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Health & Fitness

We are not alone....

Whispers from my wallpaper

Do we really need each other?

 

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“Life is not a fist. Life is an open hand waiting for some other hand to enter it.” –Elie Wiesel

Some people might think that the answer to the question of “do we really need each other” has already been answered with the opening quote yet I’ll bet that some people will defend their stance on keeping their fists closed and close to their sides.

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What does it mean to stand with an open hand and wait for another hand to enter it? The first word or feeling I come up with is vulnerability. The Merriam-Webster dictionary defines vulnerability as “being capable of or susceptible to being wounded or hurt; open to moral attack or temptation.” I also hear the word weakness in this definition.

 

Dr. Brene Brown is a vulnerability researcher. In her amazing, down to earth, no nonsense, authentic book Daring Greatly, Dr. Brown says, “The perception that vulnerability is weakness is the most widely accepted myth and the most dangerous. When we spend our lives pushing away and protecting ourselves from feeling vulnerable, we let our fear and discomfort become judgment and criticism. Vulnerability is the core of all emotions and feelings.”

 

A lot of us tend to tie vulnerability to something dark like fear, shame, grief, disappointment. What if we did allow ourselves to feel all of those emotions in their proper place and space and time? Dr. Brown spent over a decade researching this question and more and she found that “vulnerability is also the cradle of the emotions and experiences that we crave. It is the birthplace of love, belonging, joy, courage, empathy, and creativity. It is the source of hope, accountability, and authenticity. Vulnerability is uncertainty, risk, and emotional exposure.”

 

By now you all know that I am a life, career, heart, and soul coach. My deep satisfaction and purpose comes from being able to take the scattered puzzle pieces of your life’s journey and help you put them together, help you create a life road map, a picture in such a way that you feel that your life has purpose, passion and potential toward whatever goals and achievements you set for yourself. What I ask of you is to be vulnerable with me, have courage to stare your life in the face and create what you want from it.

 

“Courage is the most important of all virtues, because without courage, you cannot practice any of the other virtues consistently.” – Maya Angelou

 

One of the very first requests made to coaching students is to find a coach for themselves. The importance of that being the fact that you immerse yourself in the language and processes of coaching and at the same time work through your own personal road blocks so that you can be what you clients need you to be with empathy, authenticity and hope. Come to find out that there are coaches for just about any life situation. For example there are coaches for teenagers, coaches for executives, coaches for life in general, coaches for relationships, leadership, Alzheimer’s, diabetes, ADHD, etc. I have a coach for coaching itself and a writing coach for the book I am working on and I have a supervisory coach. Who knew I needed those specific kinds of coaches?

 

It took great courage and vulnerability to open myself up for the first time in my life and ask for help from someone. Why would I want to share those deep emotional parts of myself and face the things I was most afraid of? Well, because that is what I ask my clients to do. I need to go there too so that my clients know without a doubt that I am on their side, on their journey, and in the thick of things with them.

This summer I am taking a class to learn the ins and outs of creating webinars. I really thought this would be an easy class. I thought that all I would need to do would be to follow the step by step instructions and get familiar with all of the technical aspects of what is required. The technical parts of creating a webinar are hard enough for me because computer technology and I just don’t enjoy playing in the same sandbox.

 

Boy was I wrong. What I came up against was that it’s not enough to learn the technical aspects of how to present a webinar but your content has to be inviting and meaningful and purposeful not only to your target audience but for yourself. I had to now figure out what it is I know enough about to create content for the presentation, where was my passion and why would anyone want to hear what I have to say? I suddenly felt like I had fallen into a hole and did a hard face plant into the mud of the hole. In business language this gut wrenching, knot in your stomach feeling is referred to as a dip. The word used to describe the gut wrenching feeling doesn’t sound as awful and the feeling itself but there you have it.

 

I’ve since learned, through a bit of coaching with my own life coach that the dip is the part where you feel as if you have lost momentum, you’ve forgotten why you are doing what you are doing in the first place, you’ve fallen into this dark abyss and it feels impossible to get out of. An automatic response to this vulnerable state is to give up and/or just stop trying because you start feeling like the plan you set for yourself is just too hard to achieve and doubt starts shouting at the top it’s lungs at you. My coach guided me through some really tough situations and made me face all of my strengths and fears. My coach challenged me to recognize all of my success characteristics that are a big part of me naturally and to see how many I could use to help me roll around in the muck of the dip and create my path up and out. I had to think deeply and purposefully about the questions she asked me:

 

1)      What caused the dip?

2)      What is the reason for wanting to produce the webinar?

3)      What will it feel like if I give up? What will it look like?

4)      What will it feel like if I meet this challenge head on?

5)      How will I know I’ve been successful?

 

Did you know that the word impossible has a treasure hidden inside of it? It hides in plain sight and it says, I’m possible. I’m sure you can remember my article about how I can’t wait to fail. Well, here was my chance to prove to myself what I could do with my content and to work out what could easily turn into failure if I let it. It took me 4 days and nights of constant attention and dedication to finally open up enough and allow myself to feel and find my content, my passion, and my purpose. I now have the reason why I want to present the webinar, I have the reason why someone would want to hear what I have to say and I have a slew of give-a-ways for my audience to take with them to use for their own purposes and passions toward their goals.

Now, don’t get me wrong, I will travel down my roads and face dips again and again while my life map will not tell me when there are dips ahead. The dips are designed to let you know that it’s time to be challenged and time to push yourself further into your passions and purposes and potential.  The thing that is really amazing and really powerful is that I couldn’t have done this discovery on my own. I needed to be vulnerable; I needed to take a deep breath of courage and open my hand so that another hand could enter it.

 

“When you stand and share your story in an empowering way, your story will heal you and your story will heal somebody else.” –Iyanla Vanzant

 

Don’t be afraid to reach out and share your story. Just the action of speaking out loud to someone you trust is enough to move you forward and empower your next steps. Best of all you just might empower someone else because of the vulnerability and courage you showed.

 

I honor you in your pursuit of purpose and passion and potential and thank you for allowing me to stand with you hand in hand.

 

 

If you would like to start creating your own road map toward your passions, if you would like help in sorting through your life’s puzzle pieces please write to Lisa at lisa@journeyoncoaching.com. Together we will create your purpose, passion and potential to live your best life.

 

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