Sacred Path Coaching » Creativity

The Pursuit of Happiness

Lynn — Fri, 09 Feb 2007 20:48:35 +0000

(recently posted at www.lifebeforebusiness.com)

The big buzz film this year isn’t “Babel” isn’t “The Departed” and not even “The Queen”, the big buzz film isn’t even in the movie theaters, in fact it was introduced to the world on the internet. The film I’m talking about is, of course, “The Secret” which you can find at www.thesecret.tv. I’ve certainly had a process digesting the suggestions from The Secret and as a result another Coach and I will be offering a retreat the weekend of April 27-29 called, “Beyond the Secret” to share what we’ve learned. What we have realized is although there were many messages in the film that were excellent and reinforced our understanding of how the world works they only skimmed the top of the pot and did not delve into the ingredients of the recipe to creating the life we really want. I further understood that although it is wonderful to dream big and dance around with lofty ideas, at some point I have to get after the business of making my life happen. In other words, I need to figure out and delineate the steps to creating the stairs so that I can reach the stars of my dreams.
During early February, I attended a two-day “Turning Point” seminar taught by Brian Bufini (www.brianbufini.com) who has created an excellent coaching program for Realtors, Lenders, Mortgage Brokers and anyone else in the business of real estate. After the seminar, I felt inspired to get after the business of coaching and to creating a program with helpful systems in place so that I can offer this value to my clients.
It was fascinating to experience the Bufini Seminar and to see how he sold his business and services throughout the weekend with confidence and aplomb, leaving me with the genuine feeling of being helped and wanting to find ways that I could afford their services. Now that’s great sales any way you cut it!
In my own Coaching business, the hardest thing for me to do is to have a conversation with someone to discover if they have considered using a Coach and then to ask them to please consider using me when and if they do. The more I allowed the fear of these kinds of discussions to grow the more I created great excuses as to why I didn’t need to have them and the more business I continued to not attract. After watching The Secret multiple times I became more distressed because I was missing the steps concerning how to manifest the life I really wanted. One of the ideas that Brian shared during the seminar that really hit home for me is that it isn’t the winning where we find the happiness, but it is in the “pursuit of happiness” that we find our greatest joy. That was the missing link for me, to understand what the pursuit of happiness was for me and how to go about crafting that for my business.
The “A-ha” was I could sit in my comfy chair and think about what I wanted to attract into my life but in order for me to feel happy about what I’d attracted into my life, I had to feel happy in the process of their pursuit first.
This is a fresh way for me to look at my business: instead of thinking of the end goal, to consider the pursuit and ponder how to be happy in this pursuit. What does your pursuit of happiness look like today?

Allowing Your Fingertips to Touch the Stars

Lynn — Fri, 28 Jul 2006 18:44:41 +0000

Every other week a group of men and women from all walks of faith and various nations come together for “Heartfelt Conversations” to discuss what is on our hearts. This week one gem I took with me was from a Spiritual minister from the Sufi tradition. She said that there is the belief that if we allowed the spirit within our bodies to stretch and expand as far as it was capable, we would be able to reach for and touch the stars above us.

Wow. What an idea! That concept immediately made me look around at the people next to me (as well as at myself) in a much different way. I could really “see” that we were much bigger than the little physical body that we inhabit called our “Earth Suit”. I was able to apply this information by giving encouragement to a good friend who was feeling very “less than” the other day. She’s an amazing writer and gifted story teller as well as a very supportive friend to me and a loving wife and mother to her family. Yet, she found herself within a “doubt-cloud” yesterday wondering if she had offended people with her “knowing so much”, feeling like she couldn’t fit in any group and doubting that anyone understands where she is coming from.

I reminded her of the story of our spirit bodies stretching out to touch the stars and encouraged her to s-t-r-e-t-c-h to her full capacity. Yes she is talented; yes she knows alot and guess what? She has a huge heart and cares very much for others. The “Madonna nurturer” that she is obvious. Others know she cares.

I suspect this “doubt-cloud” came to visit when a very successful CEO that she had befriended recently invited her to take a look at their marketing plans and give her two cents. She is to look over what they have and get back with the higher ups of the very successful marketing team and tell them what she sees and speak the truth, all with this CEO’s blessings. Almost immediately she began doubting herself, not so much doubting her knowledge but doubting how her knowledge and assessment would be received by the team. Do guys go through this? I seem to hear about these “doubt clouds” more often from women.

Anyway, I shared with her that the very successful CEO would not have asked her for her opinion and to share her insights with his team unless he believed in her capabilities and what she could do. Yes, perhaps this team could have hired a team of “experts” to give their insights about their plans, but the CEO had (very wisely) automatically given her the key to his kingdom by bypassing the tedious process of finding experts to look over their marketing story, by giving his blessings to my friend.

Awesome. I encouraged her to trust the CEO’s judgment and to go for it and stretch her arms to the stars and beyond, to be who she is and to celebrate the opportunity to help others with her wisdom and insights. Besides, it’s not our business what other people think about us.

What stars are you going to stretch towards today?

Creative Bubble

Lynn — Wed, 05 Jul 2006 17:36:56 +0000

All the personality trait assessments that I’ve ever taken say that I’m a creative person. I sure didn’t agree with this assessment because I couldn’t see where I was creative since I don’t have a home full of paintings or sculptures of art that I’ve created nor are there any published books (yet). So I just assumed that being labeled “creative” was a politically correct way of saying that I can think in many, many directions (read: ADHD!). I didn’t feel like I truly deserved being called creative because, I felt that I had nothing to show for it.
Over time; I am learning to view the idea of being creative from other perspectives. For most of my life, I have kept all my creativity sequestered up inside my head not letting it out except in mad dash sparks of insight. I’d like to share one of these insights regarding being creative with the hope that it is helpful for you.
Since I don’t have evidence of my creative process strewn about my home in a myriad of paints and papers, I have had to slow down and try to understand what it looks like to be creative via thoughts and then understand how to express that creativity. One of the ways I do this is by writing (thank God for the Blog!).
For the past two days I’ve been driving around looking at homes with my little brother who wants to move to Texas from California. It’s been a crazy whirlwind tour of 15-20 homes per day. My brother had been running under the belief that he and his fiancée had to buy a home within the short time they were visiting Texas. They have since come to realize that maybe they’d be better off renting first and getting the feel for Austin before they jump into buying a home.
I noticed during this time of driving around with them that my brain felt like it was stuffed with clouds. I did not seem able to put a cohesive sentence together regarding much of anything except, “turn here”. This experience of being in a cloud bank was very familiar to me. I’ve felt this way many times throughout my life. I’ve judged myself pretty harshly about it as well. What I’m coming to understand today is that perhaps the “Cloud Bank” feeling is my creative bubble process. I have this same feeling just before many inspired subjects to write about come out through my fingertips.
I believe all of us creative types need time to assimilate the amazing amount of information we receive every day. Our brains need time to play around with the pieces in order to come up with the best way to express our feelings and thoughts. This process may look different for each of us, but I bet for the most part how we feel during our down time is similar. Some of us mask it with drugs, alcohol, people, and diversions. Some of us sleep. Some of us feel really, really “stuck” and wonder where the heck our muse went during this time. It’s all part of our process when we’re experiencing being in the creative bubble. The challenge is to understand that we’re in our bubble and find ways to honor that time, to give ourselves the chance to rebuild.
Lately, I’ve been making it a point to run consistently. I’ve been an avid runner in my past but over the past three years I’ve really let it go. This morning I only ran for 35 minutes, but I could feel my mind throwing out all kinds of ideas with each step that I took. I know that moving my body is a great way for me to move my mind.
What ways have you discovered to help yourself rebuild?