Truth Telling

Enthusing

Today was pretty interesting in my mood shifted because of receiving information. I was high at one moment very low at another due to lack of faith and trust in my growth process. I still expect things to work a certain way because of my definition of “doing the right things” and when it does not, doubt enters and my relationship as a child of God leaves. I am too much into worldly things to define my importance and that is what slows me down on my path. What does any of this have to do with Enthusing? A whole lot. From the course notes: To enthuse someone means to make someone enthusiastic about something. The act involves “energizing the moment”. When I am feeling low or doubtful, enthusing is a wonderful tool used correctly to remind me of my gifted place in the grand beauty of things.

As I mentioned in a earlier blog, I am also enrolled in the Institute of Integrative Nutrition. One of our many assignments before “officially” taking classes, is to give Complementary Health Histories to practice. Today was my first time receiving as well as giving a health history and it could have not been more perfect. I became excited by the acknowledgments of Lisa who went over the form I filled out. She instinctively knew when to give praise and when to challenge me to finally address structure (a future blog). She asked me to set days in the week to celebrate and acknowledge my accomplishments and I was like “I do not want to be tied down”, then it dawned on me: I am doing this for me, aren’t I important and valuable to do this for. I felt another veil dropping and knew I am one more step closer to truly loving and valuing myself. I am worthy to set aside time to lovingly show myself how much I value me and what I have completed and what I deserve to have more of in my life and what I can share in return to others.

What I also witnessed from Lisa and my session was the healing power of listening. When you allow someone the space to speak, it can be a very rewarding growth experience for both parties. I heard myself in Lisa’s words, I felt her trying to wrap her head around ideas, I sensed her determination not to go back, but to move ahead in light and love, I laughed in my soul with her soul. Present listening allowed both of us to connect and to productively help to heal something within each other and it was a beautiful thing to be a part of. The essence of our session was the enthusing we gave to each other and it was real, heartfelt and very healing.

Thank you Lisa for providing nourishment to me on my journey to love.

Commitment vs Trying

As with yesterdays post, this topic Commitment vs Trying will be a challenge to complete because I do not know where to begin but here I go. I feel that is the hurdle for me to over come: completions why I do not complete somethings and others I race happily to the end. Just where is the commitment for me and where is a Underlying Automatic Commitment (UAC) lurking in the background? I know that when I put my mind to accomplish a task I can see it to the end, but how committed is my heart? For me that is the key, where is my heart in all of this. How full of joy is my heart working on this particular task? If trying is the only level that I am operating on, there is a good chance that I will not complete the task, my heart is not being engaged and I will end up feeling some what of a failure. As I was writing this blog I also was emailing others and checking email, so you could say my heart was in emailing not writing this blog. My attention is everywhere but focusing on writing this. As I think more around what is really happening, I realize that the blog is not what I am avoiding completing, but learning Photoshop. So I can focus not finishing one task to avoid beginning another important task.

My Goals today were to write this blog and begin my Photoshop tutorial. The tutorial is 2 hours long and I know I can learn the software but can I learn enough in time to use it next week? I also have to learn Illustrator as well. So what am I doing: surfing the web. That is where I am committed now. The only other thing I have to do today is wash my hair, 1 hours tops. So I have no excuses of being able to complete this tutorial. And there is another key: excuses. I have no excuses for not being happy or more successful. I am not applying my time lovingly to complete tasks. I am able to generate excitement to others and their needs, I can now channel that same enthusiasm to myself and get to work and so I shall. Tomorrows blog will be on Enthusing and my progress in happily learning Photoshop.

Respect vs Invalidation

This particular blog has been one that I have avoided writing today mostly because I have no idea where to start.

So I decided to reread the module to get a feel of where to go around this topic. The course notes start with How do we treat ourselves and others. For the most part I feel I treat others pretty good, but whose definition am I basing this on: What I believe treating people consists of?, What show up for me to prove or disprove that how I am treating people is working?, or are either of these questions at the heart of respect or invalidation to examine at all? I constantly think, checkout, examine, reexamine, then decide whether I will continue to follow a particular path in dealing with someone or an idea. I now realize that I have wasted a lot of mental energy and made not much progress in this area. I am saying this because I see the only reliable guides are my feelings to determine whether I am “being” respected or am I “being” invalidated.

The tangible evidence is how people or life is treating us, or is it? I do not feel others can invalidate nor can they validate us unless we choose to view as such. Validation or invalidation can be a result of our reactions to the interaction of what we believe about ourselves showing up in our lives. When we make decisions that are based on reaction, the feelings of invalidation can arise. But decisions based on reactions can also cause feelings of respect as well. So thinking about what is respect or invalidation to me is not a 100% guarantee of knowing for sure but it is a good place to start. The mystics say that to look outside for love is not the way, but to discover our own unique relationship, our contribution to the world, to create our divine structure of manifesting love externally, is the way to true happiness. Of course there is no written road map: follow to this point, turn here, get rid of this, add more of that, stir and wait. Or can this be a map to guide us along? I do believe and feel that it is when we are in love with our true nature, it is then we know that we are always being respected and validated and the universe will reveal that discovery to us as beautiful events and people in our lives. As most of us are not there yet (myself included), I liked this particular modules conversation on this topic and wanted to share it.

The module states: Standards are levels of behavior we choose for ourselves and they are based on experience, education and reason. Next Personal Boundaries are discussed. In order for personal boundaries to work we must first be clear on what our limits are and then communicate them clearly to others. Once you are clear about your limitations, you will have to do less explaining time and again, boundaries are about what others cannot do to you or to your surroundings, they are set up to show respect towards yourself and others. So standards and personal boundaries are necessary tools to assist us in learning to respect ourselves and to show others respect as well, for you must show respect to get respect.

This is where I can begin to see if my standards are in alignment with my boundaries and vice versa and surprise, some are not. I allow my family to get away with things that I would never let a friend get away with. And I allow friends to get away with things that I would never let my family get away with. Certain work situations I might compromise on and others never. The cause of the flipflop: fear of being not liked/needed or pushed aside. And here is where I will begin a journey to know and love myself better. Which leads me to tomorrows blog which will be Commitment vs Trying.

Coaching Models

Yesterdays goal was to gather items to develop my Welcome Package. I decided as I was listening to the coaching model class, that gardening with spirit would be the process that would best explain my coaching style and approach to partner with my clients.

I had my family to stay for the holiday so I started feeling my time was divided into entertain them and wanting to focus on my work. So I decided to do both but place my complete attention on visiting with my family first. We went to breakfast and watched a 4th of July parade in Asbury Park. When we came home I was ready to place my focus on gathering information for the Package. I went on the ICA website, surfed the posts from other students on their coaching models. After I read other student postings, I proceeded to check out various web address to look at coaching web sites. I picked up a few great ideas from the student postings and sites and printed out the ones I wanted to to use as a jump off point. When I felt I have everything I needed to begin, I went upstairs to my bedroom and laid the info, papers, books, notebook for writing my coaching stuff, IPOD, pens and pencils on my bed, took a orange candle and an orange sarong to place over my shoulder, then I went to dinner with my family.

I ate a wonderful meal. When I came home, I washed my hands, went to my room lit my candle and prayed to the goddess Ix Chel to bless me with her divine creativity. I turned on my IPOD and began: I started reading and writing in my journal. The first sentence was Why Coaching is essential tool. Next, I wrote words: Intuition, divine blessings, non-judgmental, inner wisdom, etc. and was led to create a acronym for sacred garden poetically. To me a coaching model should be in the coaches language, the way the coach speaks to their clients and views their (the coach) participation in the world. As I am a poet at heart, I felt I had to use that language in creating my model. I grabbed my thesaurus and wrote down words I felt a connection towards. S: sanctuary, seed, sunshine. A: adore, absolute and so on. I do not remember when but while I was searching for words, a sentence came to me: Sing the sunshine of your soul. I knew that was going to be the beginning line for my model.

Here is the blueprint for what can be harvested when you live your live as a Sacred Garden.

Sing the sunshine of your soul by
Acknowledeging the absolute of your Abilities to
Create ceremony, celebrate clarity to move with the
Rhythm of divine guidance, to love all and
Embrace the wonder of the unfolding of your
Dreams, dance and decorate life’s abundance.
Goals guided by gratitude, lead you towards new
Attitudes and Affirmations, your accomplishments become
Rainfalls to water your spirit, now you can
Dialog with Masters and Majesty, rising to bloom,
Exult your shinning grace, you partner with beauty to
Nurture your noble soul to sing again and again.

I like the aspect of using spiritual gardening as a metaphor for my coaching practice. Partnering with my clients I wish to co-create a structure that the client can continue to develop and use when our coaching time together as at a end using the following steps as their guide: visualizing the garden blooming (your life as you wish it to be), what plants to plant (your goals and dreams) where and when in the garden (when you are ready to begin, drawing the road map), the type of soil for each plant (creating nurturing support for the journey), when to plant (i.e. Seasons, days of week, how time will you invest in gardening), where to get the seeds to plant (meditation, reading, journaling communing with others). Fertilizing the soil and plants (How you will “feed” yourself to have the stamina for the journey): what work when and what might work later (choosing other perspectives to keep you moving forward when you get stuck), when to water (hydrate your spirit), when to harvest (introducing your completed goal to the world), and dealing with plants that do not take (friends, family, co-workers, situations that no longer serve your highest and greatest good), inviting favorable pests and ladybugs to protect (setting boundaries and enforcing them), Inviting the creator to be an active helper (prayer, thanks yous), asking for blessings and insight, bringing love to everything involved in the gardening process and last but not least: how does the whole experience help the gardener to grow and learn to plant the next garden in their lives (Keeping the growing alive as important as your breathing).

Celebrating

As this is the 4th of July, I felt todays post will be on the module Celebrating. In the course notes, one sentence stands out for me: Celebration serves in announcing to the entire world that we are proud of our accomplishments. Now that can mean on a physical level towards individuals in our lives, but I view the sentiment to also include my physical and emotional environments, as well as the big and the small movements on my journey.

As with goal setting, Celebrating anything for myself was something I never gave two cents about. Now I can show gratitude to myself as well as others. I give myself permission to stop and enjoy what I have accomplished, savoring these moments and when possible sharing these achievements with love ones. My accomplishments have provided me with opportunities for even more achievement. Now they can even become a goal: to discover different ways for me to celebrate, appreciate and say thank you for what I have created and what has been created for me. Todays blog is to celebrate and acknowledge my friends and myself.

My friends are my guardian angels in a physical form. Every one is an blessing from the universe and each one keeps affirming I am on the right path and things are going to be fine. My friend/beautiful soul Scott has been sharing and celebrating my accomplishments and dreams these past few years. He has celebrated my accomplishments without me even knowing about it, and has shown me where I need to pat myself on my back for what I have created in my life. I celebrate Scott and his unconditional loving spirit and am so blessed to have him in my life. There are others: Aunt Elaine, Auntie Mattie, my Mother, Het Heru, Queen Afua, Baba Semaj, TuTu, Pa-ur, Lucy, Phillip, Terry, were seriously in the trenches, fought the battles by my side, helped me remove the muck, not allowing me to forget how powerful I am and that the sun will always shine for me. I acknowledge each one of you with a virtual kiss. There are the new comers: Jennifer, Nova, Maritza, Cynthia, Alisha, my Plumbers, Patrick, Taz, Jane, MaryJean, Patricia Betty, Lois, Joycelyn, Amber, Ricky, Dorian, Antonio, Peter, Jeff, Rahami, Tracey, Michelle who have provided me with safe places to express my love. I so thank all of you. There is a returned Friend: Hrag. We have had our ups and downs but the love is true between us (even when I might have doubt his and mine, it was there, I just could not feel) welcome back to my heart and my life.

I celebrate my son Cameron and his extraordinary accomplishments. I celebrate owning and caring for my home, I celebrate being a student in ICA, I celebrate enrolling in the Institute for Integrative Nutrition, I celebrate my cats Tegene and Lumumba, I celebrate dancing, I celebrate my garden, I celebrate stumbling but never falling, I celebrate never giving up on myself, I celebrate love and laughter but most importantly: I CELEBRATE ME

Goals and Values

Second day of blogging. As I sat at my altar last night I decided that todays post will be on Goals and Values. Reading the module Goal Setting one of ICAs Advanced classes, I remembered where my head was when I took the class . It was struggling with defining what goals mean to me, what and where I place my values and are there values that I have that I need to rethink. I value honesty, loyalty, trust, devotion, consistency, truthfulness, integrity, operating in all times with spirit, but what do these terms means to me and how am I living bringing forth these and other values? There have been times when almost all of these terms I have compromised on. Only one I have not: integrity.

One of the wonderful things about having a coach is the coach coaches you where your values are and they also hold you accountable as you journey forth. They notice when you are out of grace and by their questioning gives the client space to realize when they are not. This realization can also cause the client to realize that either the goal, value or both might not be something they feel is really important. Part of coaching is the discovery of importance and how that can be defined and redefined by the client as the client grows.

The goals aspect I am still struggling with. In the past I would half hearted set goals that I did not care if I achieved or not. But what was interesting was when I achieved major or minor milestones, I did not know how to appreciate the accomplishments. I did not know that I should. It was like onward to the next hurdle. No time was spent basking in the glory.

Now I am able to pause, breathe and feel the appreciation and pride of my achievements. And I do so all the time now. When I accomplish the goals I set every day I feel such pride in myself and gratefulness that the universe felt that I should. Even the days I do not complete, it is still a magnificent feeling because I realize that other things needed my attention and I gave those things my full attention, the items I did not, well there is always tomorrow or the day after.

My goals are very structured but fluid enough that I can reevaluate and come up with different approaches to achieving the goals. This I am finding works for me: in defining and achieving the goals, I need to have multiple ways to accomplish them. In designing my calendar for example, the goal started out to build a template that I can base all the pages on but have the ability to change certain elements (i.e line spacing) to accommodate all of the items I feel I need for that particular day to use as reference. As I work out in my mind and on paper, this fluidness has allowed me to be more creative in the designing process. It allowed me to focus my attention on what is really important for my calendar and allowed me to realize that I now wish to incorporate craft items on the pages as well (stamps, gluing items, hand drawings, etc.). As this was unfolding, I received a email that a craft store in my neighborhood was going out of business. I went this past Sunday with Michelle, played and bought crafty things to my hearts content. I have achieved the flexibility I wanted in designing and now have all the items I need to move ahead with my creativity. I have defined my personal Goal Achievement Process and I am very happy.

The Goal and Value module notes have help me get a better grip on being comfortable with creating goals and asking myself are all of my values being represented in the goal and achieving the goal. I can use that question to see if I really wish for something or is it still incubating and needs more time before I bring it forth.