Learning Old Lessons

I dedicated this blog to writing about my journey of self-discovery and those a-ha moments along the way.  I have been unable to write about any of that for these past three months because the thing I wanted most to happen has indeed happened but it has affected me in ways I never imagined.

On September 11, 2011 my husband and I learned we are to become parents for the first time.  Our little one is due in May.  I could not be more excited and anxious and so many other emotions at once that it is overwhelming at times. 

At first, I stopped writing my blog because even though I had tons of great topics I couldn’t write about the one thing that mattered most, my joy at discovering I am going to hold that magical title of “Mom”.  There is a proper order to announcing these things.  First you tell your husband, then your families and close friends, and so on.  We didn’t keep it a secret during the first trimester like so many people do.  We thought about it but we were just too excited about sharing our news with the world.  Unfortunately I did not feel like I could write about it online until I finally told my boss a few weeks ago.  The only reason I held out as long as I did was he is never in town and couldn’t see how big I was getting and of course I was not looking forward to his reaction.  However it would not have been appropriate for him to come across my blog before I told him our news and so I stopped writing.

I’ve come to realize over the last several months that I have certain expectations about how thing should progress, both for my pregnancy and for life in general.  I’m always amazed when I discover that I think (rationally or not) that my life will unfold in a particular way.

I remember on my 20^th birthday laying in bed nearly having a panic attack because all I could think was that was by the time I was 30 I would have finished school, know the heck I wanted to do with my life, be starting a master program, be married and starting a family.  It seemed like a lot to have to get done in the next ten years and so I lay in bed almost paralyzed by the expectations I had given myself.  I was in my mid to late 20’s before I realized that just because that was the path my mother took didn’t mean I needed to follow in her footsteps.  I finally allowed myself some breathing room and began to let my own journey unfold without worrying (too much) about it.

Pregnancy is once again bringing up these crazy expectations, sometimes in the silliest of ways.  I remember thinking that I would probably have to buy maternity clothes mid-late in the second trimester.  The joke was on me!  By the 7^th week nothing fit and I had to shop much earlier than expected.  At three months pregnant I looked like my friend did when she was 7 months pregnant.  Morning sickness has lasted longer than I had hoped and I’ve had a host of other challenges just in my first 16 weeks.  I keep hoping things will settle down and be “normal” but when have I been “normal”?

I love that I get to re-learn my lessons about expectations and comparing my experiences with others from a whole other perspective.  I need to remember to just be in the joy and wonder of the moment, during this amazing time.

Going Home

It’s been two and a half years since I did the craziest, most wonderful thing for myself.  I’ve been reflecting on this time in my life, remembering how it felt to be in the flow, seeing everything around me for the first time, simply by being open to possibilities.  I’ve settled into a routine since all the changes have happened, but I want to remind myself what it felt like to be in a space of infinite possibilities instead of the restricted place of routines that become ruts.

This is a story about having faith in the Universe. 

I was born and raised in Phoenix, Arizona.  Growing up my relatives were scattered all over the country and I envied my friends who had close relationships with local relatives.  I always thought I would stay in Phoenix when I was an adult to raise my family there so my kids could be close to their grandparents.  Funny how life has a different way of turning out.

Labor Day weekend 2005 I visited a friend who had moved to Portland the year before.  We toured the city and surrounding area for four days. On the last day of the weekend we drove out to the Columbia River Gorge stopping at Multnomah Falls on the way.  We walked a little ways up the path that winds around the falls and I stopped to catch my breath and enjoy the scenery.  I sat by the edge of the trail and closed my eye to feel the place and I distinctly heard and felt “Welcome Home”. 

I took that memory back to Phoenix with me, always keeping that idea buried in the back of my mind, never telling anyone what happened.  Something had shifted for me during that weekend.  Prior to th that trip when arriving back in Phoenix I would have a sense at homecoming.  From that day on, whenever I flew into SkyHarbor airport, I felt like I was being dragged back to the desert.  Phoenix no longer felt like home.  At odd moments I would find myself looking at apartments in the Portland area instead of whatever else I should have been done online.  All the time I was saying, I’ll always live in Phoenix.  I love it here.  I lived in denial for several more years.

In the fall of 2006 I attend a book signing at Changing Hands Bookstore for Laura Alden Kamm, an amazing medical intuitive that I had seen and had classes with.  I asked her about some trouble I’d had with a meditation script she recommended.  She answered my question quickly, but then looked at me and said, “Sweetie, pack your stuff you are not staying in Phoenix.”  In that moment I was transported back to the moment at the falls and I knew what she meant.  I had two close friends in the audience that night and after the talk was over we went out to dinner and I announced I was moving to Portland.  Needless to say they were floored.

I wish I could say that I stayed with my conviction of that moment, but again I waffled, letting myself doubt what I knew to be true.  I had finally accepted that I was leaving Phoenix, but I still didn’t fully believe I was bound for Portland, just somewhere north and west of Phoenix.  I asked any psychic I knew where I would be moving and when, trying to get a handle on the change that was rapidly approaching. 

After working with a Life Coach I had convinced myself the Bay Area would be nice since I had friends in the area.  In May 2007, I went for a weekend to visit the city and look at apartments, and even met with a head hunter.  The best part of that trip was confirmation that I was not supposed to be in the bay area.  From that point on I decided to listen to my heart…Portland it was.  Now I just had to screw up the courage to do it.  In the fall of 2007 I ran into Laura Alden Kamm at the Celebrate Your Life conference in Scottsdale, AZ.  She took one look at me and said, “What are you still doing here?”  I replied, “I’m not ready to go yet.”

In May of 2008, when the lease on my apartment was up I decided I really wanted to do this.  I moved in with a friend of mine so that I wouldn’t be tied to a lease when the time came and began job searching in the Portland market in earnest.  I figured with would be a month or two max and then I’d be on my way!

The months dragged on with no responses to my resumes.  By the end of the year I decided I’d had enough waiting and decided to go as soon as I wrapped up one last project, which was scheduled for mid-January.  It then got pushed to mid-February.  When I go the notice that my hearing was postponed again, this time until August, I decided I was done waiting.

President’s Day weekend 2009 I flew to Portland to spend the weekend looking for an apartment.  I spent all weekend driving around the city looking at various apartments.  Towards the end of the weekend I wondered across the Columbia into Vancouver, WA and looked at a few more place.  At the third place I looked I felt in my gut that I had found my new home.  I spoke with the rental agent and flew back to Phoenix to quit my job. 

The following day at work my boss came to speak with me about a project I’d been working on and I asked him to close the door.  I told him I was putting in my two week’s notice and was moving to the Portland area.  He asked if that was a joke.  I said no and promptly burst into tears.  Perhaps not one of my more professional moments, but it was one of the hardest things I had ever done.  Not only was I leaving the security of my job, but I’d been with the company for 6 years and had made many friends.   He asked if I had a job waiting for me.  I said no, I’d been searching with no luck, but it was something I needed to do.  It was my dream.  I suggested to him that I would be open to working long distance, since most of what I did could be done from anywhere.  He promptly took me up on my offer, just pending clearance from the President of the company.  I asked him to let me speak to her because I had been hired six years ago to be her assistant and I wanted to tell her myself.

Waiting until she got back into the office on Friday was nerve-wracking.  I knew I was finally making the move either way, but to have a job already lined up would be fantastic.  Friday finally came and she gave me the green light, although both of us cried in the meeting.  I felt so supported by the universe in this journey.

As I said good bye to friends and family during that time I received many comments about how brave I was - if only they had known how long I had agonized over the decision.  One friend said how she could never leave her home, to which I replied, “I’m not leaving home, I’m going home.”

On Monday, March 2, Mom and I packed my car and headed out of town.  We took a leisurely trip, stopping to sight see along the way and visit with friends in Sacramento.  We rolled into Portland on March 9.  I was home!

I was unbelievably blessed, but knew my work was still cut out for me.  I had lost touch with the friend that has moved to Portland, so I knew no one in my new home.  I made a point to get out in the evenings, signing up for classes, trying to find a church, anything I could do to connect with other people.  I remember St. Patrick’s Day, thinking I’m going to go out tonight at actually sit at the bar to eat, instead of finding a quiet booth somewhere.  I went to the local Friday’s and sat at the bar.  A few stools down was an older gentleman and by the end of the evening we were having a very pleasant conversation.  When I mentioned that I worked from home he said he did too and that he often came out to Friday’s after work for company and invited me to join him if I needed someone to talk to.  I believe his direct quote was, “Like a bad Vegas act, I’m here most nights.”  It had to be one of the cheesiest lines ever, but a few nights later I went back because I had enjoyed our talk.  By the middle of summer I was engaged to that sweet man, and just a few weeks shy of my one year anniversary of moving to the great Pacific Northwest, we were married.

I moved to the Pacific Northwest because of a calling – a conviction deep in my soul that it was where I was supposed to be.  I never imagined how full my life would be as a result of my courage to make the change.   By being in the flow, trusting in the Universe and being open to new possibilities I got so much more than I could have anticipated, all because I said “Yes” when the universe asked me to move.  I was by far the most difficult thing I have ever done, but also the most rewarding.

Grading on the Curve

When I was in college I had professors who would grade on a curve.  I always hated those classes because it wasn’t about learning the material; it was about competing with every other student in the class.  Now I am seeing that same theory applied in the workplace, but this time attached to performance reviews.

I learned in my statistics class about probability theory and the normal distribution.  Given a population set (a class or a company) you would expect their values (grades or performance rating) to fall on either side of the mean, and if you were to chart this pattern you would have the bell curve.  The bell curve and the statistics behind it are designed to study set populations and then be able to use it as a prediction tool.  I understand that these statistical analysis tools have their place.

When a professor or a company begins to grade on a curve, they are taking a predictive tool and twisting it.  Suddenly the people are conforming to the measurement instead of the measuring device to the people.  It also takes a standard to be measured against and renders it useless because the standard is constantly moving depending on the performance of the population.  When using a bell curve to set the standard the message sent is that conforming to statistics is more valuable than the performances of the individuals being measured.    

I use to grade myself on a curve, comparing myself to my friends, classmates, co-workers, even perfect strangers.  There were times when the comparison would leave my ego inflated, such as when I received the highest grade or special praise for a job well done.  More often than not, there were people who were better than me at the task at hand and my self-confidence would dip when I compared myself to those who had done better.  No matter which side of the bell curve I was on, my confidence very much depended on other people.

I no longer ask myself how do I rate compared to other people.  The questions I ask myself these days are as follows:

• Did I do my best in this situation with the resources available at the time? 
•  What can I learn from the situation? 
•  How would I do it differently next time?

Do I still get disappointed with myself? Occasionally, but only when I know I didn’t do my best work or dishonored what I knew to be true for me.  I no longer look outside for comparison.  I have only to look inward to find the true measure of myself.

Learning to Receive

Early Saturday morning I had the privilege of having a Spiritual Coaching session with a fellow classmate.  The process she took me through revealed to me something I thought I had dealt with a long time ago.  It reminded me that our biggest issues are revealed to use like layers of an onion, slowly revealing themselves to us a layer at a time.

I was raised to be INDEPENDENT.  I capitalize it because it was distilled in me in so many ways.  The bottom line is I wasn’t supposed to ask for help, I needed to learn how to do manage for myself.  In no way am I complaining about how I was raised.  This particular skill has been very useful.  Even when I got sick with Fibromyalgia in college, I didn’t give up - it wasn’t an option for me.  I had to prove I could be independent.  I even deliberately stayed away from dating until I could prove to myself that I could support myself.

The challenge I find myself with now, is that I can’t ask for help when I need it.  Being INDEPENDENT is great if you are stranded on an island in the middle of nowhere surviving by your wits alone.  However, that is not the situation I find myself in.  I live with my husband and we enjoy a great extended family and many friends. 

How do I go from being INDEPENDENT to independent and connected to my community?

I’ve been giving this a lot of thought over the past 2 days.  What I realized is that I don’t ask for help.  I get frustrated with the situation until someone offers to help me.  This strikes me as being passive-aggressive, which isn’t how I want to present myself.  Later on Saturday I had to go to a bookstore and decide to put my new found insight into practice.  Instead of wondering through the bookstore forever trying to find the section I was looking for, I went promptly to the help desk with every intention to ask for help in my search.  Instead what I said was “I am looking for x.”  I laughed at myself later because I realized I had made a statement of fact instead of a request for help.  My challenge is to learn to ask for help. 

I know how to ask for help, but why is it so difficult for me to put that into practice?  The realization is that I don’t want to be turned down.  I don’t want to be rejected.  When I ask for help I am being vulnerable in a way that I am not comfortable with.  I don’t want to appear weak or in need.  In essence, I don’t want to be human.  It is time to embrace my human nature.  I don’t know everything, but what I do know is this way of thinking no longer serves me.

If I want to continue to be of service to others, I need to learn how receive service from others.  A few years ago a friend said to me, “You are always there when we need you.  Give us the chance to be there for you.”  I had let myself forget that sometimes the best gift you can give, is letting someone else help.

Standing in Resistance

Sometimes I feel like an unruly two year old in my conversations with Spirit.  “ NO! NO! NO! I don’t wanna!”  This past week Spirit pointed out to me how my inner toddler has come out to play surrounding a situation I’ve been unhappy with.  I have to laugh at myself when these moments of insight come and the mirror is being held up for me to see just how much resistance I’ve been putting up.
 
My great ah-ha this week is that by being in resistance I am prolonging the situation I do not wish to be in.  Once I learn what Spirit has sent me here to learn, only then will I be able to move out of the situation onto the path I’ve seen coming.  I’ve been so eager to move onto what I know is coming, that I forgot that to take the steps immediately in front of me.  I forgot that I need to crawl before I can learn to walk, then run.  I was wanting to run, when I didn’t have the fundamental skills necessary for the task.

Thank you Spirit for showing me how necessary learning the fundamentals are.  I feel a great weight lifted now that I understand why I am still in the situation I am in.  Time to buckle down and learn what I am here to learn.
 
The truth as I know it, is that we would rarely choose continue to learn and to grow if we were comfortable all the time.  It is in the times of our greatest discomfort, that we have the most incentive to make the necessary improvements to better ourselves.  What is uncomfortable in your life?  What are you are learning from the situation so that you do not have to continue the pattern?

What's in a story?

I’ve recently been introduced to the idea of storytelling.  This is the not the story telling that occurs around a campfire or in novel or song; no, this story telling is about the stories we tell about ourselves.   

We are all story tellers, speaking to others of our defining moments, of the journeys we have taken, the sufferings we have endured. The stories we tell shape our lives, not only the past when the story occurred, but they also affect our present, and if we let them, our future.

The following is a story I have often told myself about setting goals.

As a kid I dreaded the month of January, not only was the excitement of the holidays over, but every year my teacher would assign us the dreaded “New Year’s Resolution” assignment.  I hated this exercise.  It felt like a waste of my time and I could rarely think of goals I wanted to accomplish, so I always put the same goals year after year.  “I want to lose 5 lbs.”  “I want to learn to speak Spanish.” “I want to be better organized.”  These are all fine goals in and of themselves, but they weren’t the right goals for me because I never meant it.  It was always another assignment to get through.  As the years went by and I had the same goals each year that I had still not accomplished from the year before my story became “I hate goal setting.  I’m not any good at it.  I can’t follow through.”

I’ve carried this story with me into adulthood.  I dreaded employee performance reviews, not because my performance was bad, but because they always asked the same question: “What are your goals for the upcoming year?”  Since I’d told myself for so many years that I wasn’t good at achieving my goals, I always set the bar very low, so that I knew I would reach it. I never wanted to try for something that would be a stretch for fear of not being able to accomplish it.

Since becoming a Life Coach I’ve given a lot of thought to the idea of goal setting.  How could I as a Life Coach help other people move forward with their lives and ask them to set goals for themselves, I couldn’t do it for myself.  Intellectually I understood the importance of goal setting and how powerful it can be, but I just wasn’t comfortable with using this tool myself, so I set about to change my story.

Today I received a great gift that has helped me to change my story about goals.  During the course of a conversation about my energy levels I had with a woman I’ve known for a few years she told me, “Alison, when you set yourself a goal, it is like you are standing in Virginia and you cast out your anchor all the way to California, and then you proceed to drag yourself down the line to your goal.  You have such strong energy when you set a goal for yourself no wonder you are tired.”  This was such a gift because this person did not know I’d been wrestling with the concept of goals, nor of the story I’d been telling myself.   Seeing what I’ve done with my live from her perspective helped me overcome my previous story about setting goals and my ability to achieve them.  It gave me the opportunity to look back on what I have accomplished with my life so far and to realize that I have achieved my goals, the difference is, I achieved the goals I set because I wanted to set them, not because someone though I should.

My new story goes something like this…

When I set my heart on a goal, I put all my energy into completing that goal until I have achieved it.  For me, goals worth achieving come from the heart, not the head.

This new story feels so much more empowering than the old story that was holding me back from reaching for what I really want because I didn’t think I could get it. Now I know the truth, I am as powerful as I choose to be.

What is your story?  Does it hold you back from achieving greatness or propel you forward?

Seeing Through the Eyes of Gratitude

I recently began a week long exercise in keeping a gratitude journal.  Each night I would write down all the things I was thankful for, sometimes just a simple line, sometimes writing a paragraph, but always acknowledging the blessings in my life. 

At the start of the exercise I thought of myself as a pretty grateful person.  I take time to enjoy the way the breeze feels on my face, the color of the sky at sunset, the first bloom of the season.  What I found is that I was barely scrapping the tip of the proverbial iceberg.  In the past when I have kept a journal I have found it difficult to find anything to write about, but this was different, I had trouble putting my pen down each night.  I would go to bed with a smile on my face because all my many blessings were fresh in my mind.

Never once during my week of gratitude journaling did I mention that I was grateful for my health.  I only recognized this in hind sight when I wound up in the ER the following week.  Health is one of those things like the car starting in the morning that we just take for granted until something goes out of whack.  It made me renew my vow to practice gratitude.

So here is my gratitude list for that day in the emergency room

• I am grateful to my husband for spending the day driving me to the doctor’s office and then to the hospital
• I am grateful my doctor’s office was able to quickly process my information and try to make me as comfortable as possible.
• I am grateful the hospital has valet parking for the ER so that my husband could stay with me, instead of spending time parking and finding me later.
• I am grateful for the quick admittance to the ER.  There was no wait to get a room.
• I am grateful for drugs they gave me to help reduce the pain.
• I am grateful for the support of a friend who works in the hospital who took the time out of his schedule to come see me.
• I am grateful for the health insurance that made this whole ordeal much easier to deal with.
• I was grateful to be released to my own bed at 11:00 p.m. that evening instead of having to stay overnight for observation.
• I am grateful for the staff that helped move me to tests and made the day go very smoothly.
• I am grateful for the licks of my puppies who welcomed me home that evening and who did not disturb me in my sleep.
• I am grateful for the support of my supervisors who continue to give me time to work around doctor’s schedules.
• I am grateful for the support and prayer of friends and family as we look for answers.
• I am grateful to my doctor for being so proactive and getting me into specialists and tests much faster than the average waiting time.
• I am grateful for the 6 lbs. that I have lost
• I am grateful for the opportunity to change the way I eat

So, am I grateful that I wound up in the ER? I don’t know that I would go that far, but it was a great opportunity to practice being in gratitude.  I think my outlook changed what could have been a terrible experience.

You don’t need to have anything drastic happen for you to begin your own exercise in gratitude, but I certainly found it helpful to look for the silver lining.  They say seeing is believing, but I think it is the other way around.  If you believe it is so, you will see it that way.  Because I was looking for opportunities to be grateful I found them at every turn.