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     I’d like to share a post of mine below from July 7, 2010, that still goes to the heart of what I hear in many people concerning their desire for, and fear of, change. “What will I be asked to give up in exchange for moving forward?”  Some people fear the loss of approval of people they love; others, the steady income with which they financially support themselves and family; for others, it’s a loss of professional identity, of their selves that others recognize and admire.  What is the drive that makes people transcend the fear of such losses?  That’s the fascinating story behind all these quests.

      “In the Hans Christian Anderson classic, The Little Mermaid, Ariel gives up her beautiful voice in exchange for legs . . . Of course, there is nothing inherently wrong with change or variety or newness or with improving our condition.  The catch is when we are asked to give up our voice in order to move freely, when we are asked to silence what makes us unique in order to be successful.” (Mark Nepo)

      I was reading this passage and thinking of clients of mine whose concerns around being professionally successful are really issues about the loss of their voice and of speaking their truths.  I wondered, do you really have to give up your voice (the ability to speak your truth) in order to have legs (success and mobility in the world)?  That’s an odd condition, I feel, that you would have to exchange one for the other, when, in fact, you need both to make changes that are fulfilling to you.

      I’m thinking of one of my clients, a woman in her 50’s who was in a transition from stay-at-home mom to becoming a professional.  Her goals in coaching with me were all about becoming successful in her career.  Then during one session I commented on the lack of inflection and expressiveness in her voice.  I knew she was enthused about her new career direction, so what was this about? I asked her.  From this question came a surge of responses from deep within herself that she hadn’t expected, mostly reflecting the way she used to give and do for her family, without questioning what was important to herself.  When her youngest child finished high school, she allowed herself to go for a meaningful career, but still found herself giving time and energy to relationships that gave little back to her.

      She hadn’t recognized that while she was changing outwardly, she was also changing inwardly– and that she needed to re-create the conditions of all of her life to move forward in her career path.  She needed to create boundaries in certain relationships and become more open in others.  She needed to use her voice to claim what mattered to her– WHILE she used her legs to go forward professionally.  Now I can hear in her voice the enthusiasm and engagement she was experiencing in the work she has chosen.  She has brought her voice in alignment with her legs and her energy to living a full, rich life of her choice.

I’m very interested in your comments, viewpoints, questions, remarks.  Please add them to the comment section below.

Eve Siegel, M.S., CPCC, ACC, CMT, specializes in working with professionals who long to create heart-ful careers and live with confidence, clarity, and passion!

For a free consultation about individual coaching and/or body-energy experiencing sessions, contact Eve at: eve@kailaslifecoaching.com.  For access to her tele-classes and her FREE reports– ”Creating Meaningful Career Change from Challenge,” “Living Fulfilled– Finding Time for What Matters Most," and “The CTI Certification Experience– Perspectives on Professional Career Development”– visit her website: http://www.kailaslifecoaching.com.
 

     For most of my adult life, personally and professionally, I’ve been exploring the phenomenon of change. As long as we live in a body on this planet we will be subject to the process of change– physically, emotionally, and spiritually. As a number of us know from the runaway hormones of our teenage days, change that is unconscious, that takes us over, is tumultuous and makes us feel out of control. That kind of change leaves its imprint for many people in a desire to control all change, even to hold back from the inner promptings that try to tell us when we’ve outgrown a particular path and need to move on in a new direction.

     Many of the people I’ve worked with as a career and life coach contacted me saying that they’d been feeling for some time that they needed to make a change in their jobs and the way they live. Some had had significant dreams, body signals (stress, pain, illness), and other signs (e.g., burnout at work) that the way things were was no longer purposeful for them. However, they resisted change because they were afraid of loss (of a job, a relationship, control) and the unknown.

     Ram Dass– a visionary explorer of change, loss, and re-emergence into authentic being– writes in his book about awareness of change through aging, Still Here, that “without remaining open to change, we cannot remain open to life.” By diving into the deepest fears of many people in western cultures– those of aging and dying– he also opens ways for us to release our fears of moving out of old, constrictive patterns that tie us to ways of working, relating, and living that throttle our energy and diminish our well-being. As he relates about himself, being “thrown out of Harvard took away the secure professor role from my Ego . . . My creativity was released when the identity of Harvard professor was ripped away.”

     A simple thing you can learn to do when you are on the brink of change, or in the midst of it, and struggling with your fears and your Gremlin (the part of you that doesn’t want you to change), is, as Ram Dass suggests, to “practice moment-to-moment Awareness by learning to do one thing at a time.” Taking a slow breath in that expands your entire rib cage and then letting it out allows you to savor being in the present moment. This experience opens your parasympathetic nervous system, which relaxes your mind, your digestion, your breathing, and creates a calming center from which action that feels right to you can emerge.

     Gradually, as you cultivate your awareness of just being in the moment, you realize that each action you take– beginning with your breath– simply leads you into the person you truly are. Conscious change begins to happen more effortlessly with less need to hang on to habitual ways of being that drain your energy. As your actions align with your authentic self, you move past your fears and your Gremlin with greater confidence into change that is positive and that matters to you.

I'm very interested in your comments, viewpoints, questions, remarks. Please put them in the comment section below.

Eve Siegel, M.S., CPCC, ACC, CMT, specializes in working with professionals who want to long to create heart-ful careers and lives with confidence, clarity, and passion! 

For a free consultation about individual career & life coaching sessions, tele-classes or her FREE reports– “Creating Meaningful Career Change from Challenge”, “Living Fulfilled – Finding Time for What Matters Most,” and “The CTI Certification Experience — Perspectives on Professional Career Development”– visit: http://www.kailaslifecoaching.com or contact Eve at: info@kailaslifecoaching.com

      Below is a rerun of a blog post of mine from a year ago that I'd like to share again on the topic of connection.  Have you got the outlook of the toad?  Know anyone locked into a limited and unproductive outlook like the frog?  Enjoy this story!

One spring evening when I was a freshman in college hanging out on campus, I met a stranger from another country who told me there were four phrases that were indispensable for getting you through life. Occasionally several of them float through my mind, but one is always there– “Everything’s connected.”

It’s a universal spiritual principle that all of life is connected– and you can easily notice it in the realm of the physical world of the planet, as well. For one thing, all of the living and non-living aspects of the world are connected in our dependence on the earth and the air and the sun for our existence. For another, when we come together to work in a common cause or to celebrate, we can feel the energy that connects us all. And yet, so many of us cut off our awareness of this connection, often because it seems easier simply to see things from a smaller perspective.

There’s a story about a frog at the bottom of a well always looking up at the small circle of sky at the top of the well. A toad at the top of the well urges the frog to come up outside the well and see thTe grandeur and the bounty of the world. But the frog refuses, not wishing to change her mind about what she already knows is there.

The people I see for coaching usually come with a particular goal– for example, a career change. I ask them to write down three goals, which surprises them when there was only one thing they wanted to change. Often, they find their other goals have more to do with increasing their sense of well-being, having more quality time with their families, or committing to completing a creative project. They’re often amazed that these different change areas are really connected– that if they’re looking for work they love, they might as well also make sure they’re building in time to play with their children each evening or swim daily or write a chapter a week in their new book.

Everything’s really connected! Just climb up out of your well and see all the possibilities around you. Create your dance that touches everything you want to do and become! Feel the all the possibilities that weave into your expanded reality.

I'm very interested in your comments, viewpoints, questions, remarks. Please put them in the comment section below.

Eve Siegel, M.S., CPCC, ACC, CMT, is a certified life coach and somatic therapist who helps professionals who long to create heart-ful careers and lives with confidence, clarity, and passion transform their dreams into their reality!

For a free consultation about career & life transitions coaching sessions and information about Eve's tele-classes and her FREE reports– “Creating Meaningful Career Change from Challenge”, “Living Fulfilled – Finding Time for What Matters Most,” and “The CTI Certification Experience — Perspectives on Professional Career Development”– visit: http://www.kailaslifecoaching.com or contact Eve at: eve@kailaslifecoaching.com

Have you ever been in a situation where you felt that no matter how much you did you simply couldn’t enhance or change the outcome so that you felt alive and purposeful? As a coach, I’ve heard this from people who are very able and successful in their careers, for example, but feel stuck in the quality of their whole lives.

So here’s a question for you– What challenge can you give yourself that will move you out of a dead end into a place where your energy can move again?

Ben Zander– co-author of The Art of Possibility and concert conductor– gives his music conservatory students the following challenge to jolt them out of their attachment as to whether or not they’re playing well enough:  Each week they are to “notice how they are a contribution . . . and to cast themselves as a contribution into the week ahead  . . . and imagine that everything they do sends ripples out beyond the horizon.”

So what does this mean in practical terms? Have you noticed how easy it is to get mired in your own expectations, pinning your happiness on your plans and accomplishments?  For example, “This has to be a wonderful trip” or “This relationship will be the one” or “I must do well in this profession– I’ve invested so much in getting this degree.”

It’s so easy to forget the value of just being who we are and who we like to be–and sharing that with others.  And yet, holding the attitude of “I am a contribution to others and to this planet” can literally redirect your talents and your energy into areas with real potential for expanding and lighting up your life!

I inadvertently played the “I am a contribution” game some years ago when traveling for a while through England with a friend.  When my friend left and I was on my own, it was like I lost my inner compass and didn’t know what to do next, even though I had plans.  I felt absolutely stuck, and I had a number of weeks to go before returning home.

As I sat in my hotel room unable to decide what to do, I suddenly thought of the owner of the hotel– a pleasant woman who’d talked with me in a friendly way about my trip, but with a look of sadness in her face.  I wrenched myself out of my own preoccupation and thought, “I wonder if there’s some way I could help her be happier.”  This thought moved me out of my room and onto the street where I saw a flower vendor.

On the spot, I bought a small bouquet of fragrant, though not exotic, flowers and presented them to the hotel owner.  I still remember how her face lit up with pleasure as she lifted them to her face to take in the scent of the out-of-doors.  Suddenly, I felt my heart open and a delight in life come back to me.  This small act of “being a contribution” freed me from my limited mindset to an expansive place of spirit, which turned out to be the unsuspected door to the possibilities of my own
journey.

As one of Ben Zander’s students wrote about “being a contribution”– “I know now that music is not about fingers or bows or strings, but rather a connective vibration flowing throughout all human beings, like a heartbeat.”

I’m very interested in your comments, viewpoints, questions, remarks. Please put them in the comment section below.

Eve Siegel, M.S., CPCC, ACC, CMT, specializes in working with professionals who want to long to
create heart-ful careers and lives with confidence, clarity, and passion!

For a free consultation about individual career & life coaching sessions, tele-classes
or her FREE reports– “Creating Meaningful Career Change from Challenge”, “Living Fulfilled – Finding Time for What Matters Most,” and “The CTI Certification Experience — Perspectives on Professional Career Development”– visit: http://www.kailaslifecoaching.com or contact Eve at: info@kailaslifecoaching.com

[Note:  My blog post this week is one I wrote last fall.  Since I’m planning to give a presentation on the book, The Art of Possibility, on Sun., July 31st, at Books Inc in Berkeley, I’d like to share with you again the excitement I felt when I first discovered it.

Since I always enjoy the insights in The Art of Possibility whenever I open its pages, I hope that if you’re re-reading this blog post, you, too, will continue to feel the sparkle and engagement of connecting with the possibilities in others that can expand your own life, as well.  My appreciation, too, to Leslie Williams Schwerdt for her scintillating photo of our friend, Joel Stratte-McClure, exploring his own jazzy, pre-birthday possibilities.]

This past week, I was really charged up with the combination of participating in my Stanford University alumni reunion and reading the book, The Art of Possibility, by Rosamund and Benjamin Zander.

One aspect of this book that struck me at my reunion was the part the authors call “Giving an A.”  By this they mean allowing people and experiences to be what they are and could be– not limited by your own expectations.  Most people I met at my reunion said that this one was the best ever, and I agree.  My feeling is that every successive five years when we come together, we allow more of ourselves to be seen– not just the parts of us that appear to be successful in the world.  At this reunion, there was definitely a sense of trust that who we are– and what we’re doing that’s opening us to who we are– was of interest to others. In the context of having graduated from a very competitive university, this more open way of interacting with each other constitutes major personal growth!

At earlier reunions, more people interacted from the “measurement” perspective of “what grade did you get?” that was the norm during college and “how well are you doing?” that was prevalent as people were starting to activate their careers.  A number of years later, my classmates and I have grown into the “possibilities” perspective that sees people as whole and evolving.  There’s so much more energy and authentic connection when you relate in this way! We’re not limited by others’ expectations of how we should write or take exams, how many trips we’ve taken or how much we make a year.  We care more about how fulfilled and expansive each other’s lives have become– and are becoming.

“When you give an A, you find yourself speaking to people not from a place of measuring how they stack up against your standards, but from a place of respect that gives them room to realize themselves . . . This A is not an expectation to live up to, but a possibility to live into.” (The Art of Possibility).  Isn’t this the essence of how to create and sustain life-enhancing relationships– whether with your soul mate, the store clerk you see every week, a casual acquaintance on a subway, or even someone whose political views you don’t understand at all?  It’s also the essence of how to create value from any new experience you embrace.

I’m very interested in your comments, viewpoints, questions, remarks. Please put them in the comment section below.

Eve Siegel, M.S., CPCC, ACC, CMT, specializes in working with professionals who want to long to create heart-ful careers and lives with confidence, clarity, and passion!

For a free consultation about individual career & life coaching sessions, tele-classes or her FREE reports–“Creating Meaningful Career Change from Challenge”, “Living Fulfilled – Finding Time for What Matters Most,” and “The CTI Certification Experience — Perspectives on Professional Career Development”– visit: http://www.kailaslifecoaching.com or contact Eve at: info@kailaslifecoaching.com

Last spring I wrote several posts about one of my favorite books, The Art of Possibility by Rosamund and Benjamin Zander.  Because I’m giving a presentation on this book at Books Inc in Berkeley, CA, on July 31st, I’m going to draw from it again in this post to explore in a different way the quality of confidence that I wrote about last week.

The Art of Possibility assumes that each of us has the potential to re-examine our assumptions about life and expand the way we live by having trust (“con-fidere”– with trust) in our own hearts and spirit.  When we approach each moment with openness to the possibilities there, we move past fear and into a way of life that flows.  As the Zanders say, “Life flows when we put our attention on the larger patterns of which we are a part . . . Life takes on shape and meaning when a person is able to transcend the barriers of personal survival and become a unique conduit for its vital energy.”

As you enter into flow, you approach a new level of confidence– one that relies on a sense of bodily grounding, a conscious trust in the gravity of the planet to hold you steady as space opens for you to reach out in your work and your life in new ways.  When you are able to release limited assumptions of what you are supposed to do or how you are supposed to love, a whole new world opens that gives you room to breathe and dance and create!

Maureen Raytis, co-author of the lively guidebook to inner spaciousness, Feng Shui Your Mind, relates her moment of epiphany as she caught herself in her usual habit of rushing home in her car:  “For some reason, that day I noticed that I held my breath through the yellow light . . . Why did I need to amp it up like that? . . . That’s when I started to take notice of all the little stressors of the day . . . Every time I noticed my tendency to hurry, I would stop and start breathing deeply . . . I’m sure you can imagine how this perception– that there is enough time [and space]– changed the quality of my energy and my life.”

So here are some inquiries (big questions with many possible responses beyond “yes” or “no”) from The Art of Possibility that I invite you to play with to extend your awareness of the small things that are involved in creating a sense of flow and confidence in your life:

• “What assumption am I making, that I’m not aware I’m making, that gives me what

I see?”

• And then– “What might I now invent, that I haven’t yet invented, that would give me

other choices?”

What insight are you taking away with you now about stepping past the stress of fear and limitation into the flow of spaciousness and confidence?

I’m very interested in your comments, viewpoints, questions, remarks. Please put them in the comment section below.

Eve Siegel, M.S., CPCC, ACC, CMT, specializes in working with professionals who want to long to create heart-ful careers and lives with confidence, clarity, and passion!

For a free consultation about individual career & life coaching sessions, tele-classes or her FREE reports– “Creating Meaningful Career Change from Challenge”, “Living Fulfilled – Finding Time for What Matters Most,” and “The CTI Certification Experience — Perspectives on Professional Career Development”– visit: http://www.kailaslifecoaching.com or contact Eve at: info@kailaslifecoaching.com

The Art of Possibility– How to Open the Heart of Your Career and Life Now!

• Have you ever wondered why career changes you’ve made have left you feeling limited or dissatisfied?

• Do you want to live and work in ways that feel alive and authentic,but don’t know how to get started?

If these questions resonate with you, join Eve Siegel, certified life coach, in an interactive, experiential class that will let you explore making the changes you want from a creative, relational perspective. We’ll draw from the amazing book used internationally by coaches and organizational leaders, The Art of Possibility by Rosamund and Benjamin Zander, to help you see where you can bring more life, joy, and energy into relationships that positively affect the ways in which you live and work.

As you learn to expand your potential for more positive thoughts, feelings, and interaction in your life, you also learn to let go of pre-conceived ideas about the career you’re supposed to have, or how you’re supposed to be doing your job, or why you’re supposed to living your life in a certain way.

In this presentation, we’ll explore ways to access “the universe of possibilities” in our lives through:

• Paying attention to what can come alive in interactions with others

• Encouraging people to live out their gifts

• Allowing yourself to give freely to others

• Celebrating positive changes

• Living everyday with passion

Join us for this special time to open your “universe of possibilities”!  You can order copies of The Art of Possibility from Books Inc in advance or buy one when you attend this presentation.

Where: Books Inc., 1760 4th Street, Berkeley, CA

Date: Sun., July 31, 2011

Time: 4:00 – 5:00 PM

No need to RSVP.  Just walk in and have a great experience!

About Eve:

Eve Siegel, M.S., CPCC, ACC, CMT, is a certified life coach, somatic therapist, and the founder of Kailas Life Transitions Coaching & Body-Energy Experiencing. For over 30 years– as a certified coach, somatic therapist, and director of non-profit programs– she has guided people in creating new ways to envision, embody, and fulfill their purpose and heart’s desires.  She specializes in working with professionals who want to create heartful careers and lives in balance with confidence, clarity, and passion!  She is also a popular presenter on making positive change and creating successful career and life transitions.

Contact Eve for a free consultation about individual career & life coaching sessions at eve@kailaslifecoaching.com.  For information about her tele-classes, presentations, and for access to her free articles and blog posts, please go to her website– www.kailaslifecoaching.com.

Lack of confidence in yourself is one of the most elusive barriers to making satisfying changes at work and in significant relationships. It lies beneath most of the reasons I see people for coaching.  It is a fear that if you stand in what you truly know– about yourself, about what you do– it will not be enough.  You will not be accepted as a full partner at work or in an intimate relationship.  You are not complete.  This is the kind of fear that can keep you off-balance and not knowing how to create or hold a new direction.

One of my clients, a woman in her mid-30’s, a professional psychotherapist, accepted a managerial position with a large non-profit organization that brought her a regular income, benefits– plus a lot of concern that her skills as a supervising therapist were not adequate to her new position.  She actually did well on the job, as evaluations of her work attested, but kept feeling uncomfortable, that she was expected to have a more commanding personality than was her style.

In one of our coaching sessions, I asked her to stand facing me, lift her arms, and press her hands against mine.  I leaned my weight from my arms into hers, and asked her to press her weight back towards me.  I noticed that instead of pushing her hands forward directly into mine, she kept moving her hands with mine in circles. She did not push back directly towards me.

After doing this for a while, we talked about the feelings we’d both experienced during this exercise.  She said she’d felt as she usually did at work– that she was trying to stay aware of how all the people she worked with were thinking, and that her mind was going all over the place.

I told her that I’d felt that she wasn’t fully present to me, that she wobbled and I couldn’t rely on her to be there with me.  What I needed, I told her, was for her just to be in her own knowing, and let me feel her presence and the weight of her hands directly against mine. I could tell that she knew what she needed to know, and she didn’t need to press hard to communicate that to me effectively.  She just needed to feel her confidence in being herself, and communicate directly with me by being present  to her own body and personal style.

The poet, Mark Nepo writes:  “[Psychologist Michael Mahoney] traces confidence to the Latin confidere, “fidelity,” and understands self-confidence as a fidelity to the self.  Indeed, it is only a devotion to that sacred bottom beneath our moods of insecurity that brings us back in accord with the center of the heart which shares the same living center with all beings.”

It is from this “sacred bottom,” this “non-judging state” as the poet Rumi calls it, that you can learn to connect authentically and effectively with others.

I’m very interested in your comments, viewpoints, questions, remarks. Please put them in the comment section below.

Eve Siegel, M.S., CPCC, ACC, CMT, specializes in working with professionals who want to long to create heart-ful careers and lives with confidence, clarity, and passion!

For a free consultation about individual career & life coaching sessions, tele-classes or her FREE reports– “Creating Meaningful Career Change from Challenge”, “Living Fulfilled – Finding Time for What Matters Most,” and “The CTI Certification Experience — Perspectives on Professional Career Development”– visit: http://www.kailaslifecoaching.com or contact Eve at: info@kailaslifecoaching.com