“I’m not doing a real business because I don’t have clear products and services or even feel comfortable inviting someone who is struggling with planning to talk with me. I lurk in someone else’s coaching circle, offering suggestions with no authority or compensation; I comment in the women’s hiking group, requesting fb friends, but don’t have my own group. And if I do share, I’ll do it wrong.I should have my own group but I don’t have time! I don’t know what to call it! Poor me! Dumb me! Unworthy me! Not doing this right me!”
Reframe
It’s always refreshing when I experience a breakthrough from an Old Story to a New Story. There’s a palpable lightness in my body, a giddy sort of happiness, a flood of ideas.
This time it involved a realization that my partner truly is willing to honor the value of my business and willingly schedule time for it on our weekends off from our jobs.
Til now, our stories blended perfectly to give us two days of hiking most weekends. His There’s Never Enough Time For Hiking story complemented my My Expression Doesn’t Matter story.
Journey Steps
Here’s my action step from today’s call: I will consider my calender for the next six months, or maybe even the next one month, and design a single focus with specific times that Forgivenesswalks can operate, ala Laura West and her Passion Project. I can plan that out with my partner and do it. Not a dramatically new idea, I know, but timely for me once again. Steps: 1.Map out times on the calendar that ForgivenessWalks will be open; 2. Do a BrainDump of project possibilities; 3. Do a “survey” of my community on which project THEY like best; 4. Choose 5. Implement. Comments/Suggestions? Interesting as I write this out, it evokes my own guide for a fulfilling walk – Five Surprising Essentials (Know your Trail, Consider your Timing, Love your Gear, Have Support, Use reliable Energy-Shifting Tools). Time for a blogpost, eh?
Reality
My ex, three sons and baby grandson all got together this weekend – on the opposite shore of the country. I wasn’t there – and shouldn’t have been. At least, that’s what my current S.T.O.R.Y. (Sustained Tale Of Repressed Yearning) supports.
What a perfect situation for the steps of Radical Forgiveness: allowing my feelings to arise,
noticing my judgements, loving myself for having them, and being open to a new perspective.
That new perspective was suggested in a Satori Game that I played with a client a few days before the family visit.
Candle Lighting
“May the flame of Unity illuminate our path of togetherness at heart.”
Third Anniversary: A Quiet Heart
It’s three years today that an unknown judge signed my official divorce papers. On that day, I was moving to Virginia for my summer job and my ex was working in China as he had been for the entire previous year. Neither of us were aware that April 9, 2013 was our divorce day. I found out in an email from my attorney a few days later.
But I’ve been thinking about it this week as I delve into my new life. I could celebrate! That seems contrary to the usual view of divorce! Inwardly, though, I am content for that step. It was an honorable way to complete a dead relationship, one that neither of us could revive.
Important Details
A dreaming Pacific Crest Trail hiker posed this question in a women’s hiking forum: “When & where will you start? how long have you been planning? Would you share some of your plans/knowlege… I’m so nervous I feel I will leave some important detail out.”
She’s touching on one of the Five Essentials in the Guiding Star for Radiant Hiking, and that’s TIMING. Timing is essential in many aspects of our fulfilling walks. When we consider our hike in our life, the timing in the seasons, the timing of each section, in our daily pace, and even in the timing of each step, we can fashion a walk that builds from the inside out, one that takes outer shape from our inner intention. Our hike becomes an expression of our purpose and our physical and spiritual rhythm.
A Hiker’s “Why”
I read this hiker’s blog today. She seems to be discounting her purpose, saying she doesn’t know why she’s hiking, and that’s OK.
http://leftbase.com/?p=1568
To me, it’s a missed opportunity to avoid or discount anwering this important, formative question for a fulfilling walk.
Knowing – or inventing- a purpose for embarking on a journey can help a hiker make important choices about all five essential areas of planning as well as provide quick clarity when challenges arise during a hike.
Heartsinging Pace
I’ve weighed in on a thread started by a mom concerned that her daughter is discouraged on her Appalachian Trail hike. I found out that she’s walked over 200 miles in her first two weeks on the trail, starting in early March on Springer Mountain, Georgia. Here’s my response:
If that’s her heartsinging pace, then bravo. As a ridgerunner, listening to hundreds of hikers, I discovered that the happy, fulfilled hikers were those who found a personal pace that came from within, matching their own body’s comfort with their walk’s purpose. The unhappy, worn out ones were pushing themselves to “make miles” according to some formula they had heard from outside. The hike became something they felt forced to do, and many had something else they’d rather be doing. I believe there’s an inner purpose and pace that evokes a fulfilling, energizing, heartsinging walk! May hers be so! #singingheartwalk
Blame Game Blessings
I’m reminded this morning, having experienced a massive flow of people at the Visitor Center yesterday, of the value of letting those stuffed Emotional Beachballs from the past go BEFORE I am in tough situations. No one taught me that as a child, or even as a young adult, but I’m glad I know it now! Looking back, I see that the best I could do when upset was walk away without saying anything, without notice. Well, that seemed inappropriate, BUT, it sure was better than exploding, which is what could have happened (oh yes, I did that a few times too as the shattered dishes can attest).
Playing the Blame Game often, in
safe company to witness and validate my S.T.O.R.Y. with love, is what I know to do now, diffusing the stuffed energy from the past so the present is less intense. That way, the steam’s not all built up, ready to blow unexpectedly.