Peeling Off Layers of Self-Image

I've had a self image I've worked very hard to create and keep throughout my life.  It goes something like this:

• I'm a very serious woman
• Responsible
• Hardworking
• There for everyone that needs me
• Good and decent
• Super woman and just about perfect
• Great mom, abnegated daughter, committed friend
• Selfless
• Strong, sane

I've paid a price to maintain this image.......a lot of effort and detachment from who I really am!  Who am I really doing this for?
Can you imagine how much energy, enjoyment, true life experience I have missed out on because of trying to be who I thought I should be?  Do you know how much effort it takes to keep this "should" thing going all the way up to middle age?

One step at a time, one layer at a time, one relationship at a time, I am peeling off the false image, the "should" image, to let my true wants and desires come afloat to what life really is about.

Something inside me says "Aaaaaaagh, no more, please, Savina."  In each incident or relationship, I realize it's not about what the other one wants or expects of me....it's about who I really am.  What choices am I making that guide me on a path of honest self discovery?

I frightens me a bit, because having an image I can depend on to do what's "right" and "expected" feels safe.  Safe, yet numbing.  I say, I desire to live from a place of realness and allow myself to make mistakes (I make them any, it's part of my humanity), to learn from them, and to grow.  This is what my journey has been leading me towards.  Now, it's a brand new experience.  Some people in my life will judge me, and disapprove of some of my choices.  That scares me too.  But, that cannot be avoided. 

What might happen is as I am more authentic, I may inspire those around me to also release their images.

Moving Forward

If a client tells you they want to end the coaching relationship and move on to something else, what do you do?  How do feel about it?  What do you say to them?  Especially when you as their life coach feel this is not the best path for them to take?  That they are not ready?

I remind myself that coaching someone is about support, accountability, assisting and allowing the other to find their own answers, within themselves and not in me.   I need to be cautious and not express judgment or disappointment, because, then, maybe I'll be bringing my own agenda into the relationship. 
If as a life coach I've done my best, given my most, been there for my client, then I feel I've done a great job.  Everyone has their own journey and has the right to their own choices.  I believe life coaching is about empowerment, and listening to my client tell me they want to end the relationship, I would want to honestly wish them well and trust they are making the correct and best choice for their greatest good.  I will feel proud that in some way, I had something to do in their learning to make and trust their own choices.

A New Healing Experience

Life Coach Crystal Church writes about A New "Healing" Experience

Just yesterday I had my first appointment with a woman whom I am trading services with. I am acting as her personal development life coach and she is helping me through some old issue by doing a body healing exercise with me. It is really turning out to be an amazing experience for the both of us.

When I coached her yesterday I was able to give an outsider's perspective to the situation she is right in the middle of. Since I am not going through it, I was able to see clearly what I needed to guide her to look at to get the answers she has been searching for. The answers have always been inside of her, I was just able to tap into the triggers that would allow her to see the path to follow. It was very empowering for me. It validated everything I know about myself on a level that was above anything I have felt before. I felt as much joy in helping her, as she did in receiving my help. When I got off the call, I was energized and felt like I could accomplish anything........I mean anything. It was an amazing feeling that lasted the entire day. When I think of what this means, it brings a huge smile to my face. As my chosen path, my job, I will be feeling amazing after my work. How great is that? We spend so much of our life working, that to be able to blend pleasure and work together is the most brilliant thing ever. It brings new meaning to loving what you do as well as finding my special purpose.

The trade happened with us the same day, but later in the evening. It was perfect because my kids were (sort of) in bed and I had privacy. My healer explained the process fully and I was very comfortable with what was about to transpire. She let me know that since we were on the phone, and not face to face, that she would be taking on my body's feelings temporarily so she could intuitively feel what I my body was feeling  in response to the questions she would be asking. She did an invocation to start off that invited the divine and the other powers of the unknown to join us and help us with the healing journey. She placed a virtual shield of safety around both of us to keep us from harm during the session, and away we went.

Her voice was very soft and calming and she asked very specific questions about trapped emotions that my body was holding on to. As she asked the questions she was able to get messages from my body, that her body felt and then she could formulate the answer to the questions she asked. I laid in my bed, relaxed, and listened to what she way saying. I was truly amazed at how right on the answers to the specific questions she posed were. Let me give you an example. She asked if their was a trapped emotion of disgust in me, which there is, and she verified. We then spoke with each other interactively about what she saw and felt this disgust pertained to, and I replied about what I specifically knew the disgust pertained to. Between the both of us what we came up with made perfect sense to me, and after wards she did a ceremonial release of the emotion of disgust. She could feel it go out of her body, which was actually my body that she was temporarily in to feel my emotions, and I could also feel it. It was a tingling sensation in certain areas of my body, and upon talking about where we each felt it, they were exactly the same areas. Pretty unbelievable. The session was just short of an hour, and each time we released a trapped emotion, I felt something different inside of myself. I felt sort of clean and pure, and maybe a hint of what it felt like to be a brand new baby without any negative experiences in my soul.

I was pretty fatigued after the session was over, she explained what to expect in the next few days and let me know if  I needed to talk to her about anything I experienced, that I was free to call. Because your body is getting rid of emotion which is toxin, she suggested I drink plenty of water. Also, body work is physically and mentally draining, she also recommended I be very aware of my feelings and interactions with others and practice good self care.

I am very excited to watch this all unfold. We both have at least 3 more sessions with each other and I am confident this will be a life changing experience for the both of us. We both marveled in the fact that we found each other in the 'internet sea' and knew immediately it was meant to be. (a little unplanned poetry there!) It truly is no accident that we are able to help each other with our specific gifts and I am convinced this is the beginning of an amazing journey into my next phase of life as a coach. I am proud to be putting my God given talents to work in a way that benefits myself as well as my clients.

Personal Power, a post from You University creator, Maia Berens

Personal Power

Simple But Not Easy

Today I’m seeing my role as life coach very simply.  Show my clients their personal power. My job is to show my clients how to clear their path and their self view of all that says they are less than – less than deserving of material goods; less than deserving of the relationships they want with friends, family and significant other; less than deserving of anything they want.

Most of us seem to have picked up the message somewhere that it’s only OK to want a certain amount. So a certain amount is what we get. Additionally, it is hard for us humans to remember that we came here for a purpose. In its broadest sense we came here (here being Planet Earth) to learn some other things in addition to our worthiness, our own personal power. What we learn appears to be our own choice.

For example, a client I’m working with is working on letting go of guilt and responsibility around her adult children. We spoke today about how when we enable other adults, we might keep them from growing into the wonderful humans they are in the process of becoming. When we enable other adults and rescue them from themselves, they never get to see their own inner resources or personal power nor seek the support they may decide they need or even fail and learn and grow from that.

We also spoke about the agreements we appear to make on some spiritual level in which we act in certain ways for our children’s growth and they do the same for us. Therefore everyone is in agreement. No one is a victim.

I have no idea how I developed the gift of being able to teach, model, intuit all that I do with clients but it appears to be an ever-developing gift. It sure is fun to be able to see, speak and help those people who want to grow in awareness and expand their lives. I love watching the magic of transformation as it occurs.   I love holding the hand of those I work with and becoming part of their magnificent unfolding.  I love seeing those I help exercise their own personal power for their own growth and benefit.

Resistance

What is this thing we call resistance?  
I'm experiencing resistance in several areas of my life.  Such as, resistance:

• to taking the actions needed to move forward and grow my Life Coach practice; 
• to allowing myself to try out new things; 
• to exercising consistently and not eat sweets daily!

I know these actions are in my best interest, yet even though I know and get excited about them, I don't realize them.  I feel I let myself down and I feel awful.
Where does this resistance come from?  Why am I doing this?  I don't really know. Yet.  I do know it's there and I don't like it.  Should I resist resistance?  No.  I prefer to learn from it and find the answers to these questions...answers that are within me. I've been journaling and working with my life coach to arrive at a place of understanding and acceptance.
One good thing is I'm growing in self knowledge.  I now know I have resistance to the good that's for me. I was unaware of this.  I want to learn from it, as it has been a part of me...a learned response to something deeper that is beginning to surface (fear?).

You University Life Coach Crystal Shares About Grief

This post is a tribute to my Sadie

Grief is an emotion that is not only for the loss of a human life. It can about the loss of a relationship, a childhood, or in this case ..........my dog Sadie.

Grief is an emotion defined as:
1. Pain of mind on account of something in the past; mental suffering arising from any cause, as misfortune, loss of friends, misconduct of one's self or others, etc.; sorrow; sadness. [1913 Webster]

Grief has stages that are individual to each human and are not experienced in any specific order, but they are as follows:

1. SHOCK & DENIAL
2. PAIN & GUILT
3. ANGER & BARGAINING
4. "DEPRESSION", REFLECTION, LONELINESS
5. THE UPWARD TURN
6. RECONSTRUCTION & WORKING THROUGH
7. ACCEPTANCE & HOPE
as taken from  aboutgrief.com

I learned these past few days that there is no time line for when grief will hit you. If you don't deal with grief it will come out in some way. I lost my Grandmother a year ago, and the loss of my dog triggered some incredibly healing tears for me. I had not been able to cry up until this last loss.
  I learned that no matter what your conditioning as you were growing up, grief has to be expressed. It is a healthy response to loss. The human body needs to let go of trapped emotion or it can cause illness in many forms.
I miss my dog, but she is in a better place. She taught me many things about giving love and receiving it back as well. She has allowed me to grieve for other losses and understand the importance of being vulnerable. Thank you Sadie for the lessons in life you shared with me, and I will see you on the other side.........

What to Do if You Were Taught Not to Take Care of Yourself

Here's a great blog from my Life Coach, Maia Berens:

Selfish or Self-Care?

It seems when I was a child I was never taught about self care or to want things. Whenever I wanted something, I was accused of being selfish.  It didn’t matter if I was tired or just not wanting to do chores. I heard it so much and so often and didn’t want to think I was anything bad like that, I stopped taking care of myself in many different ways. If taking care of me was selfish , than taking care of and pleasing others was unselfish . And I’d much rather be unselfish. I suspect many people and maybe more women are taught this self-defeating, unloving attitude by other women – mostly their mothers who had learned the same thing in their early lives.

If you experienced something like that dynamic somewhere in your past, you might find it difficult to rest enough, difficult to eat well, difficult to take care of your body in other ways. You might find it difficult to take care of yourself in relationships. You might judge your emotions as unworthy of a good (unselfish) person. You might also find it difficult to have healthy boundaries and difficult to stand up for what you know is right.

How do I know all of this? I know it because I have lived it in one way or another. So what do you do if you see yourself in these words?

To read more........click here

More on Self Trust and Life Lessons

Learning to trust myself and being open to life's lessons seem to go hand in hand for me.
My form of exercise is power walking.  I've been doing it for 30+ years.  It's great for me because I do it outdoors.  I hear the birds, feel the breeze, get alot of sun and it energizes me along with staying healthy.  A few weeks ago I started jogging and running a little bit....and my left leg began to complain.  I didn't pay attention. 
Along with investing time and energy in building my life coaching practice, I also am looking for part time work.  I went to an interview with a recruiter (along the same time my leg was acting up).  They had a good full time/temp position supporting a VP in a global organization.  If you know anything about me, I have been doing Administrative support work all my life and I'm not too excited to continue with it.  I want change. Ok, I accepted to go to the interview the next day where the position was available.  I really didn't want to but it was the "should" thing to do.
Coming out of the recruiter's offices, guess what?  My leg snapped and I felt excruciating pain.  I had to hop to my car. After a visit to the ER, I was sent home to rest for a week, no exercising, and no walking for a few days.
Did I somehow create the leg injury on a subconscious level?  Could be.  I didn't go to the interview.  Lesson?  Well, whether it's logical or not, I pay more attention to what feels best to me, not what feels like a "should".  Trusting myself is one of the lessons from this experience.  I will write in a future blog about some other lessons I'm learning from this.