Soulful Coach

Lovely

For Theres:      thinking of You!

Quote for the Week - Rumi

....one cannot lodge in "if."

        Mevlana Rumi

Are you living in the "if's" and "when's"?  The magic in in the moment.

Sheila

 

Coaching for Those Who have Lost Jobs - 50% Off

Hello All!

During this trying economic tine, many folks are losing their jobs and this can be devastating.  Maybe for some of us this is a good time to re-assess what we want to do with our lives.

For the next 3 months, I am offering my coaching services at a significantly reduced rate for those who are looking for a new job or a new career. I will work with you until you find a new position for up to 1 year for a fee of $150 per month.  Typically, my fee is $300/month.

Please contact me via email if you would like to talk; I will look forward to it.

Namaste,

Sheila

What God Gave Us!

On the first day, God created dog and said:
"Sit all day by the door of your house and bark at anyone who comes in or walks past. For this, I will give you a life span of twenty years."
Dog said: "That's a long time to be barking. How about only ten years and I'll give you back the other ten?"
So God agreed.

On the second day, God created monkey and said:
"Entertain people, do tricks, and make them laugh. For this, I'll give you a twenty-year life span."
Monkey said: "Monkey tricks for twenty years? That's a pretty long time to perform. How about I give you back ten like Dog did?"
And God agreed.

On the third day, God created cow and said:
"You must go into the field with the farmer all day long and suffer under the sun, have calves and give milk to support the farmer's family. For this, I will give you a life span of sixty years."
Cow said: "That's kind of a tough life you want me to live for sixty years. How about twenty and I'll give back the other forty?"
And God agreed again.

On the fourth day, God created human and said:
"Eat, sleep, play, marry and enjoy your life. For this, I'll give you twenty years."
But human said: "Only twenty years? Could you possibly give me my twenty, the forty that cow gave back, the ten that monkey gave back, and the ten that dog gave back; that makes eighty, okay?"
"Okay," said God, "You asked for it."

So that is why for our first twenty years we eat, sleep, play and enjoy ourselves. For the next forty years we slave in the sun to support our family. For the next ten years we do monkey tricks to entertain the grandchildren. And for the last ten years we sit on the front porch and bark at everyone.

Quote for the Week - Kahlil Gibran

"Work is love made visible. And if you cannot work with love but only with distaste, it is better that you should leave your work and sit at the gate of the temple and take alms of those who work with joy. For if you break bread with indifference, you bake bitter bread that feeds but half a man’s hunger. And if you grudge the crushing of grapes, your grudge distils a poison in the wine. And if you sing though as angels, and love not the singing, you muffle man’s ears to the voices of the day and the voices of the night."

~ Kahlil Gibran, 20th century Syrian-born mystic poet, philosopher, and artist
from The Prophet.

Career Transition and Outplacement Coaching

Hello All!

During this trying economic tine, many folks are losing their jobs and this can be devastating.  Maybe for some of us this is a good time to re-assess what we want to do with our lives.

For the next 3 months, I am offering my coaching services at a significantly reduced rate for those who are looking for a new job or a new career. I will work with you until you find a new position for up to 1 year for a fee of $150 per month.  Typically, my fee is $300/month.

Please contact me via email if you would like to talk; I will look forward to it.

Namaste,

Sheila

Smile!

Check out this great picture:  Smile !!

While you are there, Kathleen would love to hear your thoughts!

Sheila

Quote for the Week - Another Emerson!

Emerson will show up often:

Tomorrow a stranger will say with masterly good sense precisely what we have thought and felt all the time, and we shall be forced to take with shame our own opinion from another.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

The Truth and Danger of the "secret"

I recently read "Tribes" by Seth Godin and I'm currently writing a review of it for a leadership community to which I belong. I'll post that review here also early next week.  It is a fabulous book!

While reading it, I realized that I was not being true to myself about a big issue that often comes up in my coaching practice and many other areas of my life.  I have kept silent on my views about the so-called "law" of attraction and the dangerous,insulting book that is called the secret.

Leadership is about taking a stand for something that one is passionate about and leading a group (or your tribe) towards change or growth, especially in the face of ridicule and rejection.  We must speak our truth so as not to be a hobgoblin as Emerson so eloquently said.

I am no longer holding back - ever.  Here are some thoughts about the so-called secret:

For me, this video was much more insulting than just cheesy.   It has its die-hard supporters who claim that it's changed their life and that everyone who disagrees is a fool, too closed-minded to see their One True Way. But if you're a fan of science or critical thinking, this film will honestly waste 90 minutes of your life. It presents self-help book authors who think they've got a mandate to tell other people how to live their lives. It presents two people who claim to be scientists talking about this great, monumental discovery of the "Law" of Attraction, but have yet to win a Nobel Prize for such earth-shattering work. It shamelessly cherry-picks quotes from a handful of famous people of the past and claims that they were all on board with this wonderful Secret (which explains why they got so rich and powerful).  Here is the “secret” in a nutshell: The movie first attempts to sucker its audience into believing it has some validity by first presenting the revolutionary concept that boils down to "a positive outlook on life makes you more pleasant and makes you experience your day better". Wow, truly ground-breaking, thanks! But much like any pseudo-science, it takes a common knowledge that people agree with and then springboards off it to draw ridiculous conclusions, namely that your mind is a beacon that continually communicates with the universe.  And, because the universe truly cares about you, just by asking and believing, it grants you everything you ever dream about: Wealth, power, fame. This is their law of attraction: What you think about.... happens. And every bit of negativity in your life is due to your negative thoughts and you could've avoided this negativity by simply wishing a little harder and being more positive.

And that's where the most offensive part of the film comes in because while such a point of view may not be too offensive for middle-class well-fed Americans and their worst problems (bills, heckling, lack of love), it's an incredible insult to anyone who has ever been through real suffering and negativity: The Jews of the Holocaust, the office workers of the World Trade Center, the starving kids in Africa, anyone who ever got killed in an earthquake, landslide, hurricane, tornado, etc. Suddenly the "avoid bad things by thinking positively" starts seeming ridiculous and yet it's a problem that needs to be addressed by these "experts" before pushing an infantile concept that claims to solve every human problem in the universe for more book/CD/DVD sales.

How do these people propose to solve such problems and prove their point? They treat their audience like children by showing examples of Aladdin with a Genie that says "Your wish is my command" to explain just how the universe actually functions. They paint a scenario where a boy wants a bicycle really badly and instead of asking his parents for it, saving his change, or opening up a lemonade stand, he merely cuts out a magazine clipping of the bike, concentrates really hard, wishes and wishes, and lo and behold, an old man one day appears at his door with a brand-new bike. Really!

Then they go on to show a guy who got paralyzed in an accident but due to some kind of unseen luck, makes a recovery and walks again. He claims this happened because he was always positive and wished that he could walk again. So the Secret really works! Not quite, especially when you consider the fact that most people who become paralyzed never make any recovery (Christopher Reeve apparently was positive enough to achieve fame and fortune but didn't wish hard enough to walk again after his accident). Again and again, the film insults victims of real misfortune by reducing the world's misery to trivial problems that can all be solved in the mind. It appeals to folks with no real troubles of their own as a cheap-fix self-help solution while I can't imagine what it must be like for victims of ACTUAL misfortune to sit there and be told that "it's all in your mind".

The movie is disgusting, ridiculous, ignorant, and self-centered. It gives the foolish an easy answer but glazes over a problem as complex as human misery with a childish fairy tale.

This book/video is very,very dangerous.  I have clients who are having a crisis in their lives that is very real and they blame themselves for "thinking negatively."  I will no longer sit back so as to not "offend" those who actually adopt this nonsense and inflict it on others.  I will speak out against it every chance I get.

Namaste,
Sheila

 

In Times of Change, Wild Magic is Afoot

This newsletter is from an author whose book played a significant role in following my vision of my life.  Tama’s words were exactly what I needed to hear today.  I wanted to share it with all of you.  You can subscribe to her newsletter at:

  http://www.awakeningartistry.com/index.php

 

Tama's Musings

In Times of Change, Wild Magic is Afoot

(Note: This article originally appeared as the lead article in the Fall Catalog for the Kripalu Center for Yoga and Health)

Change, in all shapes and sizes, can definitely bring out our deepest fears--but it also offers us vital encounters with the bountiful magic of life...

We live in crackling times. Change seems to electrify the air, in our individual lives and in the world. The media reports sad stories, dark messages, dire predictions and warnings. Hope is rarely broadcasted from the channels of the mainstream. Rowdy angels rattle our cubicles and turn our retirement accounts upside down—and they will get our attention. But the challenges of our time will spur new and remarkable solutions. The oyster produces its jewels in response to sand. Agitation gives birth to transformation.

I invite you to consider that in times of change, wild magic is afoot.

For most of us going through change, fear pounds on our door. Yet, this discomfort brings an invitation to awaken our passion and aliveness like never before. Something larger wants to express itself in our lives. Pain often nudges our growth or illuminates where we have been holding back on our true selves. Most of us seem to need a pinch of desperation to awaken our honesty and inspiration. As poet David Whyte says, "Absent the edge, we drown in numbness."

Still, when you hit your edge, numbness looks like Shangri-la. When it happened to me, I remember feeling as though I couldn't breathe. My whole world felt like one of those Salvador Dali paintings, where normal reality begins to drip and arc in unnatural ways. I had been a rising star in the litigation department of an elite, big-city law firm. I had graduated from Harvard Law School with honors and with grand expectations about my future security. I had consciously avoided the flimsy foot bridge of risk, but deep down, I knew I wanted to become a writer. I chose law instead because I wanted financial free dom, baubles, and safety—but I hadn't counted on the ruthless mercy of the soul. I didn't know that you can only avoid yourself for so long before the truth hits the fan.

I never imagined that my life could get so out of control (and I certainly never imagined that I'd eventually bless the day it did). But I found myself sitting at a beach in California, watching the waves and realizing I didn't want to live anymore. I couldn't bear to practice law in that office one more day. But I also refused to leave my job, my identity, my income, and everything I knew. Of course, I was fighting the inevitable. The soul's true desire has infinite strength. The creative part of me, the one I had always considered weak, frivolous, and negligible, had the power to bring about depression, rage, and even the willingness to die. I felt helpless and stripped of all my previous powers to function. In the end it was my vulnerability that gave rise to my greatest freedom and joy. I stopped defending the life that was caving in. I let the last precious scraps fall from my hands. Now I was available to spirit. Just a few weeks later, without a viable plan or income, I walked out of my safe career and into the next phase of my life.

I found it absolutely terrifying to walk into the unknown. I didn't care how many spiritual books said peace would come from letting go of control. I read every one of them with clenched white knuckles. "You will find your way," said my therapist. She clearly had me confused with someone lucid and resourceful. Still I came for more sessions. It felt important to hear these reassuring messages.

Gradually I found my way, or more accurately "the way" found me, breath by breath, as it always does. I wrote about this journey in my first book, This Time I Dance! Creating the Work You Love. The alchemy of change had tempered my fear into absolute wonder, and I wrote: "I've become someone who trusts that though I feel as fragile as a flaming leaf in autumn, I house the capacity of a tidal wave, a meteor shower, a white tornado of inspiration. I've become someone who believes that every human being has a tornado just beneath the skin and that we are meant to live our dreams so that we can discover that natural force within us that blows constriction away."

For years now, I've taught personal-growth seminars, stirred audiences, led retreats, and coached thousands. I have often witnessed this astounding alchemy in others. In unsettling periods, courageous individuals begin to discover that there is more to life than what they think they're losing. They turn to new ways of seeing, being, and relating to their experience. Uncertainty gives them permission and motivation to examine their present life and delve deeper into their own extraordinary mystical and creative reserves. In This Time I Dance!, I explained, "Because I had to search for a sense of safety beyond dollar, privilege, and approval, I inherited the ultimate trust fund. I learned to trust in my own resources and the startling generosity of life. You will, too. And, there is no other security."

Like many, I am still tempted to contract with fear during times of distress within our world, and within my personal circumstances. I find my mind whirring away with "What if this happens?" or "What if that happens?" I search for wisdom and strategy through the lens of limitation. But I know better. As Albert Einstein said, "One cannot solve a problem at the level of the problem." I know my distraught identity will recede into the night sky. To embody new answers and perspectives, I will grow new muscles, read new books, mend wounds and memories, ignite new fires, and take bold steps. Nietzsche says, "It takes chaos to give birth to a rising star." A different self will walk into that different life. Ultimately, that's the service provided by the challenge.

Here's what you need to know: There will be stepping stones, places of safety and clarity on which to stand. More than that, it's actually all solid ground, consistent safety appearing as terror in your imagination. It's solid ground upheld by a net. The net is woven with velvet, roses, and diamonds and governed by a band of mighty angels. The angels have support teams. And the support teams have backups and tech support in India. Love is always with you. Love helped you create that job or marriage or bank account in the first place. It will help you create whatever you need this time, too.

Yes, there is wild abundant magic afoot. The woods stir with howls. The world is restless. Part of me is now eager to witness the genius and healing that is evolving on the planet. Change will bring new responses. More of us will now give birth to the divine qualities within us that we ignored while answering e-mails. We are resourceful and beautiful beyond our imagination.

In her book The Gift of Change, Marianne Williamson says, "I think we stand between two historic ages, when a critical mass of the human race is trying to detach from its obedience to fear-based thought systems. We want to cross over to someplace new." Later, she writes, "As we cross the bridge to a more loving orientation, as we learn the lessons of spiritual transformation and apply them in our personal lives, we will become agents of change on a tremendous scale."

This is what I know: You have barely scratched the surface of your true strength. Your love is your light in shadow times. You have tremendous and unique gifts to offer us. Fear whispers to you about scarcity and guarding your limited resources. But you don't have limited resources. There are only finite assets in the known world. But now we are walking into the unknown. We have new abundance to discover and explore. It's not about clinging to the old sources of power that once sustained us. It's about launching into the inspired capacities, passions, and vitality we have always longed to express.

I'd like to offer you three helpful touchstones when facing the unknown:

Stay in the present moment: Your mind may torture you about choices you made in the past. The present moment can heal the past. Your mind may fly into agitations about the future. This present moment creates your future. Focus on this moment only. You are safe right now.

Do something you love: Write a song, work in the garden, or talk to a good friend. You activate different brain chemistry when having fun or expressing creativity. A loving and inspired mind bubbles with new perspectives and possibilities.

Strengthen your connection to the Divine: You are not alone on this journey. Remember a time when you felt loved, safe, or at peace in any way. That loving force that surrounded you then surrounds you now. Step up your commitment to meditate, pray, walk in nature, visit a spiritual mentor, or anything that feeds your experience of connection and guidance.

Finally, know that when you feel insecure and inadequate, all is well. You're right on track. Transformation defies your imagination. A mother doesn't have to understand or even trust the birth process to give birth. Your next expression wants to be born. Great and mighty forces marshal their strength around you. It's your time. You're one of the brave encountering the new frontier. Change may wear a wolf suit. Still, don't be fooled. It's wild, abundant magic knocking on your door