Sacred Path Coaching » Heart Talks

Living and Dying Well Today

Lynn — Sun, 08 Jul 2007 16:36:21 +0000

The longer I live the more I realize that not only is it important for us to learn how to live well, it is also important for us to learn how to die well too. I’ve written before about how a good friend of mine invited our group of friends to know him even more intimately as a friend after he was diagnosed as being HIV Positive. We were all given the privilege of walking through the day to day “being-ness” with our friend Norbert as he faced living and dying. One of the biggest lessons I learned was that each person gets to trip the light fantastic to their death as they see fit. It is not for me or any other loved one of theirs to put our beliefs, inspirations and fear onto them. We can share, of course, our own experience, strength and hope but in the final outcome how a person chooses to live and die is their own personal choice.

I’m glad I was given that gift of insight out of my friend Norbert’s experience especially after receiving a phone call early this morning from another good friend that a series of misdiagnosis and readings had shown that instead of having old pneumonia in his lungs and then later being told that it was Stage I Cancer that it had turned out to really be Stage IV Aden carcinoma Lung Cancer.

This may seem like an odd topic to write about for a Coach that specializes in career transition and helping vintage rockers express their music in a new way and helping troubled teens hear the calm in their hearts, but if you think about it, isn’t living and dying all something that we’re doing and going to do at some point in our journey here on Planet Earth?

I love to write about “taboo” subjects (such as death and dying) because I want to give readers and writers a safe place to feel their feelings and realize that they (we) are not alone. This death thing just doesn’t have to be as macabre as some would like to make it out to be. I’m grateful that my friend called me this morning to tell me about his diagnosis and that he shared with me how he told his twelve year old daughter. He walked her through his process of going into the hospital for the lung biopsy and then the first diagnosis from the doctors that they were 99% sure that it was something such as old pneumonia, and then that they had misdiagnosed him and that it did look like a treatable form of Lung Cancer and finally he told her about the latest diagnosis using the formal name for the cancer without giving her the “C” word (on purpose because she liked figuring out big words) which allowed her understanding to unfold so that she could say, “My father has cancer” to the nurses in the dining room during lunch. What I loved most about my friend’s handling of this with his daughter was she was given the space and time to understand and then an open heart from her dad to talk about it. After spending the day at the hospital with her dad and step-mom, she told her mom about her Dad having Cancer during the car ride home and then talked about what that was like with her father later on that evening on the phone. She ended their phone conversation by telling her Dad that she wanted to finish the Harry Potter book that she was reading and would call him before she went to bed so that he could sing her to sleep (I must confess when he told me this last part, I did have tears streaming down my face!).

I don’t know what tomorrow is going to look like for my friend but today I feel subdued but calm knowing that I can show my love for his family and him today. Of course there is the natural instinct in me to want to “fight” this thing, and I am very willing to stand by whatever decision my friend makes in regards to handling his prognosis, but right now I am going to surrender into the peace and quiet of trusting something bigger than myself. It is times like this that I believe we can let that unseen love enfold us without having to name it. Likewise, I can let the feelings happen when they happen.

This morning my adolescent cats were in an especially loving mood scratching at the window of our door for me to come out and love on them. So I did. Now I’m going to go do the dishes and make up new hummingbird food for the feeders and tomorrow I’m going to prepare a delicious meal to take to my friend for lunch and dinner.

Are you living and dying well today?

Desensitization, Detachment and Virginia Tech

Lynn — Mon, 23 Apr 2007 21:40:26 +0000

To all family, friends, and people affected by the horrific and sad shootings at

Virginia Tech, please accept my heartfelt sympathy. I know that I am joined by many others who are keeping you in their thoughts and prayers.

With that said, I’ve been putting off writing about how the shootings affected me because I did not want to add to all the hype and gander that is already going on about it and because my initial reaction was NOT what I had expected to feel. Being an extremely intuitive person, I’m used to “getting” insights and a heightened sense of awareness before incidents like the one at VT occurs—often weeks before. This time not only did I not intuit anything but as the events unfolded I had no feelings about it. I’m a very caring person and since my initial non-feeling bubble, have had many insights but the initial non-feeling sensation really caught me off guard. I checked with many of my friends to find out how they reacted and found out that there were many very caring, spiritual people who had the same initial reaction as I did which was the absence of intense emotion.

After listening and reading some of the news about VT, what was revealed to me was the seemingly collective response of not wanting to fan the fire of the media. The way that many of the people from Blacksburg handled this event, showed a majority of caring and thinking people who wanted to respect the event and all its complexities without the media circus. I am inspired by the people who have been writing and communicating under the mass media radar through www.facebook.com

At first glance, I wondered if what “we” were experiencing en-mass was desensitization towards violence. How many of us wake up to NPR in the morning with the latest recount of a suicide bomber event? But someone very close to me noted that as listened to me she could hear anger under my numbness and upon closer inspection I realized that I was angry about our ignorance of mental illness and how to handle it fairly and successfully. I was angry about gun control (a rifle I can see, an automatic weapon—why?) and last but not least watching the story unfold in the media bit by bit as every one tried to become THE source for facts about the VT shootings.

In many of my spiritual teachings I have learned that it is important to be able to detach with love. It seems that in order for me (and you) to be effective, we’ve got to be able to get our personal spin out of the mix so that we can detach from the intense reaction in order to respond thoughtfully. It’s about being able to feel and yet not getting run over by our feelings.

I am very hopeful about the kind of ideas and actions that will come out of this horrific event. I heard one student interviewed who responded, “What can we learn from the Amish shootings”. One thing that we can do right now is to have difficult conversations such as what I’m admitting to you here and be willing to talk with each other about what is really going on.

As the great Coaching guru Thomas Leonard used to say, “Be real be human”.

(recently posted at www.lifebeforebusiness.com)

How to Use Creativity When Your Brain is Stuck!

Lynn — Wed, 11 Apr 2007 23:33:49 +0000

During a coaching session today a particularly talented client discovered how he could teach his very powerful brain to get out of the way of his heart so that he could recognize feelings when they occurred by using the awareness of life lessons to inspire his art. Over the course of the last few sessions, this client said that he wanted to get into the practice of journaling, yet his in-action each week indicated otherwise.

Like most of us with good brains figuring out how to survive in a dysfunctional world, this client had learned how to crawl right up inside of his brain (like the little man operating the body in the movie, “Men in Black”) and shut off any and all painful feelings that occurred as protection. Beginning at an early age, he’d gotten the message that being an artist was not a “worthy” effort and so he’d dismissed any of his gorgeous drawings and paintings as being par-for-the-course and shut out any possibility of deriving real creative release through his art (much less acknowledgement from others). Now at forty-something, he’s climbing his way out of a deep depression and learning how to re-program his excellent mind to become receptive for the receipt of acknowledgements and compliments about his artwork.

In addition to being a gifted artist, he also has a fabulous sense of humor (I might add, a bit satirical too in a lovely-hitting-your-funny-bone way), so he is now going to teach his brain to become aware of opportunities for utilizing his creativity to explain what he is feeling when a life event occurs. In other words, instead of going with the knee jerk reaction to T H I N K his way out of a feeling when something intense happens, he’s going to channel that energy into his art as a way to turn on his heart so that he can feel.

I realized during our session that a great mind is only as good as we train it to be. Sometimes, when we are left to our own devices, a smart brain can turn in on itself. If we think of our brain as just one of the many wonderful tools that we were gifted with in this life, then we can view teaching our brains a new way of looking at something as “taking our brains through obedience school”. Like any of the working dog breeds, our brains need a job. If we’ve allowed our brains to run amok, then it’s going to take some time to teach ourselves how to pay attention to how we’ve been thinking and how we want to direct our brains to think in a new way. Like any new puppy, with consistency our brains will adapt and learn new behavior.

No matter how great your brain is, YOU are more than your brain. You’re also more than your heart. I believe that we are spiritual beings having a human experience. Based on that belief, what responsibility will you take for how you think and feel today?

Go fetch!

(recently posted at www.lifebeforebusiness.com)

Our Transforming World

Lynn — Wed, 28 Mar 2007 20:05:16 +0000

(recently posted at www.lifebeforebusiness.com)

Yesterday I received The Institute of Noetic Sciences’ 2007 Shift Report with the title, “Evidence of a World Transforming” and a quote by Willis Harman (Global Mind Change), “We are living through one of the most fundamental shifts in history—a change in the actual belief structure of Western society. No economic, political, or military power can compare with the power of a change of mind. By deliberately changing their images of reality, people are changing the world.”

John O’Dea, President of IONS says, “This report is about the whole-scale change from an unsustainable way of life—mired in the contradictions of dogmatic religion and secular political power and fueled by rampant profiteering and the coercion of science—to one in which both science and spirituality reconfigure our most basic understandings of human consciousness and how to live harmoniously in a healthy and sustainable ecosphere. To paraphrase William Faulkner, it is our destiny to not only survive but to thrive.”

As an extremely intuitive person, “knowing” that our world is transforming yet being unable to communicate well with facts can be very frustrating. Because of all the research and work that IONS does to bring the evidence of world transformation to us, I am eternally grateful. Two things hit me this morning as I was reading the newspaper, the first idea was that even though the economy appears to be slowing down, perhaps this is an indication that humans are becoming more conscious of how we are spending our money and for what purpose and the second thought was how could I write about the economy slowing down as being a good thing for readers who are in their own business and who may be affected greatly. If you believe, like I do, that we are all connected consciously on some level then perhaps you can see that when a large human collective begins to shift into a new behavior pattern or thought process that it warrants our paying attention to it.

What if we chose to view the purported slowing down of the U.S. economy as an indication that our collective human consciousness is ready to do things differently? What if we chose to believe that this is the time, right now, for us to sit up and pay attention to our values and take action on how we want to show up as human beings so that together we can make differences in the results of things to come?

If not now, then when?

Dive Into the Deep

Lynn — Wed, 14 Mar 2007 14:36:46 +0000

(recently posted at www.lifebeforebusiness.com)

Whenever possible, a group of us love to take scuba diving vacations. One vivid image burned into my mind is of our friend Vickie who enjoys swimming out past a wall dive at 70-80 feet and hanging out over the deep. With her arms and legs out to her sides in complete trust and abandon, Vickie hangs out in the middle of the deep enjoying the array of blue colors and the blissful feeling of trust and love. Often times a huge tortoise, or other interesting fish, will swim out of the deep blue that she may have missed if she had stayed close to the wall with the rest of us.

This image of Vickie swimming peacefully in the deep blue popped into my head last week after I had a miserable dance with failure. I do not like failure and will go to great lengths to avoid it, but I realize that failure is part of the business of being human. It is not the failure that defines us, but what we do with it. I know that when I am willing to dive deep into the middle of whatever I am calling “a failure” and hang out with my feelings and thoughts that the pearl of wisdom will eventually appear.

Last week I failed when I took a written and practical exam towards getting FCC Certified to become a programmer and qualify to have my own show. I dismissed the reality of having huge test anxiety and that when I let anxiety take over I cannot remember the question much less the answer. Then after learning that I failed the written portion, I completely locked up when it came to the practical test of running the board and systems. Most of the people taking the test had been on the boards for months previous to the actual test, yet I had given myself only two days. The good news is that in three weeks I can re-take both of these tests.

What I learned from this event after failing spectacularly and diving deep into the middle so that I could find the lessons was:

1.) Arrogance about my gift of intuition and using the right side of my brain prevented me from slowing down and paying attention when I needed to be methodical, logical and using my atrophying left brain;

2.) Pride kept me from asking questions from other volunteers during my apprenticeship over the past year to find out how I could get access to the boards and systems to learn them well before the tests;

3.) The “monsters” of shame still live deep within me when it comes to failing but I have a choice as to whether I let them take the helm or whether I can accept the reality of what is and change what I am able to change.

4.) All great and successful people in life fail at one time or another and so I’m interviewing the heck out of all the successful people I know to discover how they have used failure to propel them into success.

For me, diving into the deep of failing and being willing to hang out until the pearl of wisdom surfaces seems like an antidote to wallowing in failure. I want to live within success and I suspect that living within success means being willing to dive into the deep of our failings so that we can learn and transform them into successes.

Dive into the deep, it’s a lovely place to hang out when we can trust the process.

A Different Kind of Blue

Lynn — Tue, 16 Jan 2007 23:59:37 +0000

Off and on for most of my life I have suffered from depression. It has shown up in a myriad of ways from melancholy and to lethargy. Luckily, I’ve been blessed with a lot of good therapy, various 12-step programs and spiritual explorations not to mention medicines and foods to help me along the way. I’ve learned to recognize when I am beginning to create a rut for myself and how to shift my perspective out of it. One of the most helpful suggestions I have received is to focus on what I feel grateful about. For a person battling depression, feeling nothing but dark can be difficult, but with all the help that I’ve described above and my creative mind, I have come up with one idea that has helped me and that I hope may be helpful for you when you want to “feel” grateful.In Austin we have a park that winds its way around a river in the center of town. I have lived in this city for 26 years and have driven down one of the roads that cuts right through the park many times but on this particular day I was feeling especially peaceful. I was able to appreciate the glinting sun on the tall Pecan Trees that line the road and that the air was light and comfortable. In that moment I began to pretend that I was having a conversation with an angel. I wanted to understand the angel’s perspective on this day. From my perspective I believed that the angel had extraordinary powers and came from a time and/or place graced with beauty that we can’t comprehend. Even with all this however, the angel was not able to see, feel, taste or hear things on our plane like we can. I pretended that this angel was telling me how lucky I was to be a human so that I could see just how the sun glinted off the leaves so that the whole tree shimmered in the breeze. I saw how lucky I was to be able to feel the breezes as they blew through the hair on my skin. I became grateful that I could smell the new grass bursting forth from the ground.

I’ve taken this insight with me and used it when I am feeling especially pitiful to help me get to a place where I can be grateful. For me and my sometimes dark brain, it is a much healthier idea to focus on all that I have and all that I can enjoy than to go down the path of what I don’t. All of this isn’t to say that it is not okay for us to have feelings of being down and blue—I believe these are necessary for us to feel the textures of life—but after you’ve talked with someone about your feelings or written them down or meditated on them, than look around you and try seeing your world from a different perspective.

Choosing the Intent to Focus on for the Next 365 Days

Lynn — Mon, 01 Jan 2007 18:54:58 +0000

(recently published at www.lifebeforebusiness.com)

If there is a way for me to take a benign positive movie such as “The Secret” and turn it into a rocket ship fueled by neurosis to ponder and argue within my head about every positive point made in the movie—then I have done it. I conducted this “mind dance” for several months before I realized that I had caught myself up inside of a hopeless spiral with no end in sight.

Something inside of me broke loose with this awareness and prescribed for me to step gently back away from the movie for a bit so that I could gain perspective. Gone were the 45 minute jogs with me thanking the Universe for things that I wanted to bring into my life. I stopped questioning what I was doing wrong when the large amount of money that I was thankful for every day did not appear. After many days of allowing myself time to just chill, I revisited “The Secret” once again and asked myself what was one important point that I could implement into the New Year and it was this:

Instead of focusing on what I DON’T want; to focus on what I DO want

I think of this as a form of spiritual Tai Chi on gratitude for what I do have in my life.

Focusing on what I want seems so simple upon reading or hearing it for the first time, yet I’ve recognized that for all my boundless joy that really deep inside of me lives a very dark and sarcastic being. I am not going to throw the baby out with the bath water and completely disown this part of me, after all it has supplied me with the energy for numerous articles, but I do see how it is second nature for me to know instantly what I don’t want and much harder for me to think about what I do want in my life. This even in a world of countless choices from the specific way that I want my coffee brewed and served to a deli sandwich.

My very rudimentary understanding of neuro-linguistic programming tells me that if I continue to catch my negative dislikes and replace them with my spoken likes, then the worst I will get is to have a more positive perspective on life. I’m dummying down my wants to the very basics by trying to catch my “don’t want” words before they come out of my mouth and reframe them into what I do want when they are spoken. Who knows, maybe I’ll be able to attract those things that I really want into my life.

For this New Year take a tip from me and instead of coming up with a huge list of goals that cause you to feel sick to your stomach six months into the year when you’ve barely accomplished two, find one intent that you are willing to focus on daily for the next 365 days. Who knows, you just may surprise yourself with the results.

An Extra Serving of Gratitude….please!

Lynn — Wed, 22 Nov 2006 20:48:42 +0000

(currently posted at www.lifebeforebusiness.com)

I’m a citizen of the great ole U.S. of A. which means that during this time of year, “we” celebrate Thanksgiving. At this time, most of us gather with family and friends to give thanks for the country that we are blessed to live within.

No matter what my political leanings may be, I am grateful to those men and women who are serving our country with the intention of bringing a better future for those people less fortunate then ourselves. Thank you for your time, your energy and your hearts.

I must admit that for many years now I have felt very cynical during this time of year. The meaning of many of the holidays that I celebrate seemed to have become so contrived that, over time, all I saw was dollar signs behind the messages. I noticed that I had become a person who found it much easier to slide into a negative way of looking at things. Yet, in many of the spiritual teachings I have studied, what I know to be true is. whatever way I perceive my reality to be, is exactly how reality will be. When I focus on the negative aspects of life, I see more negative aspects of life. It’s as if the Universe conspires to prove that this world is indeed a rotten world in which to be alive.

As a result, I decided to try the reverse and put a bit of effort into my perception of the world. I decided to focus on those things that I can be grateful for in my life. I started simply by being grateful that I could breathe, being grateful for hot water, being grateful for good nutritious food for my breakfast. On my morning run, I thanked the Universe for the Cardinals singing in the trees, for my shoes that were still holding up, and for my knees after covering many miles on pavement! My mind started getting punch-drunk on the gratitude I found, and I was grateful for such things as the grass along the road that had decayed to a perfect shade of gold for the sun to glint off magnificently.

The point is that when I can put a little bit of effort into being grateful for my life—no matter how much it may suck at the moment—I end up “feeling” gratitude. My cynical brain knows that I am blessed to be alive.

Sometimes, as I am revving up my gratitude engine, I find the need to express my deepest yet most cynical side. For example, this morning, our beloved aged dog chose to lay in our entry way instead of being in his usual post right next to my head as I practiced the sun salutation. I was able to complete a full series of sun salutations as the scent of the apple and cinnamon candle wafted through the air (further was my gratitude that both of the dogs allowed me to complete the set before they descended on me with 200 pounds of happy licking dog energy knocking me to and fro!).

Whatever your reason for finding something to be grateful for today, I encourage you to find it. Put your focus on what is good in your life and more good will come your way. I’m grateful that you are out there, and that you’ve chosen to read this blog!! May many blessings flow your way!

Hummingbird Wings

Lynn — Tue, 29 Aug 2006 17:28:55 +0000

Did you know that an adult Hummingbird’s size is almost equivalent to a leaf on a Crepe Myrtle tree? It’s that time of the year again when our back porch becomes the Hummingbird depot for various flocks and varieties of Hummers sporting ruby throats, emerald green bodies and spots of black and white. If you’re not familiar with Hummingbirds, don’t let the docile paintings that you see in various arts and crafts stores fool you–these are feisty mammer jammers and they mean business!

What’s the point of me talking about Hummingbirds? That I’ve managed to carve out a space in my life to sit still long enough to notice that they are the size of the Crepe Myrtle leaf and to watch their behavior as they dart back and forth from one feeder to the next. For those of us who are creative, giving ourselves something completely different to focus on is such a good thing for our minds. Besides, these guys are hilarious too! They talk back and forth in these little buzzing bird chirps that I swear you can almost make out bird cursing if you listen close enough. I just love them.

Even if you live in the middle of a big bustling city, you can go someplace and give yourself some time to just chill out and notice what’s going on. Become curious about the “human animal” behavior. If you can only sit there and watch people as they are walking to and fro, it’s a great way for you to let go of your thoughts and let your mind out to play. What do you notice that is similar about everyone? What is different? How do people that wear red behave as opposed to people who wear black or white?

If you live where you can get out in the countryside, then consider yourself blessed. There is so much to observe out there. One time I was sitting on our back porch talking with my mom on one of our marathon calls. As I looked out at the field to the side of our house, I noticed a disturbance in the grass and it definitely wasn’t a bunny or a squirrel! I kept looking only to discover a huge tortoise that was bigger than an army helmet lumbering across our lawn! I know for sure that I would have missed this guy if I hadn’t been sitting as long as I had staring in the same direction.

Become curious about the world around you. Give yourself a mini-retreat and let your mind flow into a completely different direction then the work that is staring you in your face, for just ten or twenty minutes and then return to the work at hand. Bet you find some renewed energy that you were not expecting.

Listen for the Hummingbird wings of life.

Expand Your Horizons-part deux!

Lynn — Sat, 12 Aug 2006 15:13:09 +0000

Consultants from around the world coming into Austin, I can see where my friend may have had a point. We are each diplomats of our own country. More importantly we are diplomats of the human race. Through the years I’ve come to know many peoples from India and have queried them (as much as they would allow!) about their experience being Indian. What does that mean to them? How has being born in different areas of India impacted them? What are their beliefs? Same with people from other countries such as Pakistan, China, Australia, New Zealand, England, South Africa, Viet Nam. The list is endless. The questions are too! The most valuable gift I received from a Cultural Discrimination class was to ask people their experience of being them–don’t assume you know, because you don’t.
Over the past several months I’ve had the blessed opportunity to meet many people from countries that I had not been exposed, namely Uganda, Iran and Afghanistan. Thursday evening I was invited to the home of one of these women for a gathering of the Board for Act Women in Austin Texas. One of their members has been living in China for the past 18 months and had slides and stories to share with the group. Many of the women gathered are of the Baha’i faith. What I was most impressed with was their loving kindness and beauty (both inner and outer). I also met photographer Peggy Kelsey who had a selection of beautiful photos made into cards from her Afghanistan Women’s Project. If I had relied on the broad sweeps that are made in the media about these countries, I may have allowed my fears to get in the way of finding out for myself how some of the people are from these countries.
In reflecting back to the idea that business will be the vessel for world peace, I know that many successful business people have learned over time the necessity of understanding and being able to communicate and relate with the cultures in other countries. I’m sure we have offended many times in our ignorance much less in our politics. One of my favorite questions to ask people from other countries, once we’ve established a rapport, is how “we” Americans from the U.S., come across to them. Sometimes I’m very proud of whom we are and other times, not so much.
Expanding our horizons through getting to know other ways of being both internally and externally is always a good practice. It causes our thinking to deepen and our opinions to become more flexible.
How are you going to expand your horizons today? It can begin with one conversation.
Because my father was a diplomat and my mother loved to explore and understand different cultures, I was exposed to many ways of being from a young age. I’m so grateful that I was given this gift of horizon expansion and the realization that my family’s way of being was just one way of being. Not THE way of being. Because of this paradigm expansion, I believe today that there are always more than three options to any one challenge.
A CEO friend from long ago told me that he believed that world peace would be obtained through business. After my own experience of meeting numerous IT Consultants from around the world coming into Austin, I can see where my friend may have had a point. We are each diplomats of our own country. More importantly we are diplomats of the human race. Through the years I’ve come to know many peoples from India and have queried them (as much as they would allow!) about their experience being Indian. What does that mean to them? How has being born in different areas of India impacted them? What are their beliefs? Same with people from other countries such as Pakistan, China, Australia, New Zealand, England, South Africa, Viet Nam. The list is endless. The questions are too! The most valuable gift I received from a Cultural Discrimination class was to ask people their experience of being them–don’t assume you know, because you don’t.
Over the past several months I’ve had the blessed opportunity to meet many people from countries that I had not been exposed, namely Uganda, Iran and Afghanistan. Thursday evening I was invited to the home of one of these women for a gathering of the Board for Act Women in Austin Texas. One of their members has been living in China for the past 18 months and had slides and stories to share with the group. Many of the women gathered are of the Baja’s faith. What I was most impressed with was their loving kindness and beauty (both inner and outer). I also met photographer Peggy Kelsey who had a selection of beautiful photos made into cards from her Afghanistan Women’s Project. If I had relied on the broad sweeps that are made in the media about these countries, I may have allowed my fears to get in the way of finding out for myself how some of the people are from these countries.
In reflecting back to the idea that business will be the vessel for world peace, I know that many successful business people have learned over time the necessity of understanding and being able to communicate and relate with the cultures in other countries. I’m sure we have offended many times in our ignorance much less in our politics. One of my favorite questions to ask people from other countries, once we’ve established a rapport, is how “we” Americans from the U.S., come across to them. Sometimes I’m very proud of whom we are and other times, not so much.
Expanding our horizons through getting to know other ways of being both internally and externally is always a good practice. It causes our thinking to deepen and our opinions to become more flexible.
How are you going to expand your horizons today? It can begin with one conversation.