Attitude of Gratitude

I'm starting to get to the point where if I hear that phrase one more time ("Attitude of Gratitude"), I might hurl.

And, what can I say? It's good stuff. It just has an annoying outer package!

Seriously, not to be cliche, but 'tis the season, kinda like how we all like to give at Christmas, but why should December get all that fun anyway?? :-)

I am grateful for:

* Challenging relationships that require me to GROW, if I am to stay in them!

* The fact that my partner, Robert, is willing to warm my ice-cube-esque feet at bedtime every night of the year from September - late April

* The softness of my cats' fur...Spike's chin and chest, Kevin's neck, Chloe's front paws, and JoJo's whole bod!

* A community that inspires me to growth and learning that I never could have predicted

* Family that sticks together

* A posse of rock-star women who are my dear, badass friends

* Etc.!

We have a choice every day to live from this orientation of gratitude...to choose to see the world through the lenses of what we have and what we're grateful for, vs. what we don't have and what we can't seem to get our grubby mits on.

SO. I submit to the cheesy but vital question, my dear reader: what are you grateful for? What keeps you moving through life, without which the colors around you would pale? Where is abundance sitting right next to you, waiting to be acknowledged and embraced? You've got it...it's right there...

One more thought on fear...

Check this out...in addition to the questions posed at the bottom of the previous post, it's worthwhile to ask yourself this, too:

With whom in your life are YOU the one holding that tempting, fear-canape-laden hors d'oeuvre tray???

Elizabeth Gilbert on FEAR

This week started off with a bang: I sat three rows back from the stage at Salem College's Hanes auditorium, listening in rapt attention as Elizabeth Gilbert, author of "Eat, Pray, Love" (among many other things) spoke for 45 minutes on "The Physics of the Quest--Some Thoughts on Journeys of Self-Discovery." Imposing title notwithstanding, it was an hour of me being a super-sponge!

And before I get to what she had to say about fear, I just have to note this one huge impression: she is someone who has found a glorious way of holding and balancing mastery with humanness. What I mean by that is this: for anyone who has ever stood in front of classroom, lecture hall, auditorium, or audience of any size, it's paramount to be able to impart what you have to say with such stature that people want to listen, but also with a way of being that says, "I know this stuff, but I'm one of you, too. This is within your reach, and I'm still on the journey!" Without that, connection can't happen, and to me, connection is becoming more and more of what's vital in any kind of interaction, be it one on one or one on three hundred. EG has that nailed!

So, back to fear. Here was the gist, which I pass on to you for your consideration:

She started out with this question: "At what point will we be allowed to not fear the work we were put on this earth to do?"

When she was a girl, she knew she wanted to devote her life to the craft of writing. As she grew, and as she shared this info, people would say things like, "aren't you afraid you'll never succeed?" and "aren't you afraid you'll never get anything published?" and "aren't you afraid no one will like what you have to say?" Now, standing on this side of wild success with Eat, Pray, Love, she hears, "aren't you afraid that success will ruin your life?" and "aren't you afraid you'll never write anything else as good as EPL?"

(Note from LCN: these questions can come from others, but can just as easily come from our inner critic.)

And so she observed that we are constantly offered this hors d'oeuvres tray of fear, no matter where we are in our journey, and people (and/or our inner critic) want you to eat off of that tray to appease their own sense of fear and what's "safe."

Another tidbit: a YMCA she used to visit offered this warning to its members: "Warning! Any movement whatsoever brings the possibility of injury!"

Hmmm...

Where, in your own life, are you being offered that hors d'oeuvre tray of fear?

Are you partaking?

What's the impact, either way?

And where are you staying stock still, for fear of injury?

What's the cost of THAT?

Ms. Gilbert spent a year abroad, living full on despite her fear. We don't all have to take such a huge step. Where, in your day, can you create your own adventure? Step out of your own comfort zone for the sake of growth and learning?

Ahhh...fear. Like it or not, it's a comrade on these journeys we're all on. How do YOU want to be with it?

OFF Belay

My training at the US National Whitewater Center's high and low ropes course continues. Today, I made a major mistake...the kind that can result in possible major injury!

I admit it...I was excited. I was "in my element," so to speak, and so when I went to climb back up the course, entering via a pole with pegs and climbing holds, I didn't even think. I just went UP!

About two thirds of the way, I suddenly heard people sharply calling my name from a platform mid-way through the course. "Laura! Are you on belay?!"

Nope. I was basically free climbing up a 32' high telephone pole. Not smart!

So down I came. I think everyone else was more rattled than I was, but the lesson was definitely not lost on me, and it's not one that will happen again. There's a way that I got out of my head because I was so in love with what I was doing, and as a result, I put myself in a situation that could have had very negative consequences that would have impacted my ability to continue pursuing something I value highly.

So how about you? Where, in your life, might you be acting hazardously? (Is that a word? You know what I mean...) Where are you doing something, without thinking, that's endangering other aspects of your life that are so dear to you, you'd kick yourself endlessly if something happened?

It's worth looking at. Remember, this is about no regrets. Where are you "off belay?"

Ahhhh...the flip side at last!

Don'tcha just love it when the Universe conspires with your highest self, even if your here-and-now self goes along with all of it kicking and screaming?

Yesterday, I sat for my final, big, much-anticipated, nerve sizzling oral exam for my coaching certification process, basically what I've been working toward for a year and a half. I'd love to be sitting here telling you that I was a calm, cool, collected cucumber in the days beforehand. I'd LOVE to tell you that, on Tuesday, for example, I called my coach and said, "Ya know Marla, I just really don't have anything I need to be coached on today. I've got life tied up in a tidy little bow and I'm ready to take my exam just about any time now!" Sigh. I wish!

So Tuesday I was coming completely unglued. Yeah, I know. Not such a proud moment for the coach extraordinaire! She who expounds all things calm and rational when we get back in touch with our center! Well, my center had gone for a hike. A long hike. And thank god for Marla!

As you may know, a coach's #1 job is to ask questions. It's just not in our job descriptions to tell you what to do, or when, or with whom, or why. We believe that you have your own answers and that you're a capable, rockin' human being who just needs a partner to ask some new questions to help you look into corners of yourself that you'd forgotten, or maybe even never visted before.

And doing the exact opposite is how Marla got my uncoachable butt to snap to! For the first time ever, she told me straight up what she wanted for me. Postpone your clients between now and your exam, she advised. CANCEL your remaining practice coaching sessions, she urged. Practice EXTREME self care NOW, she said. After grumbling around for a few minutes, making up excuses as to why I couldn't do any of that and really needed to keep myself in this twist of existential angst, I decided that after eight months of working together, maybe I oughta trust her. So I did, and it was amazing!

And here's where the Universe danced in: our computer crashed that very afternoon. For more than 48 hours we were completely "unplugged" here at the Neff/Hildreth household, which, to us, is like not having water or air in our house. And, it turned out to be PERFECT, and exactly what I needed! Instead of obsessing about the unknown test ahead of me, Robert and I walked. Instead of calling all my coaching buddies and commiserating in my nervousness with them, we talked about anything BUT my exam. We cooked. We ate. And yes, at first it was a little weird not to have instant access to all the inane bits of information we look up all the time, but it got me and us back to ourselves, back to the earth, back to what matters.

And Thursday? For my exam? I was ready, and I rocked. :-)

So watch for news in a few weeks that I've gotten the "official" word and can now proudly call myself a "Certified Professional Co-Active Coach."

And watch for your own Universal winks. How is something bigger conspiring with YOUR higher self when you're not looking?

Whammo

Howdy, friends.

It's Monday. It still feels like summer. And I feel like I've been hit by the tractor trailer o' life.

My family found out recently that my 44 year old sister-in-law of 24+ years has cancer. Not a nice cancer. Not a cancer that can be cured.

Sometimes we bee-bop through life, and whammo, the Universe sends a right hook.

Thankfully, thankfully, that news came the same week I finally checked out Kris Carr's website. In 2003, Kris was diagnosed with incurable cancer at the age of 31, and she is going SO strong! She took her healing and remission into her own hands, and she is proving to the world just how powerful our minds and hearts and bodies really are. She is an inspiration.

Another website you need to hang out on and bookmark is Sera Beak's homepage. If you are a spiritual seeker and haven't yet stumbled across The Red Book, you're missing out!

So, as you can see, this is where I turn in times of whammo. I turn to the people I know who are complete badasses...people who are the powerful creators of their own lives. People whose orientations are set to "Creator" vs. "Victim," even when they, too, get smacked upside the proverbial head. Choosing which set of glasses to put on...the wild, sparkley, crazy-shaped ones labeled "Creator" or the thick, black, impossible-to-see-through-anyway ones labeled "Victim"...makes ALL ALL ALL the difference.

What does it mean for you to be the powerful creator of your own life?

Peace to you, my dear reader.

Transformation

We're moved! Oh boy, are we moved. What a process. I had beaucoups opportunity to practice patience, full presence, openness, and as our friend Susan Jeffers advises in her book Feel the Fear and Do It Anyway, "Just nod your head and say 'yes!' to life!" :-)

And one of the greatest things about living where we have a little space to breathe, a little land, is that we get to experience all sorts of cool natural things we wouldn't have noticed before. The most magical so far has been the hatching of two monarch butterflies...could there be a more quintessential metaphor?

We all know the story. The silly-looking green caterpillar chomps on everything in sight. Then somehow, it turns itself into a fairytale-looking cocoon, complete with gold trimmings! (Monarch catarpillars have great style!) After a few weeks, during which time secret and transformative things are happening within, it suddenly displays brilliant black and orange through its shell, and the next day, voila! Out flops a cumbersome monarch butterfly...fat bellied and small-winged. But oh, give it a few hours, and it transforms again into a gorgeous, brand-spankin' new adult butterfly, ready to take flight for Mexico, Florida or Texas. (Hey, after all that work, you'd want a vacation, too!)

So here we are, having witnessed this amazing feat...the transformation of a living thing from one state into a total other external state. But it's still the same thing, you know? That caterpillar had the butterfly fixin's inside of it all the time. It took work and time and lots of energy and rest, but holy butterflies, Batman! Look at the result! It can fly!

Where are you in this process, my friend? There are seeds of brilliant wings inside of you, right now, in this very moment. What's one way that you can reflect some of that brilliance on the outside? Find a place to start. Begin your transformation. And in just a few weeks' time, I'll see you on the updraft of the next breeze!