I was noodling on the idea of enrolling in Martha Beck’s life coach training.  This wasn’t just partaking in a self improvement class.  This was career changing, snow globe escaping consideration.  On frequent flier miles and a knee jerk, I signed up for her Steering by Starlight seminar held in Phoenix last May.  The idea was to experience her energy in person and let my intuition decide.

One morning prior to this trip, I asked the Universe to give me some clues. 
Ask and ye shall receive.

Journal entry:  April 30, 2008
Holy cow!  I just listened to a recording of Martha coaching and her client might as well have been me.  Paraphrased quote from Martha:  “Can I see that my ‘job’ and being in that state of perpetual stress will kill me?   That is not making a living… it’s making a dying.”

The closer the Phoenix trip gets, the more unspoken questions are just “answered.”  The answer appears in a magazine, book, MP3, e-mail, through a friend… or from that small voice… like magic.  Listening to Martha coach brought me to tears.  Not only because she addressed head-on some of my fears, but because it sounds like freedom.

Journal entry:  May 2, 2008
* Turned on the radio and Let It Fade was playing:  “Let this old life crumble, let it fade…”

* Picked up The Joy Diet and opened to the chapter on “Risks.”  The rule is that the risk has to scare the pants off of you.

*Picked up my coffee cup and this was staring at me:  “What would you attempt to do if you knew you could not fail?”

* E-mail popped up with this subject line:  “It’s Time to Break Free.”  The content meant nothing… but the subject line freaked me out.

* Quote on calendar page for the day:  “To some will come a time when change itself is beauty, if not heaven.”  – Edwin Arlington Robinson

* At work:  We were working through a settlement with a tough customer.  Last week, in a bit of exasperation I blurted:  “If we ever get this done, I’m quitting while I’m ahead.”  Today, they paid us an unsolicited lump sum that cleared their entire past due balance.  Their explanation is that they are going through a system upgrade and wanted to finalize their balance?  Most customers will use this as a reason to NOT pay.  Maybe I do need to quit while I’m ahead?

Journal entry:  May 7, 2008
Clergy column in our church messenger had this Bob Dylan quote:  “You are either busy being born or busy dying.”

Journal entry:  May 11, 2008
The song that kicked off our Sunday worship service was entitled “Break Free.”

Journal entry:  May 13, 2008
Received an unrelated e-mail from a friend and this was at the bottom:

“Give your entire attention to what God is doing right now, and don’t get worked up about what may or may not happen tomorrow.  God will help you deal with whatever hard things come up when the time comes.”  
-  Matthew 6:34

I must have stopped journaling at this point… but the magic hasn’t stopped. 

The trip to Phoenix brought about dreams that resolved and stopped recurring dreams I’ve had since college.  Beautiful and peaceful dreams.

I enrolled in coach training.  How could I not?  The freakishly synchronistic encounters and events only enhanced my faith that there is a higher power at work in our lives.  And that higher power was talking to me loud and clear… especially when I least expected to hear from it… and in my sleep.

By October, the questions revolved around not if, but when, I wanted to become a full time coach.   

• Should I resign from my day job in December and hit the ground running with the New Year? 
• Or wait until the spring after I was eligible for certification and had three more weeks of paid vacation in the hopper? 
• Was it even wise to leave my steady job when the economy was tanking?

I was pondering all of this while picking up some lunch-to-go and saw the new “Skirt” magazine on the racks.  Jokingly, and to divert attention away from my internal bantering, I asked:  “OK, Skirt, what do you have to say?  Wait for spring or not?”

Here’s what the cover said:

“Have you bloomed lately? …  Don’t wait for spring to shed the comforter of inertia that keeps you asleep in the bud, the permafrost of habit that keeps you stuck in a no-growth zone.  Stop wishing – start working. Quit waiting – start groundbreaking.  What’s the story you’re waiting to be, the Super Power you’ve been hiding, the seed you haven’t watered, the calling you’ve put on hold, the forgiveness you’ve withheld, the next step you haven’t taken?  There’s a Wild Flower in you waiting to blossom… A stargazer lily with sky-high dreams.”

I kid you not.  I almost dropped my salad in the parking lot.

Anyone not familiar with Martha Beck’s Steering by Starlight should know that the book is all about finding your path to your own North Star and following it through the eyes of your inner Stargazer.

I did not wait for spring.   And then the message of it all became downright freaky.

Two weeks after I resigned from that “safe” job, the “stable” company imploded.  It is possible that I would still be employed, collecting money, dealing with liquidation and listening to bankruptcy lawyers.  But it would be the antithesis of authentic and certainly not joy filled. 

Your intuition can tell you when it’s time to change.  Synchronicities and God moments are everywhere if you are open to seeing them.  Freedom is having the ability to change on your own terms even when it’s hard.

The real bonus lesson: 
When Your Essential Self Speaks… Consider She Knows Something You Don’t

Ask the Universe, watch for the synchronicities and trust. 
I’d love to hear about your magic.

Last post we discussed rabbits.  This week it’s lizards.  Soon we’ll have a zoo.
There was a great question asked in my last post:  How do you know if it is your intuition or your lizard speaking to you? 

Here’s a quick synopsis of the response:

• The reptilian part of our brain, or our lizard, has one job… to keep us on high alert so we don’t fall prey to a predator or starvation.  Our lizard talks through fear to keep us fed and safe.
• An intuitive hunch is a gut reaction, a whisper from God, or a knowing that something is innately right or wrong without reasoning or judgment. Listening to your essential self speak and following your intuition is liberating to the soul.
• I believe our lizard reacts to our intuitive instincts. If your intuition is leading you outside of your comfort zone, lizard fears are almost inevitable.

So… Picking up where we left off with the rabbits:   What if you have followed your intuition, have a wonderful life… and then realize ten days or ten years later that something isn’t right?  What if you hear a calling to do something different than the life you worked so hard to create?

The first step:  Don’t freak out.  Your lizard might think it’s necessary.  It isn’t.

Listen to what your essential self has to say and process the message.  (No… Ben & Jerry won’t help you process… put down the spoon.)  Advise your lizard that no action is necessary at this point and thank her for her concern. 

The Journal
This is where that journal I found from last year comes in.  I really had no socially valid reason to be dissatisfied.  However, a little over a year ago, I woke up to the suffocating image that I was trapped in a snow globe. 

April 2008 – Early morning:  Now I have to go to work.  I love my corner office with windows.  In the winter when it snows, it feels like I’m in a snow globe.   Right now (if I were sitting at my desk), there’s a dogwood blooming outside the window to my right.  If the windows opened, I could touch the blooms.  Outside of the window in front of me, a pair of gray and red birds is building a nest.  I can’t see the nest because it’s under a branch.  But I can see them flying in and out, bringing twigs and other stuff.  If I could open that window, I could lean out and see the nest about 5 feet away. 

Come to think of it… 
A snow globe is a great metaphor. 
I can’t open those windows. 
I can look out into the beauty of the world… but not touch it.  I suddenly feel trapped, restless and in an environment that is unnatural and unsafe.

I want out of the snow globe. 

I want the snow to land on my head and I want to sit under the tree and watch the birds.  Today, after a few less than joy-filled meetings…  I will start devising my exit plan. 

Mid morning: 
On the way to work, the emotion of writing about the snow globe effect overwhelmed me and I started to cry.  My first reaction was to reach for the Xanex.  I stopped, though, realizing that this is an ingrained reaction to dealing with raw emotion and fear.  I stuff it down or snuff it out.  I don’t want to feel the emotions.  This emotion is spawned from the joy of listening to my true self and allowing it to speak.  It’s annoyance over having to go to a meeting and pretend like I care.  My life is not bad… but I might choose to replace it with something better.  I let myself cry and feel the feelings.  I did not touch the Xanex bottle. 

Early afternoon: 
I am now in the meeting.  I do care… but I care with a plan to leave this a better place than when I got here 9 ½ years ago.  This will have been a better place for me being here.  I will leave here at peace with the job I did and with a graceful exit.

What fascinates me the most is how VERY clear the message was at the beginning and end of the day.  Slap in the middle, my lizard came out to play.  I can hear her now:

 “Are you crazy?  The snow globe is safe.  Take a Xanex and you’ll be calm, rational and able to go work.  You’ve worked all your life in this industry.  This is who you are and what you do. ”

Thank goodness I didn’t listen to her!

Instead, after sitting through the day of revelation, slight claustrophobic panic, lizard fears, annoyance and sadness, came what appears to have been peace.  Peace and a vision to create options.  By not freaking out, I was able to hear my way out of the snow globe and count the blessings of my past. 

If I had chosen to ignore my intuition, medicate my lizard and shut my essential self up by feeding her, I wouldn’t have been able to think so clearly.  The nagging sense of “not right” might have manifested into stress and anxiety over who knows what.  It makes me wonder:

How often have I tried to make things right in my social world when my essential self was really in need of attention? 

How often is no action the best way to hear what your whole self wants?

Doing nothing is an art upon itself. 

The Next Step (and next post):  When Your Essential Self Speaks… Do Nothing.

Until then:  If you stumble upon the realization that you’re stuck, don’t let your lizard misguide you.   Feel the emotion and write about it.  Walk with a friend and talk about it. Leave a comment and let’s compare notes.

Picture the hamster wheel.

The poor dude runs and runs in a perpetual state of forward immobility.

I see many of us today in this same cycle.  And we almost believe it’s fulfilling, fun and in line with our dreams.

· We are engulfed in a career.  We work late at the office, or plug in shortly after getting home, taking little time for hobbies or friends.

· We are parents of young or teenage children.  Balancing family and work is a full-time thing.  Keeping our own health as a top priority is a pipe dream.  There is laundry to do, after all.

· We are connected with friends, family and work peers, but are not connected deeply enough to our true essential selves… our souls.

· We have forgotten how to listen to that small voice inside for self support and guidance.  Because we’re running, we don’t allot time for this.

· Our trust in our own internal wisdom has been lost.  We look outside for answers.  We’ve lost trust in ourselves.

· We can take care of everyone and everything else.  We are a HUGE success outside of our own bodies.  Our body, however, we’ve forgotten.

Picture the hamster wheel stopping.

The top separates and one side slowly floats to the ground making a walkway for a stroll.
The whole world is in front of you.
The perpetual state of forward immobility is at rest.

Reality

This actually happened a few weeks ago.  I exited the ‘Corporate’ world to follow a calling to become a weight loss and life coach.  I was ready for that stroll off the hamster wheel.  The fascinating thing is that almost every ounce of my being wanted to run back to the safety of the wheel.  I heard our pastor say one day in a sermon:  “We often choose known hells over unknown heavens.”  The man had a point.  I can do perpetual stress.  It might kill me… but it’s safe.  (Yes, the irony is apparent.)  Bliss, on the other hand, is not something with which I have that much experience.  Martha Beck’s counterpoint (which has become my mantra) is:  “Run toward joy, not away from fear.”

As I start up the Lite Thoughts blog, I ponder all of the reasons why our spirits crave adventure, joy and freedom, while our minds find a fictional safety net in social conformity and structure.  Light thoughts and the pursuit of unknown heavens shall prevail over the stress and structured chaos of the known hell.  Thus, I don’t plan to return to the ‘Corporate’ world.  While the road ahead appears to be the less beaten path, I stroll toward it with the confidence, and occasional frightening realization, that it will be an adventure.

If your perpetual state of forward immobility were at rest, where would you want to go?

I hope our less beaten paths cross.

Jennifer