I'm letting it go...and it's all good.

As a coach, it is my job to be unattached to the outcome.  When I first started practicing this skill, I often felt like I was walking a thin line between apathy, which is not something that comes naturally to me, and conscious unattachment.  I can say, with a great deal of confidence that I have become very skilled at remaining curious and unattached to the choices that my clients make, but I often times struggle to be unattached to the outcomes in my own life.

Clearly, I care a great deal about my life, and where I am headed, so to say that I am unattached to my outcome is false. But what is true, is that I find myself getting so wrapped up in what I think is supposed to happen or in my expectations, meaning that I am focused on the future, that I sometimes miss the opportunities that are staring me right in my face in the present moment. 

When I am coaching I support my client’s choices and encourage them to seek out a deeper awareness as to what is driving them to make the decisions that they choose to make, but when it comes to supporting myself, I often times put an enormous amount of pressure on myself and thus create unrealistic expectations.   What I have learned about unrealistic expectations is that from the get go, I am setting myself up for disappointment… and that is not what I want in my life.  So in order to walk the walk and talk the talk, it is important to me to remain gentle with myself, stay flexible, and welcome the unexpected. What I have experienced, when I am able to be unattached, is that life presents opportunities that in my wildest dreams I could never conjure up. Practicing the art of being here now, and experiencing life as it happens, is blowing my mind and opening me up to new and exciting aspects of my life that have been untapped for some while now.

My questions to you all are these:

What does being unattachment mean to you?

How are your expectations limiting you?

If you could harness all the energy that you put towards future thoughts, what would you do with it?

What does it feel like to be present?

 

 

I hope you all are having a great start to your weekend, and I look forward to hearing from you.

 

Talia

 

I'm taking it back...all of it.

I associate memories and periods of time in my life with music, and more often than not those songs are associated with people. Over the course of the past few years, I have grown apart form some very significant people in my life, and in turn attempted to suppress our memories by not listening to the music I once loved.  

The other day I was listening to a random mix of music, and a song came on that was a serious memory trigger.  My initial response was to skip the song, and then something interesting happened.  I got a little bit angry.  The thoughts that were running through my head were something like this… “This is crazy, this is just a song, if you want to listen to it, listen to it. Why are you allowing someone in your past to have this much control over you...still! GET OVER IT”.   So I did.  I played the song that once made my heart ache, and decided that it would no longer have that effect on me.  Instead, I choose to listen to the song with a fresh perspective and enjoy it for what it was, just a good song.

It was really interesting for me to think about this further.  I had been allowing my past, to own my present, and I am so over that.  What was happening to me was when those songs came on, that initiated the memories, I got sad or I started to replay the past, which I have found rarely accomplishes much of anything.  So in my taking ownership of how I want to perceive these songs in the future, I really did myself a service in moving forward with my life.

My questions to you are these:

What are you not enjoying in your life because you’re trying to avoid what it once represented?

What will you gain from reclaiming what you once loved?

How will eliminating negative associations change who you are?

 

I am really curious to hear from you all on this one.  I too am in the process of seeing if there are other areas in my life where I have conceded what I once loved in order to forget the sad parts of my past.

 

I hope you are all well.

Talia

 

Wait, did that just happen?

I am still in disbelief of this whole scenario, and I am hoping by putting it out there for you all, together we can make sense of it. I cannot remember the last time someone was outwardly mean or malicious towards me, and last night was apparently my refresher course. The details of what transpired are not really important, but what is important is how I am choosing to deal with what I am feeling.  

Initially, I was so caught off guard by the fact that adults could so easily act like children in the midst of a temper tantrum, that I was somewhat amused, but after the initial shock wore off, I began to realize that despite the absurdity of the whole situation my feelings were hurt, initially.

Logically, I know that what when someone goes out of their way to minimize someone else, it rarely has anything to do with the person who is intended to be hurt and humiliated, and everything to do with the fact that the person doing the hurting is so low that they must bring others down in order to feel better about themselves. I do firmly believe that what happened to me last night was not about me, but rather about someone trying to make themselves bigger by knocking me down. Well, you know what I say to that? Try again.  I am so proud of who I am and of how I choose to show up in the world, that mean-spirited people cannot derail me.

In the light of day, I am realizing that my hurt feelings are coming more from a place of feeling sorry for this person and not because I am internalizing what was said to me.  I choose to see the good in people and want to surround myself with like-minded folk, and last night was a reminder that not everyone is good and it is important for me to be cautious.

My questions for you this morning are these:

When people cut you down, how do you choose to respond?

What is important for you to remember when you find yourself in a situation like this?

What is the grander lesson here?

I hope you are all enjoying your weekend, hope to hear from you,

Talia

 

 

 

Finish what I’ve started….

This past week I have had the time to reflect on many aspects of my life that are incomplete. The list of incomplete projects, relationships, and thoughts seem endless, which stresses me out.  For a long time it has been easier for me not to address the incomplete things in my life and continue on as if life is all good, but I can only fool myself for so long. 

What I have come to realize is that when there are items left incomplete in my life, I tend to be irritable, stressed, and I more often than not end up getting sick.  So the cost of putting off what is important to me is hefty.   I recently created a list of all the things in my life that are incomplete.  My list included things like, cleaning out my closet and basement, journaling about a specific relationship, sending a friends’ wedding gift, reading several books, and so on.  With the exception of a few items, my extensive list once prioritized, seems to be rather manageable. 

What is most important to me is to set myself up for success in terms of actually accomplishing these tasks. So I am going to be realistic with my timeline for each item, and I know for me I work best when I focus on one particular task before moving to the next.

When I am thinking about completion/ closure I find myself asking these questions:

How is it going to feel once completion/closure is in place?

What is holding me back from finishing what I have started?

Once I have completed a task, where will I put my energy?

What I am afraid of?

I hope these questions help you to recognize the power that completion can have.  I welcome your thoughts and insights. If you find that you don’t even know where to start, or that your list seems like too much, let me know…I can help.

Have a great day,

Talia 

Ah…Instant gratification

There are very few ways in life to really achieve instant gratification, and for one reason or another, sometimes it is all that I want. The reasons for wanting instant gratification are complex.  I find that I seek out instant gratification when I feel less than in control of my life, and it is a way for me to regain control, feel good about myself, and gain a sense of accomplishment.

When I am feeling the urge to work very little and feel like I’ve done quite a bit, I usually find myself vacuuming. I love that I can vacuum for five minutes and on the surface my house looks all spiffy and clean. Now, I am very aware that instant gratification is a mask for some deeper issues, and I am pretty in touch with those issues, but seriously sometimes I just don’t want to go there.  There are so many reasons for me to feel down and sometimes discouraged with different things in my life, and I will take most any opportunity to feel good…even if its from vacuuming.

What do you do when you are feeling a little down in order to turn things around for yourself?

Do you recognize when it’s important to dig deeper and solve why instant gratification is something you’re craving?

What does instant gratification mask for you?

I hope you all have a wonderful weekend,

Talia

What’s it gonna take?

The economy sucks, and we’re all feeling it, and all the while we are all trying to move forward and keep our lives full of happiness, choice, and security.  As a coach, I am finding that many of my clients are taking this opportunity to really shift their focus from the necessity of their jobs to how do I make my job fulfilling and something that can sustain me?  I have had my fair share of jobs that absolutely sucked the life force out of me. And when I think back to those times in my life, aside from being miserable and feeling slightly helpless,  I relied on my mentors to help me see my way out of those situations and help me create new opportunities for myself.  

So my questions to you all are these:

How many of you are working a job, that is not fulfilling?

What is your dream job? And what is it going to take for you to start to move forward towards your happiness?

What is stopping you from creating your our ideal life?

If any of this resonates with you, and or you are looking to find some more clarity in any aspect of your life, please give me a call. It’s my job to help my clients move forward and see results.

Here’s to a partially sunny day in Seattle,

Talia

 

Hating What I Love

For the past few months, I have been very committed to maintaining my health physically, and thus mentally, and it’s been fairly evident. These past few weeks, however, with my schedule changing a bit and with a lack of motivation, I have seriously slacked off.  I woke up this morning not feeling 100%, but determined to work out today.

All morning long I have come up reasons as to why working out today is not a good idea, like I’m so tired I won’t be able to do what I normally do, I know I can’t run today and being at the gym is going to frustrate me, and if I’m not feeling well shouldn’t I just stay home and take care of myself? All those are pretty valid and truthful, but what I do know is that by the simple act of getting dressed and driving myself to the gym, I am breaking the habit of sitting at home and whining about not working out. 

My goal today is to make it to the gym. I am not expecting that I can run, or lift as much weight as I know I’m capable of, or even stay that long.  But knowing that I will have gotten out of the house and followed through on what I said I was going to do, is enough for me to feel good about myself, and will be enough to help get back on track.  It is truly amazing how powerful and persuasive negative self-talk can be.  I know for a fact that when I work out I feel better in all areas of my life, yet I am so quick to disregard those feelings when I am feeling a bit lazy.

My questions for you are these:

Where in your life does negative self-talk keep you from doing what you know you love?

How do you break the cycle, of what I am terming laziness, and get yourself make on track?

What are the things in your life that you love?

Ok, I am going to get dressed and head to the gym…wish me luck.

Have a great weekend, and please feel free to share your thoughts.

Talia