“If you don’t know the trees you may be lost in the forest, but if you don’t know the stories you may be lost in life.” ~ Siberian Elder

This will be one of my longer posts, so grab a coffee and sit back and relax… It is still part of the Muse in May series; you will see how that applies at the end.

The blue robe

Saturday morning, 10:30. The fridge was running. I wanted to unplug it. Its constant humming sound was almost mocking me. Just me sitting at the kitchen table in my blue robe. Just me, feeling blue.

“Should I blog about this?” I wondered. Air my bleeding heart to the world; to my readers, colleagues and prospective clients? Why the hell not? But what is THIS?

THIS had been hanging around for weeks. Clinging. It was May 15th and I still hadn’t painted my toenails. THIS was needing attention and I’d been avoiding IT. IT wasn’t going anywhere. And for that matter, neither was I. I was miserable, stuck, uninspired and yes, depressed.

“So, what now?” I wondered.

The BlockBuster

I searched through my coaching notes and found an exercise I have re-branded as “The BlockBuster”. Going through this process reveals the story we are telling ourselves. It is divided into six sections where you ask yourself or your client, six different questions repeatedly.

You navigate the space around and between yourself and the issue or block. I decided to employ this process to how I was feeling. What can I say; I’m committed to learning and trying to understand Me.

Begin by writing or drawing on a piece of paper to illustrate how you are feeling or what you are thinking. The picture above represents how I was feeling; like a small, insignificant spot.

What do you know about that?

I asked myself what I knew about how I was feeling, six times. To keep this post as short as possible, I won’t repeat the questions; imagine that between each answer the same question is asked. I have listed each answer in succession, unedited.

Question 1: “What do you know about that?”
1. It’s a point
2. It’s a hole
3. It’s lost
4. It’s sharp
5. It’s beginning
6. It’s strong

To finish this section you ask, “And what do you know now?”

1. It loves me

Yah, yah, I know that might sound flaky to some readers but that is what came to me. Be honest with yourself in this process and go with the flow. Don’t filter yourself. Notice your posture and anything else about how you are acting or feeling, or where you are looking, even. Make note of it and let it lead you.

Write down your answers, silly or not. Notice the lights that turn on for you, or the frustration at answering the same questions over and over. Keep chipping away at the “Block”. Persevere. There is a story there.

Question 2: “And what does that know about you?”
1. It sees me
2. I’m blank (I was feeling blank)
3. I don’t know
4. “Why is this so hard?” I wonder
5. I don’t want to know/see
6. I want to let go

“And what do you know now?”

1. I do want to know; I am ready.

Question 3: “And is there anything else about that?”

Sometimes this throws me. I wonder if the question should apply to the drawing, or to my last answer. Go where you feel you need to go. In this case I expanded on my answer to the last question.

1. I’m engaged
2. I’m on an adventure
3. I’m making it hard
4. I’m impatient
5. I want to know now
6. I’m done with this

“And what do you know now?”

1. I’m NOT done with this!

Question 4: “And where could that have come from?”

I returned my focus to the smallness I was feeling, illustrated by my picture.

1. Not knowing
2. Being innocent
3. Trusting
4. Wanting to have fun
5. Wanting to love something
6. I don’t fucking know!

“And what do you know now?”

1. Nothing different!

Question 5: “And then what can happen?”

Back to focus on the answer to the last question.

1. Nothing
2. Nothing
3. Nothing
4. I don’t know
5. I feel anger
6. The anger will shift gears! Ooooh… light goes on…

“And what do you know now?”

1. I’m worthy of my feelings. Anger has its place. Anger will serve me here.

I realized I hadn’t allowed myself to feel angry about this.

Question 6: “And is there anything else about that?”

Focus on the drawing again.

1. I have been playing small
2. I have been selling out on what is important to me
3. I have been asking for permission to be me
4. I don’t have to ask for permission to be me
5. Respect starts with SELF!!!
6. When I have respect, anger is not necessary

“And what do you know now?”

1. I will respect myself and in so doing, will be respecting the space around me and those who are in it. It all starts with me.

What do you know now?

My entire mood had shifted! I didn’t feel small. I didn’t need to get angry to move past the “block”. I understood how I had allowed it to come to be.

I hadn’t felt worthy of the choice I was making, so I made it from an unbalanced, subservient place; a small place.

“When I have respect, anger is not necessary.”

That got me to thinking how people become angry; they are feeling small and the anger makes them feel larger than life. All pumped up. Big and Worthy. But really, they are not coming from a place of respecting themselves. They need to employ the anger to be heard or be seen. But… they are not seeing themselves.

That is when a person acts blindly; when they are not seeing themselves. When they are not hearing their story or understanding their story.

After this process I felt triumphant, but then what? As a coach I knew it couldn’t stop there if I were to apply this to my own life. I gave myself some homework.

It’s all about me

I imagined what it would look like when a person respects themselves. I imagined them standing tall, acting purposefully, confidently and calmly.

I mused about how respect isn’t about “me first” and “you last”. It’s a natural process of being attentive. If I could make decisions from that place, the effects on the people in the space around me would be responsive rather than reactive. Just maybe.

Experience and learning can come with pain; we can’t avoid living and learning. The painful lessons are the ones you remember.

I pondered that when you are respecting yourself you don’t need approval from anyone else. You don’t need anger to get your message across.

I imagined that when you are acting out of respect for yourself there is an unspoken understanding between you and your space and whomever is in it at the time.

I considered that if there were reactions to my actions, when coming from a place of respect, I wouldn’t have the need to react to the reactions. This would give me more power to manage the situation and minimize the possibility for undesirable consequences.

My homework became a game of observation. To watch people. To observe who was respecting themselves and who wasn’t.

I appreciated how that would put me in a place of respecting JUST the space I was in. Listening to ITS story. Being ready to act, respectfully. Listening.

How does this apply to the Muse? You tell me.

What do you know about that?

The next post in this Muse in May series is entitled “Dial-1-2-1-Muse” and will be published on Wednesday, May 19th. It features a collection of answering machine messages you may hear when calling your muse, yet again! :-)

More than just imagination

“Heaven and Earth can never meet as long as you hold even one person outside of your heart.”

Devrah Laval, author of The Magic Doorway into the Divine

This evening I was reflecting on a conversation I had with a friend not all that long ago. Actually, this conversation was between my life coach Ciel and myself.

This is the second time I’ve mentioned our session this week and it’s because it was a particularly good one. It evoked a lot of insights for me.

Admittedly, my life has been more than a bit challenging this past year, and some days I’m just plain worn out. I won’t go into detail because it’s important to not always “go there”. Going there too much only reinforces it more — it becomes a perpetual cycle.

And so, here I was (a lover of metaphors) using a metaphor to describe to her how I was feeling on that particular day.

“Ciel,” I said, “I feel like I’m on a sinking ship. I just don’t have the energy to stay afloat anymore.”

Then she said, “Yes, but there are life boats.”

Ok, so I had forgotten about the life boats. I was hooked on the sinking ship idea. Very intent on reinforcing the “truth” of my situation.

“I hadn’t considered getting on a life boat,” I said. Resistance was perched on both shoulders, whispering in my ears.

“Well,” said Ciel, “What if you were on one? … Tell me why you should be on a life boat?”

I realized that I didn’t want to be. I really was on a sinking ship. I was living the metaphor and couldn’t abandon ship because I’d abandoned Self.

“Tell me why you should be on one of those life boats?” She repeated.

“I don’t know why.” Silence.

“Ok, what if you were on a life boat. Why should you be saved.” I still didn’t know… or want to find out.

Ciel was determined. “Pretend that you know.”

Ok, I’m really good at pretending, so this would be easy. “I should be on the life boat, because… I am here. I’m just here.”

“What else?” I hated when she did that.

“I can’t quit.”

“What else?”

“I have a lot to offer.” As I heard these words, the metaphor of the sinking ship… sunk. We continued to discuss all that I appreciated about myself. Basically, we were refilling my fuel tank. I’d forgotten to take the time to do this and had simply run out of gas. It is really easy to take yourself for granted.

I’d abandoned all that I believed about myself. When a person can’t even hold themselves in their heart, how could they possibly attract their dreams? How would they even recognize their dreams? They’d be like two ships passing in the night.

When life becomes overwhelming it is even more important to remind ourselves of what we already have, and not focus so much on what we’re not getting or what isn’t working. It’s important to focus on what has been accomplished.

Some days you might feel like you want to give up. But do you really? Deep down? You can’t honestly say you want to quit. Can you?

What if you simply gave yourself permission to quit. How would that feel? Personally, when I have tried this… when I have given myself permission to quit… I don’t want to. Knowing that is half the battle.

The path might not always be clear, but I know that I’ll never find the way if I abandon myself.

Do you take yourself for granted?

Where do you shine? What talents do you have?

Photo credit: aeu04117’s Photostream