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Diving in to the 21.5.800 Challenge
I love a good challenge. In fact, I sometimes even co-design them. And I rarely back away from a good one. Rarely. And yesterday, I almost did.
Last week, my family had the snot kicked out of it with some fabulous news delivered in a crap wrap. Much more on this later. (Dramatics aside, we are fine, together and with the exception of an unrelated sprained ankle, all healthy).
I’d been hearing about Bindu Wiles’ (fabulous Brooklyn-based Buddhist Writing Coach) "21.5.800" community project: yoga and writing. While these are two of my favourite things, I am master of neither. (Ooooh…I LOVE the smell of possibility in the morning!)
The challenge: for 21 days, do 5 days of yoga a week and 800 words of writing per day.
Problem was, given that I’d allowed myself to be bullied into a corner by the crap-tastic news last week, I didn’t jump in to the challenge. I demurred. I abstained. I sat on the fence.
Then I did the math and it went something like this:
Resonant (read: exciting) challenge + awe-inspiring group of participants (Julie, Danielle, Dian, Hiro, Lianne, Jen, Marianne, Tia, Kelly, Andrew, Roseanne, Emma, and 230 OTHER coaches, writers, yoginis that I have yet to read/fall in love with) – being in a snot-kicked out of me kind of space = precisely what I need
So, I have jumped off the fence and am splashing around in the cool early June water. Refreshing and bracing.
Today is day 1. For the next 21 days, I’ll write 800 words a day…whatever I am moved to write (blog posts, strat/comm plan, workshops, journal and anything else that is begging to be expressed) and practice yoga 5 times a week. It will nourish me, heal me and should I find myself in the Dastardly Dip, I’ll know what to do.
I’m number 181 in the growing list of participants. Will you be next? What might it give you? Bindu's made it easy for you to start wherever you are.
Go check out Bindu’s challenge…and please thank her for me.
Check out my free training on the 5 Shifts Our Clients Use to Overcome the Imposter Complex and Grow their Income and their Impact
Where I pull back the curtain on five shifts to start raising voices, rates, and hands all while being the kind, congruent, and authentic leader I know you to be.
The Dastardly Dip
Am on Day 21 of my 30-day yoga challenge as part of the Great Canadian Yoga Stretch in support of CNIB. A funny thing happened (well, not as funny as my headstand, but I’m getting there) on Day 17. I got bored and started to feel pretty “meh” about the whole thing. Up until then, I was excited about it: excited about the campaign, excited about the physical and psychological benefits of a daily practice and excited about the shifts that were happening.
So what happened on Day 17?
The Dastardly Dip happened.
What IS that, you ask?
Some call it the doldrums. Others, the principal ordeal of the hero’s journey. Quite simply, it’s homeostasis, darling. Homeostasis. You know: ye olde “old habits die hard” kinda deal if you will.
Change = hard (usually). It requires an expenditure of energy (a CONSTANT expenditure of energy) and until it’s fully realized change, then backslides (or temptations therein) are gonna happen.
The good news is that like its close cousins “stuck” and “funk”, it is impermanent AND part of a process. So much so that I caution clients about it when they sign up to coach with me (coincidentally, that's the number one reason most coaches like to get a three month commitment from you..to help you through the Dip).
Said process goes a little something like this.
When we make the call to make a change, our minds are all pumped about it. We feel good, confident, excited. We tweet, Facebook and brag. We’re gonna DO IT. WHEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!! We OWN this gnarly wave, dude!!!
And then, things start to slow down. Mojo starts to slink away.
The subconscious is doing a “WHOA, there Nelly! You weren’t really SERIOUS about this, now were you?” and (tries to) block the change. And then your saboteurs crack open the Old Milwaukee and have a good ol’ porch party on your pride. “Who do you think YOU are?” What’s the point?” (and in my case) “You call THAT a crow pose, Lard Ass?”
Good times.
And you stop. The flow? Gone. Inertia? Vanished.
And you wait. For something. Anything. Or maybe you panic.
Now what do you do?
In my case, HOW I surf on out of the Dip depends on what the sitch is and it typically starts with connecting with the WHY of what I’m doing what I set out to do in the first place. In this, I look for which of my core values are being honoured (or not).
Case in point – The yoga challenge mini-Dip. I’m doing this challenge because:
I am volunteer chair of the campaign and it would be righteously wussy of ME to bail on the challenge. Unconscionable, really.
Lots of people parted with their hard-earned cash and sponsored me. The way I see it, CNIB’s being paid $1,050 on my behalf to do this thing…I’d better deliver.
I wanted to prove to myself that I could do it…the 30 days of yoga AND the headstand.
In this case, it was pretty easy to shake myself off and get the wag back in my downward dog.
Sometimes, the Dastardly Dip is far, FAR deeper. More profound, if you will. Takes more elbow grease.
I asked the one and only Dyana Valentine, maven of gettin’ ‘er done, what her personal number 1 no-fail method of pushing through the Dip was. And she said:
The Dip is a state of mind, just like the Boost (the first few weeks of a new project, relationship or wow-I-can-keep-my-house-clean jag). So, when I get derailed from my committed state of mind, I go to the Sure Thing list. My Sure Thing list usually has about 5 items on it and hangs on a 3x5 card by the front door. These are the actions I can take when I'm in a Dip that change my state of mind. No, there is not a "just do it" item on the list. Here's my current version:
shoes.water.two blocks (translation: walk out of this door now and change the scene)
library.funkynewmusic (translation: go to the library and pick out music you have no connection to, set timer for 15 mins, listen)
call _____________ (yes, this is blank because I check in at that VERY moment for a person's name who will help me change the channel, NOT delight in the Dip or help me complain about my bull)
Now--this is a running list and it gets edited frequently--so don't get yourself in a bunch if something on the Sure Thing list just doesn't work for you--move on, delete, reorder the sucker. It's there to serve YOU.
She's good, eh?
Can't share details of the work I’ve done with clients on this as that is THEIR story to tell. So here are the tools I’ve been know to use for MY personal Dips:
Phone-a-friend – like Dyana, I find someone who will help me to dig my heels in and turn this surf board around.
Change it up – find some new perspectives on this (and get some coaching on the issue, naturally) and plan from there.
Rest – I find the compassion for myself to get still, lick my wounds and heal. I get strength from this place. As the wise and wonderful Lianne has been know to quote Lao-Tzu: “all action begins in rest”.
Quit – if the WHY isn’t compelling enough or isn't clicking with my values, then it may simply not be worth my time, talents or efforts. Quitting can give me room to shine at something else. Read Seth’s book on this. Revolutionary stuff in helping you to know when the time is right.
Must go…the yoga mat beckons (and I'm back to WHEEEEEEEEEEE about it).
While I’m gone, please share YOUR number 1 no-fail method of pushing through the Dip. Would love to know…and I’ll compile results in a handy-dandy inspiration post (with full props to YOU, of course) as an idea bin to “dip” on in to.
Check out my free training on the 5 Shifts Our Clients Use to Overcome the Imposter Complex and Grow their Income and their Impact
Where I pull back the curtain on five shifts to start raising voices, rates, and hands all while being the kind, congruent, and authentic leader I know you to be.
Loving Mama Love
I’ve been thinking a whole lot about mothers. About my own mother, about me as a mother and about a little squirrel mother. Could be because Mother's Day and my mother's birthday is coming up. Could be because of a treasure that my daughter recently found: rainbow-coloured bobby pins that were my mother’s. They live in a pretty gossamer bag and make me smile when I see them…not just because they are a riot of colours, but because I remember so well how happy I was when I saw that bag come out as a kid. It meant that she and Dad were going out for a night on the town. They did this often.
The way she smelled faintly of Chanel No. 5 and the happy gleam in her eyes as she held on to a couple of the pins in her lips and worked her golden locks around the curlers. She would answer my questions about boys, love, hurt, empathy and dreams with patience and kindness and slip the pins into place. The finished product was always elegant and breathtaking. My mother was a true beauty. She made me feel the same inside and out.
On Sunday, Mother’s Day, my family and I will visit her commemorative tree down by the Beach. The one that says: Brenda Geisler, Requiescat in Pace – Lover of Life and Trees. We will fuss and plant and not say much. My daughter will provide much needed comedic relief (oh how I pray she doesn’t think she HAS to fill this role) and then we’ll all go for brunch together. And all feel the pain of her leaving us so young. She was 59.
God, how I’m missing her lately. I remember strong and happy Mom. She’s been in my dreams almost every night lately, like she has something to tell me. I don’t know what it is but there's something about softness and empathy. Maybe for myself and maybe for others. I am listening.
It’s trite to say she taught me so much…of course she did. About being a mother AND a caring human being.
That’s learning…and THEN there’s instinct.
Yesterday, I learned about instinct from another mother. We have squirrels in the overhang of our front porch. Right beneath the master bedroom. The scritch-scratch and scurrying has been driving us to distraction for the past two and a half months. We *knew* when we heard a squirrel back in March that it was likely she was pregnant and needing a nest for her babes. So we left her alone. We gave her the 8+ weeks to nurse and get her babes ready to move on out and then hired the wildlife removal guy. He set up a “one-way exclusion door” (meaning the squirrels leave to get food and water and can’t get back in). Plan is as follows: mama leaves and the babies follow. Problem is, only one followed her out yesterday. She has been ravaging a hole below the contraption to get back in. Her panic is one I know too well.
When my daughter was two and a half, she got locked in the bathroom by herself. I immediately set to ripping the door off with my bare hands. Literally. I didn’t even consider finding the proper tools. My baby was in there and that was all that mattered. Luckily it was one of those flimsy hollow core doors. The real challenge was to tear the door off without causing her to panic. I remember precious little about those 4 minutes except for a roar in my ears and the sound of the veneer ripping …and the murmuring noises I made to show my babe how cool we both needed to be. She was cool. I just looked it. Inside, I was a raging bull calmed only once she was safe and in my arms.
I saw that quality in the mama squirrel. Nothing is going to come between her and her babes. Claws and teeth are her tools and the power comes from her heart. We won't stand in her way and won't rest until they're all safe together.
Yesterday morning, the mother squirrel was a pest. Today, she is a kindred mama.
My mom would be proud of this post. She’d love the synthesized appreciation that fierce protection of your children is instinctive and having empathy is learned. Then again, she loved most things I did. That's the kind of mama I am intent on being. To my daughter and to the world.
Check out my free training on the 5 Shifts Our Clients Use to Overcome the Imposter Complex and Grow their Income and their Impact
Where I pull back the curtain on five shifts to start raising voices, rates, and hands all while being the kind, congruent, and authentic leader I know you to be.
Circumstance is a bully...
…and it wants to steal your lunch money. It tells you crap like; “this is the way things are” and “I’m in charge here”.
At the risk of sounding like a subway ad, here are some possible circumstances to consider:
Don’t have the money to start your own dream business? Underhoused and overdebted? Friends keep walking all over you? Completely depleted of energy because of all you HAVE TO do in a day? Haven’t been able to bridge your relationship with your Dad?
Consider just one of these. How does it make you feel? Trapped? Small? Weak? Stupid? Powerless? That’s just how the circumstance likes it - it wants to make you feel you don’t have a choice in this matter and the sooner you concede is the sooner you DON’T get that knuckle sandwich.
That boxed in feeling you get when considering the situation is…get this…just ONE PERSPECTIVE on the situation.
There are others. Oh yes, there are others. And you can choose which one you would like to don to look at the circumstance. Don’t worry, I’m not actually suggesting that there ISN’T a problem to be considered. Just that there are multiple ways of looking at it and the sooner you recognize that the one you’re seeing right now isn’t the ONLY way, the sooner you get out of that tight cramped and scary place of helplessness and start exploring what else there is for you.
Oh, I know ALL too well why the current perspective is so compelling. You don’t necessarily WANT to see things from this helpless place, but can’t help it, right? You’ve been living it for so long, gathering reams of evidence that point to this “just being the way it is”, that it FEELS true, immutable and unshakable. Case closed. In fact, you’re pretty much doing the bully’s PR for him.
My suggestion? Deal with the circumstance just as you would a bully:
Stand up to it and declare in your loudest voice: I DO NOT ACCEPT THAT I AM POWERLESS HERE!
Take its power away by choosing another perspective. There are others for you to choose…many, many others. Plan action from there.
Can’t see them for yourself? Talk to a coach. THAT’S what we do… help you to see what might be possible from right here, right now and move you into action.
Check out my free training on the 5 Shifts Our Clients Use to Overcome the Imposter Complex and Grow their Income and their Impact
Where I pull back the curtain on five shifts to start raising voices, rates, and hands all while being the kind, congruent, and authentic leader I know you to be.
Intention-manifestation, as explained by a 6-year old
Yesterday, the babe came home from school buzzing from a hands-on woodworking workshop. “Buzzing” in part because she created something wonderful with her own two hands (see exhibit A) and also because she succeeded in keeping her thumbs unsmashed.
She told us that the workshop leader told them to “look at the nail, look at the nail, look at the nail”. This was important, she explained (perhaps a touch more dramatically patient than the explanation called for) because if you look at your thumb when you’re hammering, then your brain takes a picture of that and thinks that’s what you’re supposed to hammer. Not the nail. So by looking at the nail, that is what your brain takes a picture of and knows to hammer that. Got it? (She did too...see exhibit B...pretty fine nail work, huh?)
Hearing intention-manifestation being articulated by a 6-year old was pretty “cute” and all…and precisely what I needed after a day of feeling overwhelmed.
I decided to take this notion out for a run with me this morning. I focused on the horizon (literally) rather than the ground and shaved minutes off my run time. In that run, I also opted to get really clear about a couple of issues that were swirling around in my mind. Got home from the run, wrote them down, then squeezed the bejesus out of my little girl and kissed her unsmashed thumbs.
So…where’s your focus? Are you looking at the nail or at your thumb?
Check out my free training on the 5 Shifts Our Clients Use to Overcome the Imposter Complex and Grow their Income and their Impact
Where I pull back the curtain on five shifts to start raising voices, rates, and hands all while being the kind, congruent, and authentic leader I know you to be.
In appreciation of feedback
I have a love-hate relationship with feedback. I often hate to receive it AND I love that it is a super powerful tool. I suspect that some of this tension stems from not ever knowing exactly how I’m going to BE with receiving it. There seems to be a direct relationship with how close something is to my heart and how frightening feedback can be for me. To whit: how do I feel when I receive feedback on my accounting? Meh. Pretty low on the “threat level” colour spectrum…let’s say green. When I receive feedback on how we’re raising our daughter…hoo boy. Off the charts, ready to pounce, RED. How I’m running my business? Let’s say lower than how we’re doing with daughter but still high. Orange, if you will.
At my very, VERY worst, I become petulant, defensive and a bit sullen. My ego is bruised and I get sulky. I make excuses and suspect my chin juts out. Worst of all, I shut down and stop receiving what is being offered to me.
And that’s the sin. Feedback is by definition FEEDING you. Nurturing you. So that you can grow, expand and maybe even improve. It is a gift to be cherished, appreciated, admired and held. One that you ASKED for.
The trick, I am finding, is in recognizing that feedback isn’t a law to be adhered to. YOU GET TO CHOOSE WHAT YOU WANT TO INCORPORATE. Unless the person offering you feedback is a complete ass, they likely have your best interest in mind…and YET…are presenting with their own experience, knowledge and perspective. Their own fears, concerns and saboteurs may be showing up. What they are sharing with you is an amalgam of what THEY PERCEIVE to be the truth. And it may or may not be true for you. You are in choice. As ever.
A recent Daily Om validated this…when I needed it most.
Our own sense of the truth is the most important piece when taking in information from external sources.
You get to be the ULTIMATE AUTHORITY. That is some resonant stuff, right there, boy. I like that a lot.
When I am at my best with receiving feedback, I notice the twinges of defensiveness. I pause and listen for what’s underneath the resistance…is it ego? Is it what I’ve known I’ve had to do for a long time and haven’t had the courage to face? Then, I breathe. And listen some more. Then pause. Then thank the person for doing the hard, truth-telling thing. I then reflect on their gift and incorporate what I CHOOSE. (Added bonus: if I’ve really played my cards right, that person who has just given of themselves becomes an ally; a resource to continue to provide their wisdom as I refine, improve and expand).
I saw this in action last week. I was invited to sit on a panel and hear a group of young entrepreneurs present their business plans. My role was simply to provide feedback from a potential client’s perspective.
What struck me was not only to wide array of talent and skill in front of me, but the elegance and poise in which they heeded our feedback. Regardless of how their financials were prodded, their marketing plans poked and their distribution channels were scrutinized, there was no defensiveness, no “yeah buts” and only appreciation for the immersed learning. They GOT it.
Thank you, for being a reminder of grace and gratitude to:
Krystal – Her artistic sensibility comes through not just in her stunning ceramic work but also her photography, drawings, and blog.
Tanya - The courageous, truth-telling poet who lives and hugs just like my mama taught me to: heart-to-heart. No other way counts.
Aileen – A designer whose work is affordable, accessible and as lovely as she is (I’ve referred her several times in the past week already).
Sarah – A hand knit artwear and jewellery designer whose whimsical and stunning work is getting around (sidebar: I intend to sport her wares in my first TV interview…stay tuned).
Stephanie – A jewellery designer who creates hand-made lampwork glass beads herself. Her work is weighty and substantial.
Julie – A super-polished business woman with the heart and soul of an artist, she co-owns an aerial-dance cirque company (how cool is THAT?).
Esther – A self-taught painter who you NEED to discover before her work is ten-fold the current price. And even then it will be well worth it.
Final thank you of this post goes to Lisa, for giving me some feedback on how I receive feedback. Received, integrated and well, WELL appreciated.
XO TG
Check out my free training on the 5 Shifts Our Clients Use to Overcome the Imposter Complex and Grow their Income and their Impact
Where I pull back the curtain on five shifts to start raising voices, rates, and hands all while being the kind, congruent, and authentic leader I know you to be.