A Container to Live Within :: A Poem, A Practice

it won't ever be perfect
not in the way that you or i think of perfect
but it will be everything that it is
and we will feel it all like an accordion
in and out, loud and soft, high and low...
weathered

this life thing has been around for quite some time
cycling and circling
dancing like a child under her very own arm
you can dance like that, too
hardly knowing, in your mind, what you're doing
mostly flowing
mostly following
something bigger inside of you
far too large to be contained
far too free to stay small
far too strange to be known in words

but you can know it--
your natural rhythm
the way your everything wants to flow
the way your body wants to go
the direction, the devotion
that you move within
when you get out of your own way
when you accept your form of play
when you play
when you play
when you play

stepping back or holding in
shrinking away or never beginning--
i have my limits
for now, for now
i do

but underneath my mind's desire
to be everything good and glorious
to hold on to that tempting perfect that isn't real--
which takes me nowhere juicy or true--
there is a surrender
an exhale
a relief
like age-old eyes looking up from a bed
just before their final closing--

you will get what you need
even if it is crappy
believe me,
you will get what you need

in this moment
on this earth
a light will flicker from a pocket mirror
into the pupil of your eye
and show you
if you will look
you will see
if you will follow
you will be free



~~~~~~~~~~~~



It's a practice. A big one. A bold one. An opening that changes everything--to really come home to your natural rhythm and easy flow. It's simple, but it's anything but small. And I'm knee deep in the practice, soaking in the most enlivening moments of honesty, humility & humor.

If this practice is calling to you, too--if you know it's your time to come home to yourself and come all the way out, I'd be honored to support you along the way. For the sake of the little stuff & the big stuff--a happier body & healthier relationships, deeper peace-of-mind & less stress in the check-out isle, a job that fits you & jeans that fit you. It's all about coming home & coming out.

Check out 31 for 31, a coaching special that I'm running during the month of August. We might just be meant for each other. This might just be that flicker of light.

madlove & swirling respect,
rachael

31 for 31 :: The Way Dreams Come True for You and Me

West end beach | Molokai, Hawai'i | Image by Julie Daley

Sweet and wild friends and loves,

I'm going to do a few incredible things in the next few months that I'm totally psyched about!!--Some of which you can participate in if the spirit moves ya! But first...

The back story

Two months ago, my dear love Brian and I decided (with tons of honor and respect) that it was time to go our own ways after 7 and a half years of true togetherness. Since then, I've been reevaluating my life, my dreams and my work. 

I've decided to make a rite of passage into delicious independence and radical responsibility for this one life I get to live by...

Becoming a full-time coach & 
Moving to Hawai'i!

With heaps of intuitive hits and universal green lights (like the waves themselves are pulling me there!), I've decided to move to Hawaii mid-September! (Island and length-of-stay TBD...leaning towards Maui for 2 to 200 months, depending). 

Simultaneously, I've had the deep desire to dive head first into my coaching practice. After 8 months of coaching part-time and baristaing part-time, it's finally time to go all-in with coaching. So-I've quit my part-time job, moved home to my parents house where I'm able to be super retreat-like focused, and put together this beautiful opportunity for myself and 31 lovely people out there.

It's called 31 for 31, and you can read all about it right here. 

In short: 31 days, 31 people, 31 sessions, $31 a session--beginning August 1st.

To be transparent, yes--it's about building up my coaching clientele. It's also about introducing coaching to a wider sphere of people--offering up an opportunity for people to work with me at a reduced rate, who otherwise might never try coaching. I love what I do and people say I'm excellent at it. Landing a slew of new clients in time for my Hawai'i departure would mean a thriving and sustainable life while I'm over there. And some serious soul-shifting, life-enriching experiences for my clients. Hell yes! At the same time, I do no hard sells. I only work with people who are frickin' PUMPED to work together. 

So, with wild love in my heart, that fluttery excited feeling of doing something truly resonant & truly bold, and, well, hope that you'll play along... Here goes nothing.

I love you. I thank you. Yowza! Let's do this thing!
Rachael


PS--special thanks to Kate Swaboda & her Coaching Blueprint Newsletter where the 31 for 31 idea spun from. Her content is always exceptional + beckoning. 

When you fear yourself... and there's nowhere else to turn.

Turn in.

What's asking to be born?
What part of you, in hiding, is just dying to see the light of day?
Who would you let yourself be, if you knew you'd be loved unconditionally?

Your partner, lover, friends, family--they won't always know how to love you without pause.
But hiding does not make you immune from judgement.
Denying who you are does not free you up to be liked, loved, admired, or praised.

It's a ruthless world of energy and emotion.
Our happiness, our joy, our satisfaction--is because we choose to open.
--Open to all that we are, all that is, all that will be and has been.
We open authentically, with acceptance, tenderness and love blazing the trail.

It's not an easy opening, always. Especially not at first.
New habits take time and practice.
But closing off is no safe bet, either. 

After all, you may know the impulsive rage of constantly fidgeting for the next distraction.
You may know the fatigue that comes when you never stop swimming.
You may know the disappointment that comes when you never dive in at all.

And then, there's opening.
There's learning how to be with every impossibly beautiful and unlikely but loveable part of yourself.
There's learning that there's no real difference between one thing and the next.
We're all made up of love--all of us--every part.

That's why when I coach, I almost always ask my clients to be with this question:

If I loved and accepted every part of who I am, what would I stand to gain?

Journal on this question for 30 days, I tell them. Walk with it. Let it sink into your psyche just as you're about to go back into auto-pilot. See what shifts for you. For me, this tiny question moves mountains--opens me to a resounding truth on a pathway toward my next bold move.

from a cozy couch with quiet rain fall behind me and this song on repeat...
madlove and sweetness,
rachael

Hot Mama Interview with Kate Courageous!

Why take big risks? Cross huge thresholds? Put yourself through the agony of facing your fears? (And do you have to experience agony when facing your fears??) What's waiting on the other end of Courage? And how can you find out?

This is what coaching can help unearth: the power you've always had, but seemingly lost.

My friend Kate Swoboda, aka Kate Courageous, is a courage-expert, dream-manifestor, and limiting-assumption-breaking-Queen. She was also my coach for a few months leading up to the blast off of our grand bicycle adventure. As fears about death and inadequacy circled my psyche, Kate helped me unravel the unhelpful stories I was holding--stories that were holding me back. She helped me notice and move past my fears so I could explore whole-heartedly what life had in store for me.

Bonus:: Info on bomb-ass Coaching Blueprint that's 'bout to be hot off the press, and in pre-order mode ahora.

++++++++++

Hey Kate! First of all, want to take a stab at any of the questions above?

Absolutely: Take big risks, cross huge thresholds, and put yourself through the agony of facing fears because the process itself, as well as the end result, all goes into the mixed bag of living 100% fully alive. Does it have to be agony? No. Does it often feel that way? Yes. Are we in choice? Completely.

Okay... Let's get personal. What was your most recent encounter with Big Fear and how did you choose to respond?Okay... Let's get personal. What was your most recent encounter with Big Fear and how did you choose to respond?

My most recent encounter with Big Fear was quite recent: starting a Master’s in Counseling program. I had taken all of the pre-requisites, applied to grad school, gone through an application process and interview, and moved myself and my boyfriend to a new city. Within the first week, I “just knew”: the timing for being in school again was completely off. Grad school was not bad, the program was not bad, the city was not bad, nothing was bad--the timing was just off because a lot had shifted in the 9 months since I first applied. I knew that I needed to honor that, but I was afraid of blowing this big opportunity. I also felt really guilty--someone else, somewhere, received a rejection letter to the program while I was let in.

How I did I choose to respond? By crying a lot--and being with that wave of fear. I turned over the Stories that were coming up. I had Stories that I was being a flake, Stories of embarrassment, Stories that this had something to do with my identity. I reached out for support. Reading all of this, you might think that it was pretty simple. It felt really, really awful. There are no shortcuts. Then I took a deep breath and got honest with my Department Chair. The great thing is this--they were amenable to my taking a leave of absence.

Can you break this down into a practice we can try at home?

When you’re feeling afraid, feel the feelings that can go along with that.

Cry! Or just sit and breathe. Or beat the shit out of a pillow. Or journal like crazy. Choose something that is the opposite of your natural tendency (if you avoid crying, for instance, go there first--if you’re always crying and getting upset, try silently meditating).There’s a real preoccupation in our culture with trying to be calm and contained when we’re dealing with something big, and the consumer media has just about convinced us that it’s supposed to be simple and easy.

Dealing with hard stuff is not simple or easy--and it’s okay that it’s not easy. I genuinely believe that there’s a bigger purpose in working through pain. At the very least, it teaches us out to be allies for others.

Why do all of that? Because when we do, we’re using our bodies to birth our answers. There’s an energetic stuckness that releases and a clarity that comes.

How did your courageous journey begin, and what's been the biggest change you've seen in your life since?

It’s your typical story of a dysfunctional family dynamic and some pain in childhood--eating disorders, cutting, depression, thoughts of suicide. Throughout all of that, though, I had this real internal will or drive; you could say that some of my self-righteousness ended up being helpful to me because I was stubborn in my belief that the way my family showed up was wrong and I was right. We’ll call it self-righteousness as a survival mechanism. ;-)

I was always practicing courage, which is: feeling afraid, diving in anyway, and transforming. Over the years, I’ve unfolded more and more into just being with that process and that fear, rather than white-knuckling my courage practice.

In this moment, what comes to me is that the biggest change is seeing that as I become more comfortable with my fear, I also become more gentle. One would expect the opposite--that more courage equals more ferocity. I’m seeing more ferocious love in my life, but not more ferocious fighting or defense of my vision.

How about the dark side of Courageous Living? What new challenges often emerge for you or your clients when you embody a bold and courageous version of self? (And how do you respond?)

What’s tricky is that often, the shadows will loom larger because you’re putting more attention on them as you work with them. There is a phase where things seem worse, harder, more complicated. Almost everyone in that phase will say that things were better, before, and ask themselves why they bothered to start this journey, or work with a coach, or “who needs that workshop”, or they put down the book, or they turn to their default distraction. No one feels peachy-keen about working with what comes up, not even me.

So why work with it? I’ll use the metaphor of going for a run: When you go out for a run, at first your body protests (sometimes it even protests the entire time). It doesn’t feel good. So why are there so many crazy-ass runners out there? Because of the bigger picture--more energy, eating whatever you want, feeling happier, a longer life, stronger bones, the endorphin rush, the release of stress, the camaraderie with other runners. The runners who stick with it stop fighting the hard parts and find some way of learning to be with that initial mile where everything in them says, “This blows.”

That’s how I and so many others feel when we know we’re working with something that just feels...gross. We just keep labeling it: “This feels gross” and seeing if that shifts. Or perhaps we allow ourselves to be pissed that it feels gross. Perhaps we reframe it and start saying, “Thank you” for the gross-ness because that puts it in the place of trusting that there is a bigger picture. Perhaps we get curious about it and decide that we’re going to explore the “gross” to its absolute limit.

Whatever one does, and it needn’t be dramatic, my invitation is to not avoid the gross feelings, because the same lid that we put on ourselves to keep from feeling the gross stuff, is the same lid that covers everything joyful, enlivened, juicy, excited and inspired.

You're always full of inspiring concepts and quotes (your own and others). What words of wisdom are you living by these days?

Oh, you’ve got me now! I am such a quote collector. Lately I’ve really loved this from Pema Chodron: “Only when we know our own darkness well can we be present with the darkness of others.” Also: “The people who irritate us are the ones who inevitably blow our cover.”

I'm really excited about your most recent project--The Coaching Blueprint--for new and aspiring coaches. How did this dream come into being and what are you most thrilled to be offering?

I’ll be frank--I dealt with a ton of fear as I started my coaching practice. In 2008, I tried to go from part-time to full-time with it, and ended up not being able to make ends meet. That was really humbling. In 2010, I embarked on the same journey, and started to see many of the same bumps in the road--but this time, I course-corrected more, studied more, listened more, tried more. Now that I “get” what is helpful and what isn’t, I want to share that with others.

The Blueprint is exactly what I wish I would have had when I started my coaching practice, because it would have saved me a lot of time and money--and let me know that I was not alone in my experience.

The Coaching Blueprint is a downloadable e-program for new and emerging coaches who want to create a fulfilling and successful practice--emphasis on “fulfilling” because it needs to feel good. It’s covering building a strong foundation, marketing practices, and growing beyond one-on-one clients. Along the way, I interviewed 10 other coaches and 2 counselors on how they created their practices: Pam Slim, Julie Daley, Michael Bungay Stanier, Steve Bearman, Jennifer Lee, Michelle Ward, Tanya Geisler, Dyana Valentine, Tara Gentile, Jamie Ridler, Tara Sophia Mohr and Bridget Pilloud.

Kate... You continue to amaze me with your passion and motivation to help others rock their life-visions. A hundred gratitudes for this beautiful, insightful interview. And wishing you heaps of success in all you do!

If you're interested in hearing more from Kate, head over to her site: http://www.yourcourageouslife.com/ and sign up for her list-serve! Top-notch, people. Promise.

The Blueprint is available for pre-order HERE and there's even a snazzy list-serve for people interested in learning more. Again, I could't recommend it enough. So quality.

Go forth with courage, friends. Believing in your brilliance as always. xo