Are you a parent wondering if you need to compromise what you love in order to provide for your family?
If you are like most of us, you are busy. Busy enough that it's frustrating and not allowing you to be the parent you want to be, the partner you want to be, and do the kind of work that you want to be doing.
You probabl wonder, is it possible to follow the talent and passion in my heart, make a living, and be a thoughtful parent to my kids?
Sitting at that edge of where to compromise and where to be true to yourself can be really painful and confusing. It easily and consistently hits all your questions about who you are as person and as a parent. You watch your kids with eyes of pride and joyfulness, and want them to be confident and feel great about who they are. But then you see it, another kid pokes, or teases, or exposes them to that influence you wanted them to resist and they give in…
Give in as in they do not stand up for themselves and get crumpled by that negative influence. And you want them to be strong.
But, you realize that you are not feeling strong. You are feeling lost. You are feeling the weight of that compromise. How can you expect them to follow their passion and trust their talent if you can’t even do it?
Are you ready to feel strong and remember those things you love about yourself?
Look, in our culture it is really easy to fall into the place of feeling crappy about your self and feel like you “should” be different. Imagine being told over and over again that you are not okay in lots and lots of different ways.
Actually, you do not have to imagine it. Every day you are barraged by the message that you are not okay. Unfortunately, it arrives as many as 30,000 times a day through the media, schools, and your friends.
Would you believe that it gets worse? You know how, it’s called Silly Self-Talk. Silly self-talk is powerful. That pesky voice in your head takes those messages and finds the ones that poke you right where you are vulnerable and jumps up and down on them like a caffeinated toddler.
All these messages, both external and internal, have you doubting yourself. You wonder if you are crazy. You wonder if maybe you should go see a therapist. You question if there is something else you “should” be doing.
I hear story after story about people are trying to resolve these challenges on their own. That is a terrible place. It is way to easy to convince yourself something really is wrong with you; which can turn into embarrassed silence and closing yourself off.
Welcome to the lonely journey of the downward spiral.
You fall into the place where the only place you are working on the doubt, confusion, and wondering is in your own head.
It takes initiative and action to counteract this barrage. It takes connecting to and believing in that feeling, that gnawing, that makes you know there is more that is possible.
What really makes you re-connect to yourself and your power?
This is big stuff. My commitment for the last 20 years has been to help people connect to their Real You. Hundreds of people and efforts later, I got to be with my own journey as a parent and a professional. This deepened my inquiry and insights, which I now offer in the belief (and hope) that they can be of service to you. Here are 4 keys that I see
1. A daily practice
Having a daily practice gets you in action and keeps you in action “a body at rest stays and rest, a body in motion stays in motion…”. When you have a daily practice you are committing an act of integrity. You give your word, you keep your word. When you do this you build trust in your self on many levels. Your daily practice may be meditation, yoga, rememberance, a morning walk, or lots of other things, but the important part of it is that it is. It is time with yourself where you can quiet your brain and connect with the Real You.
2. Perspective
Perspective is the difference between getting triggered by a message or voice and seeing it as a learning opportunity. It's the difference between blind emotional reactions and intentional engagement. Without a map of what really matters for you it is easy to get lost. You will save enormous time, energy, and money being able to connect to the big picture and knowing when and how to get yourself there.
3. Being seen & learning to see
You have got to know yourself and be connected to the real you. Then people can see you; and being seen for who you really are deep down in there is massively re-assuring and far to uncommon. As parents (and partners, friends, etc) it is equally as important to learn to know other people and understand who they are. By doing so you give them the gift of being seen.
4. The courage to learn.
Courage is what it takes to keep trying. Failure is an essential ingredient of success. The journey of getting what you want includes creating bigger and juicer mistakes. It is amazingly powerful to believe that you can handle what you create and uncover.
It will take a lot of courage and perspective from you to act on these feelings. It will have to come from that deep place were you are ready to be seen.
Imagine a group of thoughtful, committed, and passionate people actively engaged in discovery. Imagine having a place and time each week that honors the Real You; a place that is both safe and challenges you.
Are these the results you want?
• To make conscious, powerful decisions about your next steps in life based on a strong foundation, not the wobbly desperation of whether to compromise.
• To know you are not alone.
• To be a thoughtful parent with some ideas for how to be with your kid.
• To have people you can talk to about all that crap that flies around your head.
• To be connected to resources that can remind you who you are and how you want to be.
• To feel loved.
• To make an investment on yourself that you follow through on (unlike that new year’s gym membership you buy, use 5 times, and then watch sit there).
I honor the exploration you are on to find the balance between your heart and your need to be responsible. Your desire to be better, healthier, and more powerful citizens, parents, students, partners, and friends is real. Your desire to pay off your loans, get an education, pay the bills, and have some fun is also real.
Your talent and passion are a gift to all of us. It is essential for our young people! Having adults who are fighting for their aliveness is massively empowering for our young people. It is painful for me to know that you are struggling with whether to give up what is in your heart.
What would it be like to be a member of a thoughtful and passionate group of people committed to the discovery on this journey?
Introducing Living Out Loud.
Living Out Loud is a 4 hour in-person workshop followed by 8 weekly 2 hour seminars.
It is aimed at helping you to take your next steps on your journey. You are not alone – despite how tempting it is to think you are. There are others out there exploring the same challenges and wanting the same breakthroughs.
I am certain you have had a similar experience:
A friend of mine and I were having lunch at a lunch cart in Portland. I wanted Pad-Thai, but realized it would use a single use plate and fork, so like my friend I opted for the burrito. But it came in a bag, so he asked for no bag; they handed us the salsa, but oops, it was in a little plastic container. He gave it back, and asked for the bottle. We opened our burritos and squirted salsa out of the big bottle they use to fill the little plastic things.
Neither of us would have had the resolve to take these steps alone (at least not consistently). The power of a group is crucial in taking the initiative and action to counteract the barrage of negative messages. It is the only way to sustain being the change you want to be in the world. What is your story of group accountability?
The most basic level of the course is accountability. Your highest self wants to make a commitment and make it stick. It does not want to play “the new years resolution game” of making a commitment and then blowing it off weeks later.
But this class will go beyond this basic level and begin to explore what lives out there in that world of possibility and aliveness that lives deep inside you. You can imagine the freedom of letting it out, so lets take the next step of making it happen.
Ready for some details?
Take the next steps towards a life you love will include listening to thought leaders and sharing your reflections on their ideas; exploring stages of eco-soulful human development; creating ways to remember and access your highest self; watching a movie together; and of course sharing, story telling, listening, and coaching around your personal journey.
The New Year commitment you are looking for starts here:
In-person seminar date: Thursday, January 21 from 5:30 to 9:30 pm in Portland
Tentative phone seminar dates (all Mondays from 7:30 to 9:30 PST): January 25; February 1, 8, 15, 22; March 1, 8, 15, 22 (the 22nd is celebration day and will be in person).
In the recent seminars that I have done, the investment of time and energy that I put into these seminars is significant. The price point of $179 feels like a great value for the course.
Because of the economy, I realize the cost might be tough for some people who really want to do the course. As a solution to this between now and January 8, the cost of the course will be $99 with a recommended additional contribution of $80 (or an amount that will make you feel invested in the class) for the first 10 participants.
Cost of health care membership?
Cost of not doing what is in your heart?
Cost of traveling the same road, again, and not ending up where you want – time to learn from prior experience and try something new?
Cost of doing it alone?
Cost of staying too close to the surface and not getting to the level you know is inside you?
Cost of having a transformational and deep experience you share with other people on similar journeys $179