Conscious Choice: Beyond the Gift of Solitude

I love Winter Solstice.  I love the darkness, the quiet, the cold, the hibernation.  I realize I may be in the minority.  I know that many feel relieved when this day arrives because it means tomorrow there will be a bit more light.  I love more light also.  Yet, what I seem to respond to this time of year involves my yearning for spaciousness and solitude.

I love a heavy snow because it stops activity for awhile.

And this year I choose to go to San Diego for an advance StrengthsFinder training and to visit my sister and her family in San Diego and my other sister and her family in Palm Springs.  I just got back two days ago.
 
I created my trip.  And, I had to stay very aware to experience any space, solitude and quiet in those settings!  Several times I had to laugh at myself because hibernation was nowhere to be found!

And, immediately upon returning home, several clients had overwhelming situations and I had to play catch up. 

I have found this practice of staying aware to experience space, solitude and quiet in busy and chaotic situations serves me beautifully.  I am driving slower.  Eating healthier.  Taking more pictures.  Meditating for 10 seconds at a time.  Getting up earlier.  Driving without the radio or phone calls.  And, as I mentioned in the last Sacred Space Notebook, creating a painting daily in 21 minutes or less.

Today I’d love to share with you my painting that depicts fours ways to show nothing.  I loved the assignment, even though I don’t believe “nothing” exists. 

This painting represents four ways I depicted nothing, yet when I look at it, I am drawn into a peaceful and comforting place . . .

This painting represents four ways I depicted nothing, yet when I look at it, I am drawn into a peaceful and comforting place . . .

I invite you to share your own responses and experiences in the Comments section below.

Happy Solstice.  And, Happy New World.

Allowing Flow: Joy in the Creating Process

Until December 21, I am engaged in a daily intuitive painting practice.  Our assignment a few days ago involved creating a painting and then putting a new painting on top of it.  I’m not sure what the intended purpose was, but something profound happened for me.

We create the paintings with soft pastels and complete them in 21 minutes.  Thus, the need for intuition.  My first painting depicted one of my favorite symbols, the spiral.  It filled the page.  Then for my second painting, I put a simple landscape on top of the spiral.

This painting gives me enormous peace.  And I feel excited.  As I contemplated what it meant to me, I realized it demonstrated two significant things.  

intuitive painting

First, I did not destroy the spiral, like I thought I would.  I simply added a whole new reality on top of it.  Ah, things really don’t die, they simply change form.  The spiral still exists.  I just don’t see it as clearly.

Second, I saw that the spiral depicted spirit, divine consciousness and the landscape depicted form, human consciousness.  And, they co-exist!

Before I created this painting, these two paintings, I knew, I believed that things don’t ever not exist and that they just change form.  I also knew, believed that divine consciousness and human consciousness co-exist. Yet the experience of creating something that depicts it, well, I find that enormously comforting!

I invite you to share your own responses and experiences in the Comments section below.

Thriving Coaches: Have you asked today: Would you like to hire me?

Have you been squirming away from directly asking someone to become your client?

My private clients and coaching colleagues have told me many reasons for not asking.  And yes, I used to use a couple of them myself!

– I don’t want to bother them.
– They’ll ask if they want to work with me.
– I don’t like to sell.
– I shouldn’t have to sell.
– They’ll ask when they’re ready.

All excuses of someone who isn’t committed.

When we are committed, we do what it takes. 

Are you committed to serving this person in front of you?

Are you committed to your financially sustainable and abundant business?  Or, are you trying to be committed without bringing cash in the door?

When you ask the person in front of you if they’d like to become a client, join your program or buy your product, you provide the delicious opportunity for them to commit.  You have asked them for a clear “yes,” “no” or “here’s what I’m considering and here’s by when I will commit to yes or no.” 

They may not yet be comfortable with committing.  They may squirm.  They may be in the process of getting comfortable with discomfort.

And, they may be thrilled that you asked so that they get to be in the process of committing – to a clear and true yes or no.  The clarity and truth of commitment empowers the person who is willing to stand in that clarity and truth.

When you ask, you give the person in front of you a gift – the opportunity to truly self-empower with a clear and true yes or no.  This is not something that is done often.  For most of us, we move through our day making, receiving and accepting half-agreements, excuses, hopes, best guesses and uncommitted, empty promises.

When we commit, it feels entirely different inside us and to the people around us.  Think of a time in your life when you knew you would do whatever it took to make something happen.  Did it happen?  Of course it did.  Because you were committed.

Take a moment now to allow yourself to feel how that commitment, devotion and determination felt inside you.  Imagine your work and life if you felt that way most of the time!  You’d feel like a goddess, a wise woman, an avatar.  Perhaps very accurate, indeed.  

– From my new book, Thriving Work

Thriving Work

As you are creating and discovering your thriving coaching business, where is your commitment?

Would you like to buy my book? 🙂

If you’d like support in committing to your coaching business and to your coaching clients, get a copy of my new book, Thriving Work: 90 days of daily practice for transforming you and your coaching, consulting or healing business.
http://www.annstrong.com/thriving-work-book/

To your thriving coaching business,
Ann

P.S.  I invite you to share your thoughts and insights in the Comments section below.

Spiritual Clarity: Why Gratitude for This?!

Many years ago, I was introduced to the practice of expressing gratitude for everything – all that I considered “good” and all that I considered “bad.”  As best I understood the idea at the time, I was to practice this because I could never truly know if something was good or bad, so why not just trust God and be grateful for everything?

Today, I practice refraining from immediately judging something as “good” or “bad.”  Some days, my practice is more graceful and grateful than others!  

Recently, I’ve started a conscious practice of expressing gratitude for everything.  I acknowledge and affirm that every experience, indeed every moment, offers a fresh opportunity to express my divinity.

Gratitude, Spiritual Growth, Happiness, Best of You, Transformation

Every single moment offers us
the opportunity to express
yet another of the
infinite aspects of our divinity . . .

When something “good” (read: something I think I want) happens, I may express aspects of my divinity such as joy, love, enthusiasm, etc.  When something “bad” (read: something I think I don’t want or that I think shouldn’t be that way) happens, I express other aspects of my divinity such as courage, compassion, patience, etc.

Why express gratitude for the “bad” stuff?  

Because from the perspective of our souls, rather than the perspective of our human personalities, there is no “bad.”  Every human interaction is either love or a distortion of love, a cry for love.  I’d rather consciously choose to bring my kindness, understanding and caring to me and/or to the other person involved in a “bad” interaction than bring my anger, judgment and blame.  If the “bad” situation involves circumstance beyond my control like weather, I’d rather express acceptance, creativity and curiosity rather than rail against what I cannot change.

I don’t always choose from my soul perspective.  That’s why I call this undertaking a practice!  Some days my practice is amazing, like I’ve played a piece on the piano flawlessly.  Other days my practice looks more like I forgot I even have a piano!

And still, I am so energized  by more and more consistently choosing to express my divinity in it’s infinite forms no matter what the circumstances.

In deep gratitude for this practice and sharing it with you, I extend you a Happy Thanksgiving!

As always, I invite you to share your own responses and experiences below.

Conscious Choice: If you focus on mistakes . . .

I’ve been re-reading my own book, Thriving Work, as I am coaching two of my clients through it.  What strikes me when I read a piece that I have already read many times before: in every moment we have the opportunity to consciously choose where we focus.  Yet, so often, I don’t make that choice as consciously as I would like!

Do I focus on my human “mistakes” and limitations or do I focus on living and working from my Divinity?

In each moment, the choice is mine.

Today, I offer you one of the affirmative prayers from the book.  So simply, it keeps my focus in a great place.  Off of me and on Oneness and on the person in front of me . . .

Through Me

Through Me

Oh Great Spirit,

I affirm my ever–increasing awareness of your omnipresence.

I appreciate you always at my side,
Working through my hands,
Speaking through my voice,
Loving through my heart.

I delight with you.
I delight through you.
I delight as you . . .

Fully engaged in life,
Thrilled to be
Your hands,
Your voice,
Your heart.

– Ann Strong
From the book, Thriving Work

What about you?  As you are creating and discovering your thriving coaching business, where is your focus most of the time?  What tools do you use to keep your focus where you’d like it more of the time?

I invite you to share your thoughts and insights in the Comments section below.

To your thriving coaching business,
Ann

P.S. If you’d like 33 of these focused reminders of your Divinity, they are included in the book, Thriving Work: 90 days of daily practice for transforming you and your coaching, consulting or healing business.

Get your copy today:
http://www.annstrong.com/thriving-work-book/

 

Thriving Coaches: What causes you to?

“As the sunflower naturally looks toward the sun
And the begonia naturally thrives in the shade.

As the flowers do not tell themselves
That they “should” be able to thrive in the shade
when they need the sun,
Or try to thrive in the sun
when its rays cause them to wilt,

I, too, allow myself to thrive where I thrive,
Without trying to make myself engage
in that which drains me.”

– Ann Strong
From “Doing Only Me”
In the book, Thriving Work

Thriving Work

Yesterday, during her coaching session, one of my clients was thrilled to put in place “some structure in which to flow.”  In the process of discovering what naturally and specifically causes her to thrive, she realized something that almost didn’t make sense.

Structure to allow flow.  Hmmm . . .

How great is that?  That is exactly what she needs.

What about you?  As you are creating and discovering your thriving coaching business, what naturally and specifically causes you to thrive?

I invite you to share your thoughts and insights in the Comments section below.

To your thriving coaching business,
Ann

P.S. If you’d like a process for discovering what naturally and specifically causes you to thrive, get your copy of Thriving Work: 90 days of daily practice for transforming you and your coaching, consulting or healing business.

Spiritual Growth: On the Road to Our Best Selves . . .

In the past few weeks, I’ve supported three clients through really tough stuff – family violence; drawn-out illness and death of her mother and then immediately the same pattern with her father; and a suicide.  I’ve also supported several clients as they embark on amazing new journeys – getting married; publishing an 86-page ebook in two weeks to give to an audience of 600+ people; filming a tv show; beginning to write a book for personal healing; and getting her first client.

Spiritual Awakening, Spiritual Growth, Transformation, Best of You

Sometimes the only way we can become more of the best of ourselves involves overcoming adversity.

While these experiences may seem like they are at opposite ends of the spectrum, I have a sense they aren’t as disparate as they appear.  The sacred energy of this time – 2012 – is calling us to clear and release and complete and to step into more of all of who we are, our true selves, our best selves.

I myself have had several seemingly unrelated physical health challenges and an almost obsessive need to clean and clear clutter.  And, I don’t even have much clutter.  I sense I am being “groomed” for something I don’t entirely yet understand.  

What I do know: I’ve had many opportunities to be more patient with myself.  I’ve had many opportunities to accept more unknowns than I’m comfortable with.  I’ve been called to many opportunities for personally extending more love to myself and to more other people than ever before.  

All of these opportunities add up to an opportunity to deepen my spiritual practice.  And, so I have.  To do anything else would seem a bit insane!  And, of course, as I deepen my spiritual practice, I access more of my best self . . .

Spiritual Awakening, Spiritual Growth, Transformation, Best of You

Sometimes we become more of the best of ourselves with amazing grace and ease.

What about you?  What have you noticed in your personal world and in the immediate world around you lately?

I invite you to share your own responses and experiences in the Comments section below.

Transformation: What may be causing you to be wired and tired

Recently after yet one more client told me about their “strange” symptoms – all of which I also had experienced in the past few weeks – I decided to find out what was going on.

We, me and many of my clients, have been experiencing intense symptoms, emotional, mental and physical.

  • Grief and sadness out of nowhere
  • Headaches
  • Nausea
  • Anxiety
  • Feeling like we drank 20 cups of coffee and feeling exhausted at the same time
  • Heart palpitations
  • Loss of words when speaking
  • And the list goes on . . .

I have come to understand that solar flare activity is not only affecting the Earth, but also affecting us, the people on the Earth!

Solar flares, Stress relief, releasing fear, Transformation, Spiritual Growth, Best of You

Solar flare activity from the sun affects us physically,
emotionally and mentally . . .

If any of this resonates with you or with what you’re hearing from clients, I urge you to read this clear and informative article by Heather Carlini.

What she doesn’t address well: what to do about it.  She mentions getting extra rest, drinking lots of water and knowing “this too shall pass.”

That was not sufficient for me!

As an experiential learner, I have now tried (and continue trying) many possible “remedies.” 

In addition to Heather’s suggestions, here’s what I’ve found working best for me and my clients:

  • Anything that grounds you – walking, eating heavier foods, visualizing your “roots,” laying on the ground, practicing yoga, deep breathing.
  • Slowing down. Planning for some down time.
  • Getting present.  Taking three deep breaths before you get in the car, go into that meeting, talk with your teenager.
  • Allowing any and all emotions without judgment.  Recognizing that they are coming up now to clear out of your system.
  • Vigilantly refraining from “trying to find” the cause of the anxiety, depression, sadness, etc.  Attaching thoughts to the emotion tends to needlessly exacerbate the intensity.

To our thriving – even through the eye of the storm!

Lots of love to you and your clients,
Ann

P.S.  If you and your clients have had success with moving through these “eruptions,” please post your experiences below in the comments area.

As coaches we are leaders.  Let’s gently lead ourselves and our clients through these heat storms.

If you’d like more support yourself, feel free to call me on my direct office line 303.399.8737.

Transformation: Your True Resume

For years, I have been inspired and uplifted by a daily email called, “Notes from the Universe.”  If you aren’t already receiving it yourself, I highly recommend it!  Here’s my favorite from this week.

Reprinted from Notes from the Universe.
Sign up to receive yours daily, for free, at
http://www.tut.com/

Work Experience:
Created the sun, the moon, and the stars.

Special Talents:
Knows all things.
Exists everywhere, always, at once.
Capable of rallying legions.
Big time matter manipulator.
Spontaneous healer.

Unique Characteristics:
Worshipped, feared, and misunderstood by many.
Boundless lover of life.
Blazing insights.
Great sense of humor.
Cute, cute, cute.

Gosh, you’re right, we do have tons in common.
This could have been mine.

I’d hire you –
The Universe