”
“Because they think they deserve it for horrifying somebody else, or they like the excitement of horrification, or that boring is the way they think films have to be. Can you believe that lots of people for reasons that are very sound to them enjoy believing that they are helpless in their own films ? No, you cant.”
"No, I can’t” I said
“Until you understand that, you will wonder why some people are unhappy . They are unhappy because they have chosen to be unhappy, and, Richard, that is all right”
“Hm“
“We are game-playing, fun-loving creatures, we are the otters of the universe. We cannot die, we cannot hurt ourselves any more than illusions on the screen can be hurt. But we can believe we’re hurt in whatever agonizing detail we want. We can believe we’re victims, killed and killing, shuddered around by good luck and bad luck”
“Many lifetimes ?”
”How many movies have you seen ?”
“Oh.”
“Films are about living on this planet, about living on other planets; anything that’s got space and time is all movie and all illusion,” he said, “but for a while we can learn a huge amount and have a lot of fun with our illusions can we not ?”
“How far do you take this movie thing, Don ?”
“How far do you want ? You saw a film tonight partly because I wanted to see it. Lots of people choose lifetimes because they enjoy doing things together. The actors in the film tonight have played together in other films – before or after depends on which film you’ve seen first, or you can see them at the same time on different screens. We buy tickets to these films, paying admission by agreeing to believe in the reality of space and the reality of time…Neither one is true, but anyone who doesn’t want to pay that price cannot appear on this planet, or in any space time system at all.”
“Are there some people who don’t have any lifetimes at all in space time ?”
“Are there some people who never go to movies ?”
“I see. They get their learning in different ways?”
“Right you are,” he said, pleased with me. “Space time is a fairly primitive school. But a lot of people stay with the illusion even if it is boring, and they don’t want the lights turned on early”
“Who writes these movies, Don ?”
“Isn’t it strange how much we know if only we ask ourselves instead of somebody else ? Who writes these movies, Richard ?”
“We do, ” I said
“Who acts ?"
“Us”
“Who’s the cameraman, the projectionist, the theater manager, the ticket taker, the distributor, and who watches them all happen ? Who is free to walk out in the middle, any time, change the plot whenever, who is free to see the same film ove rand over again ?”
“Let me guess,” I said. “Anybody who wants to”
“Is that enough freedom for you ?” he said “And that is why movies are so popular ? that we instinctively know they are a parallel of our own lifetimes? "
“Maybe so…maybe not. Doesn’t matter much, does it ? What’s the projector ?”
“Mind,” I said.
”No, Imagination. It’s our imagination, no matter what you say”
“What’s the film ?” he asked
“Got me”
“Whatever we give our consent to put into our imagination”
“Maybe so Don”
“You can hold a reel of film in your hands, ” he said. “And it’s all finished and complete – beginning, middle, end are all there that same second, the same millionths of a second. The film exists beyond the time that it records, and if you know what the movie is, you know generally what’s going to happen before you walk into the theater: there’s going to be battle sand excitement, winners and losers, romance, disaster; you know it is all going to be there. But in order to get caught up and swept away in it, in order to enjoy it to its most, you have to put it in a projector and let ig go through the lens, minute by minute…any illusion requires space and time to be experienced. So you pay your nickle and you get your ticket and you settle down and forget what’s going on outside the theater and the movie begins for you”
“And nobody’s really hurt ? that’s just tomato sauce blood ?”
“No, its blood all right,” he said. “But it might as well be tomato sauce for the effect I has on our real life”
“And reality”
“Reality is divinely indifferent Richard. A mother doesn’t care what part her child plays in his games ; one day bad-guy, next day good-guy. The Is doesn’t even know about our illusions and games. It only knows Itself and us in its likeness, perfect and finished”
“I’m not sure I want to be perfect and finished. Talk about boredom…”
“Look at the sky,” he said, and it was such a quick subject change that I looked at the sky. There was some broken cirrus, way up high, the first bit of moonlight silvering the edges.
“Pretty sky ", I said
“It is a perfect sky?”
“Well, it’s always a perfect sky, Don”
“Are you telling me even though it’s changing every second, the sky is always a perfect sky ? Gee, I’m smart. "
" Yes! And the sea is always a perfect sea, and it’s always changing, too”, he said. “If perfection is stagnation, then heaven is a swamp! And the Is ain’t hardly no swamp cookie”

Using Coaching to Manage Emotional Trauma

2009-05-08T04:45:00.000-07:00

There are many ways coaching fits into a life. The least obvious is to help someone move forward through an intense emotional crisis. Firstly let me state that coaching is not therapy and that there are definitely instances where therapy is what is required. The difference between the two is that therapy focuses on the historical events, understanding them, talking about them. Coaching has a different context. It is about now and what you can do to shift where you are at, both exceptionally hard when you are stuck in a place of pain. Sometimes coaching is not the answer... but sometimes it is!

It was a coaching call that reminded me of all this. Listening to my friend on the phone I could feel her despair and agony and I was taken back to my own ‘bad’ days when waking up was more than I could handle. There were days when it felt like I was abandoned on a barren piece of rock in the middle of a stormy ocean. The wind and waves raged all around me, trying to sweep me off my feet. I was stubborn. I would not give up and let the world win. I had friends who were subtly there, holding onto me on those days when I could not hold onto myself. My friend had a coach! Me! I was secretly hoping I was good enough!

I sat there and made a space in which she could be exactly where she was. I let her be with that pain and despair, because I knew it so well and I knew it needed space to exist before it would let go. I stood for her greatness and would not give up even though she was on the verge of doing so!

As I listened to her story and despair, it was as if I was in two places at once…both here, holding onto her and in my story, my past! I was watching as the doctors tried to resuscitate my dad … again. The memory of his lifeless, clammy, pale skin, still vivid. He had never woken up. I had never had a chance to say goodbye or I love you or it is ok. I remember watching in the window as his body jerk violently behind the partially drawn curtains as they used the defib again and again until finally a worne doctor came and asked for permission to stop. There was nothing they could do!

I was at my Gran’s bedside watching her in a morphine sleep as she took her last breath, the entire family waiting and holding my Grandfather up. Her struggle with cancer had been lost.

And I was there one cold, winter morning when my mother, my pillar, my rock... died. I was holding her hand, watching the ventilator that was keeping her breathing (and that thanks to a nurse had also been the cause of massive brain damage that had left her brain dead). I watched the monitor as her heart rate slowed. faltered… picked up, faltered and finally just stopped! The only sound left the uncanny movement of the ventilator… no longer required but still doing its job.

As I listened on the phone I knew her pain even though our circumstances were so different. I knew her loss, her solitude and despair. I also knew there was a way out and it was my job to help her find it! I knew then that being good enough was not what it was all about, it was about being there, holding on and believing in her. And step by step…she started to move onto solid ground! Step by step she let go, started to take back her power, started to breath. It is what it is! There is no fighting it! There is just the knowing that you can cause massive changes in your life because you can change the context of your days. You can act independently of your thoughts and your feelings.

I put the phone down and just sat for a while… memories swirling. Coaching sessions are never just about the coachee. I always take something really powerful away with me. I have had my own breakdowns in coaching and experienced the power of a coach from her side but today was the first day I got to experience it as a coach. I had just witnessed the power of coaching and I was in awe. Until that moment I had never really got the power of creating silent space for your client to just be or the power of trusting in her greatness and ability to find her own answers. I knew that coaching could shift pain, now I knew that I could do that as a coach.

Today my bitter and painful past helped release the pain in someone else and I found a new title, pain wizard. My friend and I are both pain wizards, just in different places on our journeys. What is a pain wizard (asides from something I just made up ?) Someone who chose to be borne so that they could really understand pain and suffering for one reason and one reason only, so that they could live a life that showed others how to release theirs. I am still in awe… of coaching, my client and my life!

To quote my favourite author Richard Bach - there is a future out there that could not possibly exist without us having lived today.

The 'Me' Habit - What is Yours ?

2009-05-08T04:44:00.000-07:00

Being yourself should not be that hard a thing to do. After all you have been doing it all your life… or have you ? I have a sneaky suspicion that we unlearn how to be ourselves as we grow up. We become what we think we should be or rather who we think we should be. We are not being us as much as we are playing a role.

Now I have to confess that this blog is inspired by my own impending coaching session. Last week I decided to implement a Habit of Being Me! Instead of unconsciously wandering through my day I thought I would commit to starting and ending my day with a plan. The goal was to consciously create my day and so who I am during the day, rather than leaving it all to my identity (I am getting a tad tired of the reality my identity creates) This was in part inspired by my journey and experiences to date and partly by the movie ‘what the bleep’ in which the concept of creating a context through words is brilliantly explained. The theory is that through words we can circumvent our thoughts, feelings and identities and so become more our true Selves. It is a journey I have been on for a while, so it seemed a good idea! It is also a concept that is harder to implement than one things..hence the creation of a habit that would remind me and keep me in my Self rather than my identity.It sounded so simple…take 5 to ten minutes in the morning and evening, reading through a list of commitments and reminders (similar to a coaching log page) with some meditation thrown in. Turns out my identity did not like this much AT ALL! It much prefers the rather haphazard implementation of control (where I forget I have it and it gets it).

It sounded so simple…take 5 to ten minutes in the morning and evening, reading through a list of commitments and reminders (similar to a coaching log page) with some meditation thrown in. Turns out my identity did not like this much AT ALL! It much prefers the rather haphazard implementation of control (where I forget I have it and it gets it).

So I have decided to simplify my habit with a simple statement. I commit to my own greatness! With that simple statement anything becomes possible and the rest becomes easy…well easier!Now…what would you need to put in place to create a habit of being you ? Who is it you want to be ? What would you need to do every day to be that person ?

Action vs Distraction

2009-05-08T04:43:00.000-07:00

I have just finished a coaching session where in a fit of enthusiasm I elected to complete a list of actions that would get me to my goal. After 20 minutes of brainstorming I looked at my list and was less than impressed. There was a large amount of work on that list but very little action. Was I confusing distraction with action ? And what is the difference ?

I propose the following answer…distraction is something you do when you are setting up the right environment. Some obvious examples would be getting the perfect environment, getting all the right training, making sure you have the right clothes. But if your goal is increasing sales none of these things actually get you sales. The action you need to be in is talking to people, knocking on doors…nagging the world into wanting what it is you have to offer.

So, where are you confusing distraction with action ? And what could you do today to change that ?

When Nothing is Wrong, Anything is Possible

2009-05-08T04:42:00.000-07:00

written Nov 6 2008
What if Nothing was Wrong ? Nothing! No matter where you are in your life, even if the proverbial appears to have hit the fan….what if nothing was actually wrong.

I can see you going, Huh ? So let me start again! It occurred to me that a large part of my life (if not the most part) is based on one single principle - that something is wrong and I have to fix it! Immediately ! With this insidious feeling comes pure dread and fear. Because when something is wrong I get into a space where it is because of me! I am not good enough, strong enough, well enough really! Something is wrong and it must be fixed.But, when I shift into ‘Nothing is Wrong’, everything changes! When nothing is wrong I have the freedom and power to change what is! I stop justifying and defending. I stop reacting and I start to act! After all, nothing is wrong! This is just what is. Sometimes I experience it as good, sometimes as bad.
Some examples ?? Ok, the stock market is crashing, is something wrong ? No, nothing is wrong ! This is just what is! Things change, sometimes for the better, sometimes for the worse. Or the project you are on is a nightmare and you are fighting fire after fire ? Is something wrong ? No, this is how projects go sometimes. Sometimes get unexpected consequences ! That is life! That is being human. Nothing is inherently wrong, it is just not going the way we want!

Here is the thing! Wishful thinking does not change what is! When something is wrong we get paralysed. When nothing is wrong you give yourself (and others) the freedom and power to be…and to act! That is the moment in which change is possible. This is a space that coaching focuses on getting you into (and keeping you in).Try it today! Just be in the space ‘Nothing is Wrong’ and see how it changes your world!

Living Your Life as a Legacy

2009-05-08T04:41:00.000-07:00

I don't know about you, but until recently the entire goal of my life has been to just get through today! The years spin by and at the end of each one i am amazed that so little has happened, yet i was so busy! Part of my coaching journey has been to define my own legacy, vision and mission! To create something I want to wake up for in the morning! Something that creates an overall direction in my life (other than find that perfect job and by the perfect house in the right neighborhood). Now after I got my world record I was kinda stuck! What to do next ? The logical step was go deeper, but the thing with a diving world record is that there is a limit and you normally only find it when you die ! Death was not high on my agenda! Yet I was missing that experience of being alive, of solving impossible problems, of growing and living! Something was missing! I was missing a legacy, a vision!
Here is what I discovered really resonates with me! On my tombstone the following words should be“Her words inspired me to Dare to Be! She showed me how to dive into my power and into my light!”Now do not ask me exactly how I am going to live into such a huge vision! I just know I have to try! And that if I wake up each morning and am in action of that I will not but help live a truly great life! My life!

Keeping Goals Alive

2009-05-08T04:40:00.000-07:00

written 0ct 28 2008
“Disinvest from the Outcome!” I remember reading this some years back and it has stuck! As a coach I have the privilege of being part of my client’s journeys toward their goals. I get to help them define the outcome they want to achieve. But just knowing what it is you want is not enough! You also need to be ‘in action’!
Now the phrase being in action seems to be one unique to cci and consciousness coaching! If any phrase encapsulates coaching, this is it. In order to succeed you need to be ‘in action’. Your goal is nothing more than a mechanism that you use to direct your actions and energy.
Think about it! You can never guarantee that a goal will become a reality! Oh you can commit 100% and spend all your energy obsessing about it, focusing on it, visualizing it, but that does not guarantee that it will become reality! I started off my journey to a world record using that sort of relentless willpower. I thought that if I wanted it enough, if I spent all my energy trying to control every step, I could make it happen. It was only when I let go and instead focused just on the next step, nothing more, that things started to happen.I am re-learning this lesson. After having spent a couple of months trying to force an outcome, I am putting down the control! I am stopping obsessing on tomorrow and instead just focusing on what I can do today that keeps myself in action, that keeps me moving steadily, irrevocably forward! I am learning that goals are fluid. As you keep moving what becomes possible changes…the trick is to keep moving!

So, what could you do TODAY that would put you in action of your goal ?

BHAG's (Big Hairy, Audacious Goals)

2009-05-08T04:39:00.000-07:00

Written Oct 24 2008
Since I started my journey in consciousness coaching I have rekindle a desire to live a big life! This has led to the creation of a number of seriously large and scary goals….and I guess a rather natural reaction of me going itno hiding through sheer terror. So I started to ask myself, what is it about BHAG’s that makes them almost impossible to attain ? It is not like I have not made a seriously large BHAG (the woman’s world record) a reality already, so what is different this time ?
In my world record journey I can clearly remember two defining moments. The first was a rather grim New Year’s where I suddenly realized that 5 years had gone by and I was no nearer to getting any deeper (never mind the record). In a fit of disgust I realized I had to do something different! So I made the decision to do three things that scared me! A small thing (belly dancing with my new baby niece), a medium thing (writing funnily enough) and a large thing (going deeper). To be honest the first two were really just there to lull myself into a false sense of security and distract from the one thing I really, realy wanted…to get deeper! But, I changed my commitment! I made my goal not reaching a world record depth…but rather, I would deem myself successful if I did everything in my power, no matter what it took, no matter how scary….to get one meter deeper in that year (the year was 2001). I knew inside what it felt like to come up with excuses to not do something….all I had to do was what it took! Nothing more! I was not focusing on the end goal, just on the next step!
And it came to me! Have I fallen back into that old identity trap ? Where you created a spectacular and inspiring vision that is soo damn huge you have no idea how to make it a reality, creating a tsunami of fear and self doubt and at least for me, cave hibernation. Had I forgotten that BHAG’s are conquered one easy, do’able step at a time ? I started to question my focus on the end result ? Yes, I needed to keep tha tin mind, but no amount of visualization was going to magic it into existence… I had to be in action of my commitment! I had to start creating completion. It was as if I had forgotten that there are no brownie points for doing it the hard way because the easy way gets me to exactly the same place.So my question for the week (to myself) is this – what happens if I stop focusing on the end and start focusing on what I can do today ? What happens when I commit to completing one thing every day that keeps me moving toward my big goals ? What happens if I consciously choose to NOT take on a large step forward (that scares me silly), but instead focus on the things I can do that I enjoy and maybe only slightly terrify me ? What happens if I disinvest from the outcome and make the most of everyday ? What would happen in your life if you choose smaller steps and complete them every day ?

We are all in coaching agreements, we just don't know it

2009-05-08T04:38:00.000-07:00

Written 23 Oct 2008 What if, you are already in a coaching agreement…just not with a trained coach ? As a coach I have to also ‘be’ coached. This ensures that I experience coaching from both sides (not to mention it keeps me on track on my own journey). It suddenly clicked for me why I experience coaching as being so familiar… I have always been in coaching relationships… I just did not know it!
Think about it…… you receive an annoying mail from a work colleague who obviously thinks he knows more than you do and is now requesting a meeting to ‘fix’ problems which do not exist ( a fact that he would know if was not an interfering busy body) What do you do ? Phone a trusted friend and talk it through. Or you have a decision to make - should you change jobs, should you leave a relationship… should you buy that beach house… and you phone a trusted friend to talk it out!
Now sometimes these trusted friends are useful and you find yourself realizing why you are stuck, (why you are pissed off with your work colleague) and from those realizations you are able to make the ensuing meeting really productive and totally empowering.. to you! Sometimes! Most times you end up in a circular conversation. Your trusted friend can empathise and support you righteous anger, but invariably they are in exactly the same place as you are and are just as lost and confused! What you get out of these exchanges seems to never change anything. So you have more conversations (with the same ‘wrong’ people) and nothing changes. You put the phone down and feel like something is missing and your still frustrated and lost!Like me you may have one or two people you can really talk things through with, people who instinctively do not buy into your stories and limitations. People who ask questions that make you think. You suddenly realize that you are annoyed with your work colleague because you feel he has just said that you are an incompetent nit.You realize you can let that go instead choose to walk into the meeting curious rather than defensive. You try that and the meeting is a roaring success. Or in the case of the decision to change jobs, you realize that there are a whole lot of fears stopping you and you make the time to get them down on paper and work on completing each one to create freedom in your mind to make the choice you really want. Or even better, in both instances you change our position from reacting to the circumstances to really getting clarity on what it is YOU WANT for a change…rather than focusing on what you do not want.! If you have friends like these, hold onto them! They are pure gold because these people are doing the job of a coach, instinctively!
My question though is this. Surely the direction of your life is too important to leave to the random chance that you happen to have in your life a friend who is a natural coach ? Natural coaching is effective, but it is also a bit hit and miss! All of us have our own unconscious agenda’s. So there you are, talking to your trusted advisor about leaving your relationship and the person you are talking to is totally threatened because if you become single your friendship changes and they do not want that! Do you think their contribution to the conversation is going to be neutral and focused on you gaining clarity on what you want ? Probably not!Now take that same situation to a coach. Coaches train to keep their agenda’s out of the sessions. We train to create a safe, non-judgmental environment - a place where you have absolute freedom to say and think ANYTHING!! To truly explore what you fear, what you think and of course, what you feel! How many of us have that space in our lives ?
As a coach I am trained to be curious. I practice cultivating a natural curiosity to explore where you are at. My objective is to empower you, to find out what you are not saying! My goal is to help you ‘get’ where you are at and even more importantly, ‘get’ how to be in action and moving toward what you want! I am there to help you get clarity on what is stopping you and what you can do to start moving again!
I can’t help wondering if getting my world record have been easier if I had know about coaching ? I seem to have spent that entire journey fighting the world, trying to get support and solve almost impossible problems on my own. Did it really have to be that hard ? What would have opened up for me with a coach ? What opens up for you if you had that one person dedicated to your goals… that safe place where you can explore who you are and what you want ?

Fearless or Couragous

2009-05-08T04:37:00.002-07:00

Written Oct 20 2008

One of the most prevalent themes I come across as a coach is that of fear! Fear of rejection, fear of failure, fear of success, fear of being visible, fear of being invisible. Fear is a common thread in all our lives. Sometimes it is so strong it paralysis one. Sometimes it is hardly notice’able but it is always there! Lurking! Waiting for an opportunity to pounce! I find my client’s (and myself) in an almost perpetual battle with fear! A battle that takes all our energy and effectively stops us from getting to where we want to be. The fear becomes almost physical - an entity that lives and breathes! We fight it! We hate it! We wish it were no longer there! We wish that we were fearless!!! And as a result we devote enormous amounts of energy into finding the root cause of our fear so that we can eradicate it forever.

Here is what I learnt diving in caves, far, far away from help! Fear can never be eradicated! It can however be overcome ...and that is courage. I learnt this lesson on my 186 meter dive where I spent the 6 months before the dive almost paralysed by a fear that would not lessen. But I wanted that dive more than I wanted to be scared! So I took my fear with me, ignored it, and did the dive! I only realized when I came back that what I had gained was courage!

Somehow I always thought courage was something more miraculous, more elusive! Instead I learnt that courage is not the absence of fear! It is the knowing that there is something more important than the fear. Courage is ‘doing’ in spite of the terror! We all have this capacity! We are all borne with courage!So my question to you is: Do you want to be fearless or courageous ? Because courage is easy, you just have to take the first step and start doing!

What is Coaching

2009-05-08T04:37:00.001-07:00

This is not as easy to answer as you may think. Coaching is something that has been around now for a good couple of years, but is only really starting to get traction in the corporate world.A definition is not so easy to find. The Wikipedia definition is ‘a structured process-driven relationship between a trained professional coach and an individual or team which includes: assessment, examining values and motivation, setting measurable goals, defining focused action plans and using validated behavioral change tools and techniques to assist them to develop competencies and remove blocks to achieve valuable and sustainable changes in their professional and personal life.”’ Which sounds a little Icelandic to me. A better definition is ‘to help individuals develop internal and external structures that help them achieve success and to increase their potential by expanding their sense of what is possible”I really like Marc Steinberg’s definition,” is an interactive conversation between the coach and the client to generate shifts in the consciousness of the client leaving the client complete as well as empowered and inspired to make positive life changes.”In a nutshell, coaching is a mechanism you can use to:- Improve your emotional intelligence- Improve your ability to be successful, at work, at home, in a sport, wherever actually- Increases your self confidence- Define clear goals, define how you want your life to look- Take control of your destiny- Improve your relationshipsThe statistics behind coaching are impressive, with executive coaching showing a stunning 526% increase in efficiency. That has a serious impact in the workplace (never mind on the individual).A normal coaching cycle lasts for 12 sessions. Held weekly, each session is between 30 min to 60 minutes and each session focuses on getting results - then and there. Sessions can be done in person but are as effective through skype/ the phone (sometimes even more so).There is no regulation in place (yet) for coaching and a number of different ‘schools’ exist. The industry has however created its own set of standards through the ICF (International Coaching Federation). Members of this institution are committed to a set of standards and ethics that ensure that you as a client get a quality service. My choice when selecting a coaching methodology was based firstly on ICF accreditation and then on a more personal criterion, I wanted something that was more holistic and not soo clinical. I found both in Consciousness Coaching (http://www.cci-coachingacademy.co.za)Consciousness coaching is a little different to other styles of coaching in that it also focuses on improving your own awareness of where you are in your life or what ‘is’. This creates an incredibly powerful context from which you are able to really get stuck into creating the reality you want to live.What do I mean by what ‘is’ ? Most of us (and I was in that category) tend to live in a reality of what we would like things to be, and so totally ignore what is. I learnt the trick of ‘getting real’ with diving and found it enormously useful (you can not break a world record if you do not have a very good understanding of where you are at, otherwise how do you know what your next step really is ?) When we exist in this wishful reality we find it incredibly difficult to move toward what we really want, hence the focus on becoming aware of what is. It simply is what it is and once we know what that is, we can move on.Consciousness coaching also focuses on creating clear goals and then helping you work your way towards them. The fundamental principle behind consciousness coaching is the belief that you as an individual already know the answers and that my job a coach is to help you ‘remember’ them. It is this process that helps you uncover patterns that inhibit you and stop you from moving forward. It is also this process that helps you let go of these and move forward. The tools you learn (and practice) during a coaching cycle become part of who you are, and so you become fully empowered to create success without your coach.Coaching is an incredibly powerful way of changing where you are and where you could be, so, when are you going to give it a try ? When are you going to see what happens if you start to live the life you really want ?

Connecting to Inner Power

2009-05-08T04:27:00.000-07:00

Written Oct 8th 2008
My power comes when I let go of 'shoulds' and let the world be what it is
My power comes when I let go of 'being' right and rather make right
My power comes when i know who I have committed to be, and so have a solid 'me' to stand on
My power comes when i trust my word implicitly and no longer have to rely on conscious willpower and effort to succeed
My power comes when i relax into my soul and 'become' authentic
My power comes
Written during CCI's Master 3 course

Getting Comfortable with Discomfort

2009-05-08T04:26:00.001-07:00

Written Octobre 01 2008 ‘With enlightenment comes release from suffering’! Now I am not sure I have the quote right, but somehow from my readings I managed to get the idea that to become enlightened means an end to suffering… as in no more suffering (which is logically an end is it not ?). Here I am, 8 years down my road to enlightenment (and who knows how many lifetimes away from finding it) and suffering is still very, very much present. OK, it is not there all the time like it used to be, but I was not looking for less suffering. I was looking for no suffering. A complete absence there-of, nothing….ever!I guess that if those lucky buggers who have attained enlightenment were to read this they would nod their heads sagely and look perplexed at my obvious confusion! In fact I have a suspicious feeling that I totally misinterpreted the saying and that they have grasped what I am only just starting to see the edges of! It is not about never having to suffer again, it is about never being suffering again! Suffering always will exist! Suffering is part of life. What changes is not the suffering, but how I relate to it. Now you either saw a light bulb go off or as confused as I was/ am!Let me start again … from a different direction!When I think about my life what I see is not the happy or the good, or even the successes. What I see is a cloud of pain and misery. Or put another way, pure suffering. Somewhere in that cloud I decided I wanted out! I decided that I simply could not live one more day, one more breathe in this agony! I did not want to die (that sounded like giving up and I was danged if I was going to give ‘them’ the satisfaction), so I had to change the way I lived! I had to do whatever was required to never feel suffering again. So started my long exploration of texts by Dr Wayne Dyer (stunning books, helped a lot actually), the Dalai Lama, regular sessions with Oprah… you get the idea! It did all help! Slowly I managed to claw my way up from the bottom… but suffering was still always around me! It never disappeared! So I searched harder and harder! I knew that the only hope for my salvation was to not be sad! My only hope was to not be all those danged bad emotions - angry, depressed, jealous… you know. I knew that I was supposed to be calm, joyful and forgiving! So I went on a drive to eradicate the bad side of me! I wanted to get rid of these annoying thoughts and emotions so I could be free, happy…enlightened! I was never going to be uncomfortable again, after all I would be enlightened.And I succeeded. To a point! Well, actually all I succeeded in doing was create a really good underground resistance movement of all the emotions I had labeled bad. A resistance movement that would regularly and with annoying persistence emerge and sabotage my life! Where was this danged enlightenment ? Did it really exist ?It was during my Consciousness Coaching training that something finally shifted for me. We were asked to do a minute video presentation and as I watched it replay I came face to face with a part of me I can only call Olga, the Russian prison wardress (incidentally she is the leader of that resistance movement I was talking about earlier). I went home in a state! I did not like what I saw! To say I was uncomfortable is an understatement! I could no longer ignore a lifetime of feelings that I refused to feel because I had labeled them bad! Yet here they were.. .still… and irrevocably a part of me! I did not run away! I wanted to! I did not distract myself! I wanted to! I just sat! Sat with tears in my eyes and felt! Felt truly for the first time …without judgment!It dawned on me then, that enlightenment is not a destination! It is a lifetime of experience. That the truly enlightened do not hide any emotions! They feel! Everything! The difference is that they do not hold onto their feelings. They do not become their emotions. Their emotions are a part of them - there but not them. They just let them be… whatever they must be! And they exist, alongside.In that moment I realized that I had spent a lifetime avoiding being uncomfortable, as if, should I ever allow myself to be uncomfortable, everything would stop…. end…abruptly. I had been looking for an enlightenment that would end my suffering and here it was! The end to suffering is not the cessation of suffering, rather ending the attachment to it.I am now curious to see what happens if I rather accept that there are times when I am going to feel uncomfortable and there are times that I will feel comfortable… I can not predict either, I can not change either…they are both part of the natural ebb and flow of life.So here is my challenge to you. What opens up for you when you allow yourself to experience all of your life, the stuff you label as bad as well as the stuff you label good ? What opens up for you if you stop resisting ? What becomes possible ?

The Power of Clarity and New Realities

2009-05-08T04:25:00.000-07:00

written Sept 15 2008 - There are many aspects to coaching and my journey to becoming a credited coach is turning out to be both exciting and exhilarating. I am experiencing life from both sides of the fence (as a coach as well as a coache (being coached J )) which means I truly understand the process.A bit of background perhaps ? Coaching is the culmination of a journey that started back in 2000, when (after leaving a 6 year relationship that really did not work then entering an intense relationship that ended suddenly with the infamous words, I love you but do not want to spend the rest of my life with you), I found myself staring at 30 and what felt like a lifetime of having achieved nothing but misery.I knew something had to change, so I started to read and read …and read. Somehow (almost painfully slowly) I started to feel a shift… things were indeed changing. This shift was most noticeable in my diving where I finally made 221 meters and the elusive woman’s world record. But, the success I managed to obtain there never seemed to spill over into the rest of my life. Indeed, that success had come at a high cost. I had to sacrifice both friendships and family to get it. I was still reading and hoping to find an answer somewhere in the pages that documented the wisdom of those who had gone before me and I was still finding wisdom elusive. Well, not really wisdom, but rather the ‘know how’ to know how to implement the wisdom I was obtaining. This is the problem with books… you are not ‘doing’, you are observing. Which is where coaching comes in, because here the focus is on doing!For the longest time I had felt stuck. I had all this knowledge in my head, but had not found a way to unleash it and make it a reality. Learning how to coach (or should I say becoming a coach) feels like an appropriate ending to 8 years of learning. Not that the learning will ever end, so perhaps it is more a new beginning. I now have the privilege of watching the people I coach do the same thing I did (learn who they are and who they can be, learn how great they can be) which is a privilege as well as an experience because with consciousness coaching it all seems to go much faster and without so much of the ‘lost pain’ I seem to have gone through. Two things have really jumped out at me. The first is how non-intrusive and easy coaching is and the second how important clarity is if you are serious about actually changing and creating a new reality.For most of us the starting point of any plan to action is to tediously work our way through our ‘issues’. We tend to take a very western approach of using therapy type behavior to fix ourselves so that we can become better and so receive more good stuff. This tendency toward therapy as the only answer is perhaps why so many of us feel stuck. Most of us live in ‘normality’ (we are not psychopaths or technically insane) and with that definition of normality comes emotional baggage that in my case, just did not seem to be serious enough to warrant therapy (my parents got divorced… hardly earth shattering and unusual). But in my life things were just not working! Nor did I feel inclined to wander back into my childhood and discover what went wrong. That seemed far too painful and way too much like work.This resistance to facing baggage is not an unusual thing. Most of us spend our lives avoiding being uncomfortable. The truly remarkable thing though is that with consciousness coaching I didn’t first have to go back in order to go forward. It was not about reliving my past. Yes, the past does come up, but rather as an, ‘Oh, so that is where that resistance is coming from’, kind of moment. Instead the focus in coaching is on becoming conscious and aware of what is my present and then choosing to live in that present! As a coachee, this new awareness highlights the invisible stories we all tell ourselves (and that then unconsciously create our realities). This awareness also reveals how unconscious you really are and (as your vision returns) provides you with tools to change your reality. You move from reaction (unconscious engagement with the world) to creation, where you get to consciously choose your reality. And the process is remarkably elegant and way easier than I certainly imagined it would be.Which brings me to my second ‘aha’ moment - the importance of clarity. Finding Clarity is the first step! Simply put, you have to know what it is you want to create before you can work out how to create it. Now you would have thought that after 8 years of personal growth I would be clear about who I am and where I was going ? Not! I had no clue! Why was I waking up every morning ? What was it I really wanted to do with my life ? What was my vision ? What did I want out of work ? I just seemed to be going through the motions, living the same life as all the people around me. And I was miserable doing it.I am not talking about a huge, hairy and audacious vision for the future here. Yes, that might be what you are going for, but mostly what we want is closer to home… something more immediate. We want to do better at work, we want to feel understood when we communicate, we want to buy our own home or do better in a favourite sport. Whether it is big or small, the first step is always clarity… knowing what it is you want and once you have that, my job as a coach is to take it that step further - to help you get clarity as to how you can do that.My job is to create a space that is safe enough for you to explore your needs and desires and to create a space in which you feel comfortable enough to answer your own questions and desires. My job as a coach is to help you engage with what is stopping you and how you feel you can support yourself and move forward. I am not there to help (which is a common mistake people have when it comes to coaching). As a coach, I can not tell you what to do. I have not lived your life so I do not know what answers are yours. Indeed, I can never know you as well as you know yourself. You are unique and so your answers will be unique. And the truly amazing thing is that I do not need to know your answers. All I have to do is ask the right questions and slowly (sometimes reluctantly) every client starts to give themselves the answers. It is as if there is an awareness deep inside all of us that is all powerful and all loving. A part that we have always had but never been taught how to connect with. Coaching connects you with this part of yourself. Coaching allows it a voice so that it becomes a daily player in your life and with that connection comes the power to create your dreams (the good one’s naturally J).Clarity comes at many levels. There is the clarity of what it is we really want for ourselves in the next weeks, months and years. There is the clarity on how we are going to achieve that. Then there is clarity on a daily level, which is probably one of the most powerful forms of clarity. After all, the past is gone and the future is but a dream. To get to it (the future) we have to live through today, so it stands to reason that how we live today will create our tomorrow.Introducing a daily practice of clarity into your life creates an opportunity to create some remarkable results. It creates the ability to create a today that is different to yesterday. It is also not hard to do (indeed, it does not even require a coach). All you need is 5 minutes in the morning to define your day and consciously create it.What do I mean ? These days I wake up every morning and create my day in my mind! Today I am going to add value at work. Today I commit to connecting the people I meet to their own power and love! Today I am going to be patient and tolerant. Today I am going to have fun! And here is the surprising thing, the part of me that I used to think of as myself ( my identity), is still there trying to call the shots and sabotage me. It is still trying to create the same today as yesterday. But when I take the time to consciously choose my day I give power to another part of me… the part I like to think of as my soul. With these daily commitments and intentions my soul gets the power to create my day and I am rarely disappointed in the results.Clarity and action, these are the gifts of coaching. This is why I can not wake up in the morning and meet a new client, because I get to be a part of their transformation. I get to watch them become all powerful.

Welcome to the Blog

2009-05-08T04:23:00.000-07:00

Who we are is every changing, liquid if you will. How we live our lives is a reflection of the choices we make, of the words we utter, of the committments we keep. The Exploration Academy is about inspiring, empowering and exploring to create lasting change. Our goal is to create a space within which we can breathe and become aware of who we are, what we are thinking and saying and what options we really have.