Why we all don't have what we want

Personal Power For All

I've been involved in the human potential movement or on a personal power path for 40 years. When I started on my path I didn't know I was on a path; I just knew I was in so much angst about my life and my body that I had to do something. What I did was go to a 12-Step program and found a spiritual answer or rather I began to understand how life really works - not what I had learned from my parents who actually didn't have a clue. It's not that at 37 I found all the answers. I found out there were questions. Much more important.

So my journey has wound and wound and found me living in L.A., Sausalito, Mill Valley, Petaluma, Dallas and Las Vegas - in no particular order.

• It took me out of my first marriage of 15 years into single parenthood with 4 children with lots of low self-esteem.

• It took me to other 12-Step programs. It found my second husband of 6 mos. in that 12-Step program and led me out of the marriage and the program again.

• It found me at an obscure workshop called Making Love Work by the then very unknown Barbara deAngeles and John Gray.

• It found me discovering my childhood abuse and back into another 12-Step program.

• It took me back to John Gray and Men Are from Mars . It found me my 3rd husband of 23 years.

• It took me to coaching and writing - and many other places.

My life is a miracle to behold. I have 4 lovely adult children, 6 amazing grandchildren, 2 beautiful daughters-in-law. It gave me a most precious and special relationship with my stepdaughter. It gave me friendly but far-away relationships with my other stepchildren and grandchildren.

Why did a woman who was emotionally and sexually abused as a child, who suffered from very damaged self-esteem, married 3 times(!), who saw herself as a victim etc. etc etc. get such a great current life. THE ANSWER IS SIMPLE. I DO THE WORK I UNDERSTAND MY NEEDS TO HEAL, TO GROW AND I DO IT 100%. Even when I didn't have the emotional tools to move on, I had the personal power.  Whether it's with a coach, without a coach, in a 12-step program or out - NO MATTER WHAT, I do and have done the work.

If you have that kind of personal power and commitment to your path, you have anything you want. I promise.

YOU University Coaching/Life Coach Training and Life Coaching

What Is Spiritual Growth?

It has taken me years of learning and self awareness to be at the place of spiritual growth that I am at today. So, what is spiritual growth?

I'm just becoming aware, maybe at a deeper level than I have been before, the pitfalls of what is often called a spiritual bypass. Spiritual bypass- the desire to go directly to spiritual feelings, explanations and thoughts without experiencing the feelings in between.  (Much prettier and less messy - like the picture to the left. It's even decorated with a flower.)

Here are some examples of how we do it to ourselves:

• We are so scared of feelings, we use something to keep us from having them. It might be a substance or might be just a way of clenching down and keeping them out.

• We decide we are so healed and have done so much work on ourselves and our past, we don't need to go there any more.

• Since we didn't have a very rough past, we think we aren't like those others who did and we don't really have any feelings much to deal with

I think that about covers it. (You know who you are.)

Anyway, that being said, I'm going to copy what I wrote just a bit ago:

"Nobody wants to let me talk about my fears of death or let me muddle my way into acceptance. I just looked up throat in Louise Hay. It says, 'avenue of expression. Channel of creativity.' So that's why my throat hurts and I feel like I've lost my creativity like a little cat who might be in the house somewhere under a bed hiding but also might be gone - even dead. So I've been enjoying editing what I've already written and being amazed that I wrote what I wrote and expressed it so well. Maybe this fear is what is holding back my flow. Not the fear so much, but the lack of expressing it. It feels like my faucet is almost closed.

So here goes:

I am afraid of dying. What if it hurts? What if there is nothing after? What if I'm not really spiritual, just afraid of dying? What if Bart's cold body is in our bed? Who would I call? What would I say? How would I call Anna? What if I become too needy and my kids don't want to be bothered? What if the pain of Bart's dying is so sharp it ruins me? What if death disrupts my life? What if he gets sick and can't work or is non-functioning? What if I do? What will happen? I feel like I'm up against a wall of water like the parting of the Red Sea and I'm running out of the steam to keep it at bay - my positive grateful attitude is wearing thin - gratitude with feeling is hard to find. Denial is gone. Mortality is here. I can't keep walking around it like the elephant in the living room. It's bigger. More unknown. Surprising. Maybe evil. Everyone who has died in my life seemed magically gone. I insulated myself from their pain or I rode or floated on top of it. I can't do that any more. I've never really felt grief and it scares me.

I want to feel up to facing whatever is and face it dead-on, face to face. I don't want to lose my highs and lows and yet I want to stay in a positive  place. Have I confused something here? Am I trying to give myself a spiritual bypass? Have Bart and I colluded in shutting out my feelings? We don't like anger. He doesn't like mine. I don't like his. Have we overdone it? I want to fully live the human experience. Feelings are part of it. The only way is through - not around. I feel so much better."

Everyone has a different way to grow spiritually. It is affected by so many aspects of life that it is ever changing from person to person.

What is spiritual growth for you?

YOU University Coaching/Life Coach Training and Life Coaching

Rules for Being Human-Keys To Self Growth

Rules for Being Human

These rules are consistent to everyone. It doesn't matter where you are or where you are from these rules apply to your life. If you can embrace them, your self growth will truly show itself.

1.  You will receive a body. You may like it or hate it, but it will be yours for the entire period this time around.

2.  You will learn lessons. You are enrolled in a full-time, informal school called Life. Each day in this school, you will have the opportunity to learn lessons. You may like the lessons or think them stupid and irrelevant.

3.  There are no mistakes, only lessons. Growth is a process of trial and error, experimentation. The “failed” experiments are as much a part of the process as the experiment that ultimately “works.”

4.  A lesson is repeated until learned. A lesson will be presented to you in various forms until you have learned it. When you have learned it, you can go on to the next lesson.

5.  Learning lessons does not end. There is no part of Life that does not contain lessons. If you are alive, there are lessons to be learned.

6.  “There” is no better than “here.” When your “there” has become a  “here,” you will simply obtain another “there” that will again look better than “here.”

7.  Others are merely mirrors of you. You cannot love or hate something about another person unless it reflects to you something that you love or hate about yourself.

8.  What you make of your life is up to you. You have all the tools and resources you need. What you do with them is up to you. The choice is yours.

9.  Your answers lie inside of you. The answer to Life’s questions lie inside of you. All you need to do is look, listen, and trust.

10.  This will often be forgotten, only to be remembered again.

From the book If Life is a Game, These are the Rules by Cherie Carter-Scott

YOU University Coaching/Life Coach Training and Life Coaching

Three Magic Secrets - the Movie

The First 37 Years - Covered in the Movie

I guess I've learned to make a story out of my life. This movie is the story of a part of my life. Making it into a story, has helped me learn what was good about the hard parts. Writing and producing it the way I did felt like giving birth to my 5th child. That child has taught me many things about life and myself. It is said, "from the mouth of babes".

The Fifth Child Is Born as We All Are - as a Result of Pain

Twelve years ago my husband and I found ourselves living in Las Vegas, a very unlikely place for someone who hates heat and always said she never would want to live there - me. Some people experience the results in their lives that have people saying to them, "Be careful what you wish for" but I seem to have to stay away from "I never..." kinds of statements because then they seem to happen.

So we had just gone through one of the hard parts in life. For 5 years we ran a workshop training company for John Gray, the Men Are from Mars guy and that company ended abruptly and kind of crazily. Many things changed in our lives including no longer being able to afford our lovely home in N. California. Fortunately, my husband was offered the job in Las Vegas and to Las Vegas we went.

So since I had to do something in Las Vegas out of the heat, I decided to see if I could write a book. It was a sometimes frustrating journey but I did it! I learned that I have creative talent that I had no idea I had.

The Fifth Child's Frustrating Years

I also had no idea how to market the book, so it sat in boxes in our house until along came the idea of making it into a Powerpoint presentation with movement and music.

That also took many, many months only to find out that Powerpoint files were really hard to show on the internet. Eventually I had it made into a flash movie which took a whole year long journey in itself and was fraught with much drama between me and the gentleman who was making it for me.

Meanwhile things got way better in our lives. We were back in Los Angeles, crazed and then uncrazed over the loss of all of our money but life kept improving as my husband found his fifth career at age 70, teaching high school Physics which he does until today, seven years later, and I am about to start training my thirteenth coach.

The Fifth Child Grows Up

Yesterday I was able to convert that flash movie that took a year to be done into a movie I can easily post anywhere from youtube to facebook or right here on my website. For that I am exceptionally grateful. At the same time in this my 70th year on the planet (I will have my 70th birthday on January 4, 2013) I am now known as the Wise Fairy God Mother and I finally believe it is the most appropriate title for this formerly very low self esteem woman, the Woman-Who-Was-the-Girl-Who-Was-the-Light. And I am grateful.

Note: If you want to find out who the Woman-Who-Was-the-Girl-Who-Was-the-Light and the Wise Fairy God Mother are, watch the movie. It's up there on the menu bar. It'll take you about 11 minutes and put your speakers on.

YOU University Coaching/Life Coach Training and Life Coaching  

What Is a Spiritual Life Coach?

Spiritual Life Coach = Life Coach?

A spiritual life coach is a life coach who acknowledges the presence of spirit in the world and intuition in the body. If you need support:

• during your first steps on a new path in life,
• want might help getting in touch with your heart, or
• help in times of crisis when your world may seem like it's falling apart.

At these times, you may find the help of a spiritual coach most welcome.

Most coaching is at some level a form of holistic  or spiritual life coaching because all coaching is primarily about  expanding awareness. Working with an intuitive or spiritual life coach is thus about reaching clarity through awareness. Spiritual coaches can help you clarify issues that may be keeping you stuck.

A spiritual life coach will help you expand your awareness with a much wider perspective than just what appears to be happening. They will help you see the purpose and gains from the hard things in your life. They will empower you with a perspective of learning rather than victim.

YOU University Coaching/Life Coach Training and Life Coaching

Would a Spiritual Life Coach Be What You Are Looking for?

Spiritual Journey - Me?

There are life coaches that can help you with every aspect of your life including your spiritual life.

• Do you find yourself spending your whole life waiting for everything to be settled in your lives before you can be happy?
• Do you think with more money you will be happy? More money or more time or when the kids grow up or when you retire?
• Do you think things just happen and they often "happen" to you?

By putting off your happiness this way, what you are doing is wasting your time in hopes of some future happiness. A spiritual life coach can help you stop putting off your happiness waiting for some big life-changing event to happen and help you learn to live in the present moment – which, by the way, is all you really have. A spiritual life coach can help you see meaning in the happenings in your life today.

True happiness comes when you accept yourself and your life the way that it currently is. A spiritual life coach can help you learn to do this so that you can move forward and learn to live in the moment. (It almost sounds like an oxymoron – " move forward and learn to live in the moment". But no, it is just one of the wonderful paradoxes of life.)

When you begin to accept this as a way of life, you can plan goals for your future to make the changes that you would like to that will bring you more happiness and fulfillment but get every drop of joy available in the present moment. What do you have to be grateful for now, this very moment?

A spiritual life coach can begin to help you organize your life and offer questions that will lead you in the direction that you would truly like your life to head in. Once you accept yourself and figure out what you want to change in your life to make you happy now, you can stop waiting for something that may never happen until you choose for it to. A spiritual life coach may just be the answer for you and your sense of fulfillment and happiness.

YOU University Coaching/Life Coach Training and Life Coaching

Self Worth? Resistance Revisited

Most of my work on myself and my continuing journey is to expand my self-love and self-care having followed a lifelong path out of self esteem and self worth issues.

In light of that and because my muscles start hurting if I don’t do it, I’ve taken up yoga. I love it. So as I was showering this morning I was noticing resistance. And I don’t like resistance and I don’t want it but if I push against it, it pushes back.

So instead I asked myself what the resistance to yoga was about. And here’s what I got: it’s about allowing myself the time. My mind says, “You could be working on your coaching programs or washing dishes or .....” whatever.

I realize that my mother never let herself spend any time on self care and unwittingly made it a value to be taken on and honored. She told me with great disdain for our neighbor walking down the street in her tennis dress: “Exercising is vain.”

So, "Resistance, you are just a mask for keeping me loyal to that unconscious value. You may leave. Your job has been done. You tried very, very hard and long to hide the truth from me and did a  really great job of it.

Now I know a different truth, I AM WORTHY OF MY OWN TIME AND ATTENTION."

What are you resisting that is really good for you?


YOU University Coaching/Life Coach Training and Life Coaching

This Is Exactly Why I Chose Not To Get A Life Coach Certification

Life Coach Certification Or NOT

I'm involved in a life coaching forum and was perusing the entries one day and found an online conversation fraught with frustrations and stress. The stress and frustration had to do with a coach's inability to share their  wisdom, knowledge and experience with the client. They had their own life coach certification. One of the posts was something like this,

" … unfortunately, as (a certain brand) coach we are not supposed to impart our wisdom. We are supposed to draw it out of client. I bite my tongue because I want to share some of what has been talked about here, but I am in life coach certification right now and my supervisor reminds me that I am supposed to be wisdomless and bring it out of the client because they are naturally creative, resourceful and whole."

This is exactly why I haven't gone through a formal life coach certification program.

I believe my clients are naturally creative, resourceful and whole also. They're wise enough to seek support when they are going through challenges, change and transition. It seems to me it is almost unkind and callous to withhold these thoughts from a client.

So as a result, my style of coaching includes mentoring in addition to coaching (asking powerful questions) which means besides helping the client plumb the depths of their own intuition, knowledge, inner guidance and wisdom, I often advise, counsel, guide and/or teach.

I continuously remind the client that they will know and that I am not them nor in them so I could be completely wrong but I have found that they come to rely and respect what I offer them since I too have often walked in their shoes and continue to walk my own path of transformation daily.

Having lived 70 years and consciously pursued a personal and spiritual growth path and being an acute observer of the human condition – mine and others – I feel it is my responsibility and joy to share that with those who ask. The counsel that I give can not be found through life coach certification but through life itself.

Now that you're done, I have one thing left I'd like you to do.

I'd love to hear your thoughts so comment below and (uh oh this is 2) please follow this blog over there on the right. I'd love to get to know you.

Self Growth - OK. Now I'm going to blow my own horn - at least a littlebit

Self Growth and Spiritual Growth

A short time ago I got off the phone with a client. She told me what follows and said I should write about it and so I am. There. That's my disclaimer in case you want to see me coming from my ego. (I'm kind of kidding. But really. So. She and I have been working together for about a year. She is stuck in her life for a couple of reasons: One, she experiences a lot of anxiety and has done so for many years. And, two, she needs to make this big decision and keeps vacillating.

What I finally saw about her self growth today and shared with her is this:

• While we as a culture used to talk about "that's how my nervous system is" and feel stuck with it - stuck with the genetics of our screwed up parents or forefathers and stuck with our own proclivities to anxiety or whatever negative systems we experienced because of our "rotten" childhoods. But now comes the Age of Responsibility.  Many of us know and/or believe that we chose our childhoods and parents. And even if that's too hard to swallow for you, science has shown us that we can change the physiology of our own brains by turning our thoughts to more positive ones and creating new neural connections. This is self growth and spiritual growth.

• And I shared that I am a living example of how this works. I was emotionally abused by my mother and sexually abused by my only loving parent, my father. So although I do believe I chose that childhood and those parents, I am not just a spiritual being. I am living a human experience. And in this experience I have choices. I have chosen to heal my emotional past. I have chosen to change my thoughts and beliefs.  I have chosen self growth. It has and does take effort. But the rewards are great.

What my client told me was that because I have done the work, share my experience and continue to exhibit the benefits of having done so, I help her know that she can do it too.

---