Self-Coaching Tip: Expect the Unexpected

A few years ago, I set an Intention for peace and harmony in my relationship with my ex-husband. Within three days, the energy of the amplified intentions was having an impact on my life—but it didn't look anything like peace and harmony. Almost overnight, the situation with my ex-husband threatened to become litigious. I felt overwhelmed and threatened at a core survival level.

I knew what usually worked to coach myself through this situation, but I was having some difficulty. I became angry with my ex-, blaming him for the situation. For days, I held my anger as a protective shield against the primal fears that were surfacing. The anger interfered with my abilities to function effectively as a parent, a coach, a CEO. Finally, after several days of missing deadlines and appointments, I called a fellow Coach and asked for help. After doing the body movements that help me move out of my fears, I spent some time working through one of my favorite tools that helps me get out of my head enough to partner with the fear I was feeling. Then, my colleague led me through a visualization in which I saw all of my issues with my ex-husband as rocks, stones and pebbles loaded into a backpack. Below is the visualization and how it worked for me:
She directs me to a small footbridge spanning a river of healing, loving waters. I stop halfway across the bridge and open the backpack. I pull out the first rock. It is an old friend—abandonment. I hold it, touching the rough surface, feeling the emptiness of the emotion in my body. When I am ready, I toss it into the river and watch, transfixed by the changing colors as the rock is transformed by the loving energy.

I continue emptying the backpack, revisiting old, familiar issues I've been working on for years: self-worth, loneliness, betrayal. At the bottom of the pack is an unfamiliar issue. A small pebble, the size of a marble, dense and heavy. I hold it in my hands, waiting for guidance.

Sobs burst forth. It is guilt. A very old guilt. Time swirls around me, the past and future blending into the present. I am two years old, maybe three. My father is ill. He is changed. He is in pain. The guilt is born in that moment: guilt that I cannot alleviate his pain. I cannot make him laugh.

Every moment of my life takes on a new meaning. The buried guilt motivating my every action: if I don't fix the pain, I am not worthy.
me:
She directs me to a small footbridge spanning a river of healing, loving waters. I stop halfway across the bridge and open the backpack. I pull out the first rock. It is an old friend—abandonment. I hold it, touching the rough surface, feeling the emptiness of the emotion in my body. When I am ready, I toss it into the river and watch, transfixed by the changing colors as the rock is transformed by the loving energy.

I continue emptying the backpack, revisiting old, familiar issues I've been working on for years: self-worth, loneliness, betrayal. At the bottom of the pack is an unfamiliar issue. A small pebble, the size of a marble, dense and heavy. I hold it in my hands, waiting for guidance.

Sobs burst forth. It is guilt. A very old guilt. Time swirls around me, the past and future blending into the present. I am two years old, maybe three. My father is ill. He is changed. He is in pain. The guilt is born in that moment: guilt that I cannot alleviate his pain. I cannot make him laugh.

Every moment of my life takes on a new meaning. The buried guilt motivating my every action: if I don't fix the pain, I am not worthy.
That was my story. That was what I'd been telling myself since the birth of that guilt. Now that the story was out, I began to change it, re-script it, find new evidence of my worthiness. The evidence was already there. I just hadn’t let it in yet because it didn't fit my story. Every compliment, thank you, or gift I'd received over the years had been deflected, pushed away, because that little girl knew she wasn't any good. Now, I could re-visit those moments of acceptance in a new light, and begin to let the love and acceptance into my heart.

Is this how I expected peace and harmony to manifest in my life? Not at all. At some level, I was expecting my ex-husband's behavior to change, too. But, this inner peace and harmony is much more than I ever expected. I love myself in a new way now that I have found a new level of self-acceptance. And it affects my interactions with everyone else in my life. I judge myself and others less harshly. I love others in a new way. While you may find the unexpected as you develop your self-coaching skills, keep in mind, that the unexpected will be even better than you could imagine.

Self-Coaching Tip: Community is the Place Where Your Gifts are Received

The word "community" comes from a Latin word that means "the place where our gifts are received."

What a powerful thought: the place where our gifts are received!

I spent a large part of my life wanting to feel as if I belonged. To have the gift of ME accepted, understood and valued. I longed for someone to truly see me for who I was instead of for what I could do for them or how well I performed.

But, until I learned the self-coaching skills to do this for myself, I found myself ignoring or pushing away any attempt by others to receive my gifts. Teachers tried to take me under their wing. Adult neighbors often protected me from bullies. My parents tried to let me know they loved me in a variety of ways. Girl friends tried to include me. Boys and men I dated often adored me. But, I couldn't see it because I was so busy judging myself as lacking in some way and distrusting others' motives.

And the problem was compounded because many who were attempting to let me know how valued I was to them, had the same problem. They were insecure with their own gifts so when I refused their overtures, they quickly backed down.

Fortunately, I came into contact with a couple of people who didn't back down. Who had developed the skills to not be influenced by other people's reactions. They had found their gifts, were accepting of themselves and were able to model that acceptance for me.

These wonderful people gave me my first glimpse of a community as a place where my gifts are received. And I was hooked!

Activating Your Gifts

I set an intention to learn how to do this for myself and my family. I tried a variety of things, but the first strategy that worked was to look at those people I truly loved and admired and wanted to be like.

I wrote down the names of everyone I knew. Then, next to their names I wrote down every trait and quality I admired. As I was doing this, I realized that one of my beliefs kept running through my head: "people who annoy you are mirroring back a part of yourself that you find annoying."

I stopped for a moment, wondering why this thought kept repeating over and over. I was trying to focus on the positive, admirable traits of everyone on my list. Why was this thought distracting me?

And then, I heard an old math teacher's voice in my head: "mathematical equations work in both directions."

I stopped breathing for a moment.

I looked back at my list trying to absorb the impact of what I had just learned.

And then I wrote down my new belief: "If people with negative traits are mirroring unclaimed parts of myself back to me, then people who I love and admire are mirroring unclaimed parts of me too!"

That was a turning point for me. Instead of focusing my energy on getting rid of the unwanted traits in myself, I began focusing on reclaiming the positive, loving aspects of myself. And, once I turned my attention to what I did want for me, more and more people showed up in my life who had those same traits. They supported me in activating those traits and in learning how to stay true to myself, even when others disagreed with me.

Today, all of the communities I belong to are places where my gifts are received because I learned how to receive myself.

Self-Coaching Tip: Pre-Tend to Your Future

From a very early age, we have had the ability to visualize or tap into our kinesthetic body. We called it "pretending." As children, we routinely tried on new patterns of Being, instinctually exploring our Authentic Nature by trying on different personas and seeing how they "fit." Being a ballerina or astronaut may have "resonated" with our Authentic Self, while being the ‘bad guy’ might have left us feeling cold.

When we tried on a persona that resonated, we delved into that experience over and over, developing a deep affinity for the traits we perceived as "ballerina," or “astronaut," or "doctor." Most of us stopped pretending as we moved into adulthood, judging the practice as immature. But, actually, pretending is an easy and effortless way to change from a state of fear, anxiety or uncertainty to a state of love, confidence, and hope.

Pretending allows us to tap into our Spiritual Power by combining thought with movement. When we pretend and really get into the experience of pretending, we begin to activate the traits within us that support, rather than inhibit attracting the life we want. The power of pretending lies in the purposeful movement that amplifies the trait we want to activate and maintain. The purposeful movement in pretending includes rhythm, breathing and posture.

Think of it as Pre-Tending to your future. By moving into the energetic essence of what you want to co-create with Source, you’re activating the Law of Attraction. More importantly, you’re focused on BE-ing in the moment and ‘allowing’ Source to worry about how it will show up. State your intention to stay in this ‘play’ energy while completing a task and notice any changes in your body, thoughts and emotions while pretending your way through the task.

"Swept up by the deepest states of play, one feels balanced, creative, focused. Deep play is a fascinating hallmark of being human; it reveals our need to seek a special brand of transcendence, with a passion that makes thrill-seeking explicable, creativity possible, and religion inevitable." ~ Diane Ackerman, author of Deep Play