Pathwork Coaching and Consulting

I recently discovered the beautiful Celtic writings of John O'Donohue. Today I've been reading "To Bless the Space Between Us:  A Book of Blessings."  "A blessing is not a sentiment or a question; it is a gracious invocation where the human heart pleads with the divine." 

About a week ago, I had an encounter that while entering in good faith, became a negative experience.  It's easy to sink into our own woundedness when we're hurt or disappointed.  I found this blessing today and drew solace from it.  Perhaps this will comfort and support you after a difficult encounter that you may face.

"Now that you have entered with an open heart

Into a complex and fragile situation,

Hoping with patience and respect

To tread softly over sore ground in order

That somewhere beneath the raw estrangement

Some fresh spring of healing might be coaxed

To release the grace for a new journey

Beyond repetition and judgment,

And have achieved nothing of that,

But emerged helpless, and with added hurt...

Withdraw for a while into your own tranquility,

Loosen from your heart the new fester.

Free yourself of the wounded gaze

That is not yet able to see you.

Recognize your responsibility for the past.

Don't allow your sense of yourself to wilt.

Draw deep from your own dignity.

Temper your expectation to the other's limits,

And take your time carefully,

Learning that there is a time for everything

And for healing too,

But that now is not that time..yet."

Go gcumhdai Dia thu - May God come to your assistance

Have you ever had a moment when you read something and it seems to capture the essence of your experience? I had such a moment yesterday when I read a caption in a book (I’m sorry I was scanning and don’t remember the book). “Roses grow in the mud” just seemed to leap off the page. What does that mean? Why does it seem to be written for me, right now?

A year ago I made a decision to transition from a 30-year career of corporate living. It was a wonderful ride and I learned so, so, so much! I met many kinds of people, at many stages of their careers, and feel blessed that the work I did was such a love and a passion. I know this is not the case for many people. And yet, for those of you who are also working moms, you know that having a career outside the home and a family requires lots of trade-offs. If you haven’t seen the movie “I Don’t Know How She Does It” with Sarah Jessica Parker, do yourself a favor and watch it! It’s such an affirmation of the joys and challenges that come with raising a family, loving your children, and working outside the home – whether by necessity or choice. I’ve made it required watching in my home (smiles).

At one point in my career when my children were young, I travelled about 14 days a month. Usually, I’d head to the west coast – do some work – and get back on a plane, travel to the next stop, and work as I made my way back to the east coast. And, I loved the work that I was doing. ALSO – I missed school events, didn’t see my children for days on end, sometimes because of the time zone differences I didn’t even get to talk to them. At other times I would make trade-offs in favor of family – and would be reminded at work that “I needed to be available on a moment’s notice if I wanted to be remembered”. Who needs these kinds of choices? I had to say that I was sick when I didn’t go to work if one of my children had a fever and I needed to take him to the doctor. It was a time of feeling like I was disappointing everyone. And being spontaneous???? That was sooo out of the question. Once my brother commented that I couldn’t do anything unless it was on my calendar. And he was right!

But there is a light that guides us through this if we can find a way to take a pause. As working moms, what we need often falls to the bottom of our lists because so much in our life is about taking care of the needs of others. For me, it took burning out – a couple of times – to move myself up my own list. I finally came to terms with having limits and realized that if I didn’t take care of myself then my family’s life wouldn’t work either.  When we move what we need up the list we begin to see the things that used to be our lives that have fallen off – friends, girl’s night out, movie night, spiritual development, hobbies that we loved.   It’s never too late to get started – or start again as many times as it takes.

Today – my children have begun to launch and I’m seeing with such joy the men they’re becoming. I’m launching a new business and am experiencing a whole new version of trade-offs. But this time, I’m committed to a couple things in my life– I’m separating what I call work from what I call vocation and giving myself enough time in the week for developing my vocation. I’m taking a cue from Julia Cameron’s “The Artist’s Way” and making a weekly date with myself. It’s been so long since I’ve had me time, that I’m not sure what this will be but I’m thinking something like going to a museum, going to the chick flick that no one the family wants to see, looking up an old friend, stuff like that. And I’ve put “friend time” right on my calendar!

So why is this blog called “Roses Grow in the Mud”? Because no matter what stage of life we’re in, whether we have children or work outside the home, as women we’re all juggling many balls, we get stuck and discouraged while trying to make something meaningful of our lives. This metaphor reminds me that because things are messy and don’t always feel good (the mud) that doesn't mean we're "doing it badly".  And in spite of how hard it can sometimes feel, we are none the less growing beautiful things. Remind yourself of the tremendous courage that it takes to have this life, to feel its up and downs, and to get up everyday and start all over again.  And it’s because of all this struggling that we have the hope and the promise that something perfect is in the works.

Today's blog is dedicated to my dear friend Lena, who helped me just yesterday when I got stuck in the mud.

Hugs,

Terri

How do people change? This question has been and continues to be at the heart of my work as a change agent, a leader, an organizational development consultant, a parent, a coach, and most of all, a human being.

Over the years, I’ve met and worked with many motivated and sincere individuals who wanted to bring real change in their leadership and personal lives. Yet, with all that desire and motivation, most of the change was short-term at best and in some cases, not at all. There’re the New Year’s resolutions, the promises, and the performance plans all which are full of good, yet often, unfulfilled intentions. I’ve come to learn that there are a few critical elements that set the fertile ground for change. 

Changing for Real. Increasing someone’s knowledge is quite different from getting them to make lasting changes behaviors and it requires a different model of learning. With its roots in positive psychology and emotional intelligence, we work with the Intentional Change Model developed by Richard Boyatzis and his colleagues. Richard Boyatzis is a professor in the psychology and organizational behavior departments of Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland. The model contends that we are more likely to achieve sustainable change when we actively seek to make five discoveries:

1. Our ideal self: the person and leader we truly want to be
2. Our real self: our current nature and how this compares to our ideal self
3. Our personal learning agenda: the things we need to change and do to close the gap
4. Opportunities for experimenting with and practicing new behaviors
5. Those who can help, support and challenge us as we work on changing our behavior

Are you ready for real change? We all struggle with the question of personal meaning throughout our lives. You may be at a tipping point for change – ready for transformation and committed to doing the work that it takes. You’re listening to the wake-up calls in your life and want to take action that gets lasting results. Using the Theory of Intentional Change Terri will help you explore your aspirations for work and life; analyze current competencies, behaviors, and learning style; and determine steps to implement the changes you seek.

For more information, contact Terri Altschul at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. .

Celebrate endings too!

William Bridges teaches us about three stages of change – endings, neutral zone, and beginnings. One of the ways I’ve come to look at this model is that in order for new things to come into our life, we may have to let some other things go. Nature and the great spiritual traditions also teach us that in order for the new to come in, the old must fade away. Learning to let go has been one of my great lessons in 2010.

My parents were children of the great depression. The cultural teaching this brought into our family life was about scarcity – and holding onto stuff.   We were a typical 60’s middle class family with all the modern conveniences and appliances and a nice house. We lived in the town of a farming community, which had its own sense of history, right next to the General Store, the Baptist Church, and the local bar. We had our own garden from which we ate during summers and canned for winters (and don’t even get me started about the chickens!). We didn’t talk about our problems, inside or outside of the home. Keeping life small, manageable, and contained were characteristics of this period in our family.

As I became an adult and moved into the larger world my paradigm shifted. I went to college, moved into a suburban community, and lived a life that often felt more chaotic than contained. Today I find myself looking back on this timeline, and realizing that this belief of scarcity has stayed with me throughout my life. I’ve been living a pattern of “holding onto”. In some cases it may have been holding onto relationships that needed to transition, holding onto stuff that I didn’t need, or holding onto negative or disappointing experiences.

In this year of learning to let go, I intentionally took myself into “endings” in order to see what new beginnings might present themselves. However, this meant accepting that some things were over. My number one signature strength in the VIA is perseverance. I can hang in there for a really long time with something that is difficult and stressful. So much so that considering letting go is often tantamount to giving up and quitting. In my career, I was often given the harder projects because I could do “the heavy lifting”. This quality of perseverance, as I have come to realize, became an overused strength – and the idea of letting go (of anything) seemed like betrayal.

I decided to examine these beliefs to see how they were or weren’t serving me in this new practice of letting go. In many, many ways it served me well. I can really hang in there with tough situations, projects, and relationships. Many of my relationships are with people who’ve been through some rough things in their lives, and I can really stay with them – even after others have written them off. I can see things through to their completion and hold a positive vision for a successful outcome. I don’t give up on things, people, projects, ideas, commitments, or values even in the face of opposition when I believe in them with my heart.

But this quality of perseverance meant that I might also “hold on” to things that had passed their natural ending. Relationships that were meant to be in my life for a season or a reason – not a lifetime. Projects that an organization may not have been truly committed to seeing through. Emotions that were trying to move me in a direction that became stifled.

Learning to see endings as a flow into something new has been such a great learning. Now I can better see that something ending creates capacity for the new to enter. And that the “holding on” while it is a strength, can also inhibit the natural flow of life and relationships unless I’m paying attention to what’s being called for. I’m particularly learning to enjoy the natural restfulness of the “neutral period” and to harness life’s openings to recuperate and restore.

As we move into winter and another year of Living, bringing rituals into the process of letting go, just as we do when we celebrate something new, can help us make peace with these events emotionally and psychologically. Can you identify endings that need to be allowed? Perhaps you might begin by looking around your home and seeing what you can let go of. Or write a letter that doesn’t get sent to the person you need to forgive – especially if they are no longer available to speak with. Or, identify a belief or quality that is overused in your life that may be keeping you from moving forward.

As you look forward to 2012, I encourage you to make this the best year of your Life!

With care,

Terri

I can recall many times during my life where I would have an experience and not be able to grasp the words that could accurately describe it or give expression to the depth of feelings. These "feelings", I believe, are a big driver in the way I learn and what I'm drawn to in my reading and studies. Last night I had an experience of finding the words that DID describe an experience so lucidly that I wanted to jump up and shout out "that's it, that's what happens!”

Many years ago in my consulting and client work, I realized that the impact of my work happened when I was in relationship with the other person. My skills and abilities may have gotten me in the room, but something else was now going on. This “something” was building trust and mutuality, a sense of being on the same side and the experience of unconditional positive regard. This would happen even with some of my toughest clients – executives and senior leaders that make high risk decisions every day – and we’d find ourselves in the place of conversations that were rich, deep truth-telling, and vulnerable. There were no techniques or strategies that I was using and yet powerful and transformational moments would occur inside these conversations. I would ask my clients (and my husband!) for feedback about these moments and I would hear that they felt seen and heard, that they mattered, they could let the mask down, they didn’t feel judged or shamed for not being perfect, and they felt cared for. Yet I was still unclear about what I was doing that was enabling this container. This questioned continued to follow me into my formal coach training.

In my various coach training programs, I learned about coach presence, asking powerful questions, techniques and tools to support clients, ethical behavior, and the structure of coaching conversations. Yet these learnings did not begin to tap into these powerful transformational moments with clients.

Yesterday, I stumbled my way into some reading on relational-cultural therapy (I was reading a book about coaching) and the language of “relational” jumped out at me. I found my way to a book by Maureen Walker and Wendy Rosen "How Connections Heal: Stories from Relational-Cultural Theory". The author says, “In relational-cultural theory, relationship is both the process and the goal of human development. Rather than defining psychological health as movement toward increased autonomy, relational-cultural theory identifies increasing levels of complexity, fluidity, choice, and articulation within human relationships as markers of development maturity. Psychological development is seen as taking place in and through increasingly complex relationships, and psychological healing is viewed as a function of participation in relationship, in which mutually empowering connections occur.” The author also described “…chronic disconnection as the primary source of human suffering, resulting in paralyzing psychological isolation and impaired relational functioning. Moreover, such disconnections are exacerbated by patterned and protracted abuses of power in relationship…”

To paraphrase Miller, to experience connection is to participate in a relationship that invites exposure, curiosity, and openness to possibility. Deep connection provides safety from contempt and humiliation; however it does not promise comfort as it is also a portal to increased conflict as the safety in relationship allows important differences to surface.

How does connection grow according to the authors? Through processes that facilitate movement in relationship, growth in connection – relational accountability, empathic attunement to emergent experience, openness to movement through mutual influence, and an authentic capacity to represent oneself more fully. Underneath all of this lies a deep respect for the other.

These words are poetry to my ears. In the parts to follow, I will share in more depth about these three processes of empathy, authenticity, and mutuality. AND, what happens when this connection is broken, abused, or violated.

“The mountain does not laugh at the river because it is lowly, nor does the river speak ill of the mountain because it cannot move about.” -- Japanese proverb

Earlier this year I discovered and fell in love with the writings of Virginia Satir.  Satir is known as a pioneer in family therapy and her work has laid the foundations for many approaches used today like positive psychology and IFS.  Not that I'm a psychologist.  But I do love the way the mind works and have always been drawn to understanding the inner workings of human beings.  Her writings are crisp and poetic.  Below is an excerpt from the preface she wrote in her book “Your Many Faces”.  I hope you enjoy this.

“I can offer this invitation because you are a member of the human race, and as such, you are a miracle.  Furthermore, you are a one of a kind miracle.  Let’s consider the evidence:  Each fingerprint on every human being is different.  Imagine, 6.9 billion people now present in the world, plus all those who have come before and will come in the future.  All have their own unique fingerprints.  There are no duplicates?  How could anyone think up so many variations?  That really boggles my mind.  And yet it is an indisputable fact.  Each of us is different.

It is also true that any surgeon who learns his or her surgery anywhere in the world can successfully operate on any human being, regardless of culture, race, nationality, language, age, occupation, religious affiliation, or political persuasion, because hearts, heads, and other parts of the anatomy will all be in relatively the same place.  Correspondingly, children are always conceived in the same and are birthed from the same place.  We are also all the same.

Furthermore, consider the fantastic array of systems within the human body.  Where else can you find a television; telephone; camera; radio; telegraph; computer; sewage, plumbing, heating, and cooling systems; and factories making all kinds of products (blood, chemicals, tissue, bones, and sweat)  all done up in one small unit?

Take a moment to look around you and you will see that people come in all kinds of wrappings and all kinds of colors, speak in all kinds of languages, and cook in a thousand different ways.  People perform incredible feats including unbelievable destruction and repulsive cruelty, as well as unparalleled generosity, sometimes sacrificing everything, including their lives, for the love and care of fellow humans.  People, including myself, are my fascination, my source of nurture, delight, growth, struggle, and pain.  All of us share in a whole range of emotions, which I often call our juices:  anger, joy, fear, curiosity, love, excitement, helplessness, and powerfulness.  What triggers these feelings in each of us is different, but the capacity for these feelings is the same.

You have your own special wrapping, your own size, color, features, sex, age background, thoughts, feelings and approaches to things, as do I.  Yet at the same time each of us is a combination of sameness and differentness to every other human being.  With some groups of people we may feel more alike, for example, women with women, men with men, or artists with artists.  Oftentimes we tend to stay close to that which is familiar and to turn away from that which is unfamiliar.

I want to challenge this idea.  I think we have lost a lot of life’s riches, and are continuing to do so, because we haven’t learned the lesson of our own uniqueness.  No matter how much alike we think we are, we are still different, and no matter how different we think we are, we are still alike.  If you believe, as many people do, that your sameness creates your basis for trust and safety, and your differentness creates your problems, then you are using only half your resources.  Everyone would like to be without problems, and if you think that differentness creates your problems, you will use your energy to get rid of it.  I think sameness can be comfortable, but if that is all there is, in time it leads to boredom.  Differentness can be a source of difficulty, but it also holds the key to a lot of locked-up energy and experiences that make life exciting and fulfilling…”

"I beg you...to have patience with everything unresolved in your heart and try to love the questions themselvesas if they were locked rooms or books written in a very foreign language.  don't search for the answers, which could not be given you now, because you would not be able to live them.  And the point is, to live everything.  Live the questions now.  Perhaps then, someday far in the future, you will gradually, without even noticing it, live your way into the answer."

Rainer Maria Rilke, Letters to a Young Poet,

translated by Stephen Mitchell

"Two prime ministers are sitting in a room discussing affairs of state.  Suddenly a man bursts in, apoplectic with fury,shouting and stamping and banging his fist on the desk.  the resident prime minister admonishes him:  "Peter," he says, "kindly remember Rule Number 6," whereupon Peter is instantly restored to complete calm, apologizes, and withdraws.  The politicians return to their conversation, only to be interrupted yet again twenty minutes later by an hysterical woman gesticulating wildly, her hair flying.  Again the intrude is greeted with the words:  "Marie, please remember rule Number 6."  Complete calm descends once more, and she too withdraws with a bow and an apology.  When the scene is repeated for a third time, the visiting prime minister addresses his colleague:  "My dear friend, I've seen many things in my life, but never anything as remarkable as this.  Would you be willing to share with me the secret of rule Number 6?"  "Very simple," replies the resident prime minister.  "Rule Number 6 is "Don't take yourself so damn seriously.'"  "Ah," says the visitor, "that is a fine rule."  After a moment of pondering, he inquires, "And what, may I ask, are the other rules?"

"There aren't any."

We're officially in the holiday season when the pressure to complete work for the year, attend Christmas pageants, do lots of shopping, have visiting relatives, and go to parties can cause a great deal of stress.  Recognize that stress - while it may seem be created by external events - is actually created by your thoughts.  Notice your thoughts.  If you find yourself waiting impatiently in line, snapping at co-workers, or attending parties out of obligation, remember "Rule Number 6" and change your thoughts.

Inner gold are those qualities and characteristics that we most treausue within ourselves.  For some it may be their humor, for others their patience and loyalty, for others their compassion, for others their intellect, for others their strength in a crisis, for others their artistic ability, and for yet others their physical capability in sports.  The list is as endless as we humans are capable of goodness and of flourishing and the combinations of strengths and positive qualities we are capable of are equally endless.

Sometimes, we don't show our gold to the world.  Perhaps we show it selectively to those we most trust.  Or perhaps, we feel that showing our gold would cause us to be vulnerable and not be seen the way we want to be seen by others.  Sometimes, our gold can be hidden even to ourselves.  Everytime we look at a part of ourselves and say "I don't like that" and push that part away we send with it the gold of that part - into our shadow.  Every quality has within it dark and light.  When we send away the dark (a quality we ashamed of) there is an equal amount of light (the positive aspect of that quality) that we also send away.  This part of ourselves that collects our repressed and disowned parts is the Shadow part of the psyche.  The Shadow has a way of not wanting to stay repressed though and so often we're exhibiting those negative traits we thought we had hidden away - and everyone else knows but us!  When we do our work to understand the parts of ourselves we don't like, we also open up to our hidden inner gold.

Sometimes life is terribly hard and we think we can't make it through.  This is when we need a friend or someone to support us.  Our supporters hold our inner gold for us until we can hold it again for ourselves.  They hold our hope, our dreams, our ability to live one day at a time.  They may see our inner gold and hold it up to us like a mirror so that we can start to see those positive qualities that may have gotten buried.  It's important to return someone's gold to them when they can carry it again - otherwise they become dependent upon us.

I have come to learn what it means to do inner work - and that when the demons  (regrets, disappointments, hurts) of the past are exposed in the light of day, they can be set right and the gold that went away with them can be released back into our Beings.

"We shall not cease from exploration

And the end of all our exploring

Will be to arrive where we started

And know the place for the first time."  -- T.S. Eliot

Peace to you,

Terri

I have been thinking lately about the differences between men and women - how they show up in the world, how they come to relationships, and the unique gifts that each has to offer.  I do believe there are differences and similarities and that we each have within us both of these energies.  Men have a feminine side - and women have a masculine side.  But what determines how those characteristics are developed - and what about the ones we hide.  The stoic male who never lets his feelings show?  Or the woman who doesn't believe she has any talents outside of her home and children.

As a female I have noticed how many men are in my life - probably many more than the number of women.  I wonder why?  I'm the oldest of four children - and have all brothers.  I'm a mother of three sons.  Our dog is a male although the two cats are female.  I've spent 20 years of my career on Wall Street - a male dominated industry.  As a member of the baby boomer generation we were told women could have it all.  Remember the commercial - I can bring home the bacon, I can bring home the man....  I don't remember the product but I remember those words.  For some of us though, living in a man's world meant taking on more masculine traits - being tough minded, hiding our feelings, being action oriented.  Does "fitting in" require denying parts of ourselves?  What place is there in the world for our unique feminine gifts?  Our ability to be receptive and open.  To develop deep and lasting relationships.

Carol Pearson poses the question " For women, the issues are, how can they move into what were traditionally male roles without becoming male clones, and how does one retain the deeper values of the female without living to serve others?"  In her book "A Circle of Stones" Judith Duerk suggests that in order to find our own unique rhythm, our wisdom, or our sense of what is uniquely ours to give, we must slow down, take time out, attune ourselves to finding our own process of living and being in the world.

1. What are some of the messages you received as a child about appropriate behavior for your gender?  From your father?  From your mother?  From other relatives?  From school, media, religious institutions, peers?
2. Which of these messages have helped or empowered you?
3. Which have limited you?

One of my favorite quotes by Marianne Williamson:

"Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate,

Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure 

It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us.

We ask ourselves, who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, and fabulous? "

With care,

Terri

The topic of shame has been showing up in my life these past months.  It began when I had my own experience where I was "shamed" in public by someone I considered a friend.  The experience was bitter and yet I believed this person was trying to help me in their own way.  For days I felt the sting of humiliation.  As I moved through the experience, I began wondering, "do we believe we can shame a person into changing?"

I then began thinking of all the times in my life where I experienced or witnessed a shaming interaction.  There were tons of them!  Parents with children saying "you should have known better".  Bosses saying "how many times do you have to be told ...".  School yard bullies picking on the new kid.  The friend saying "I'm just being honest".  Gossip magazines spotlighting a person at their absolute worst moment - and with photos!  Gals in bikinis with a little bulge?  Or the "who's cheating on who today" update.  And of course, public humiliations and personality assasinations abound in politics and our history books.  And yes, not just "others" but I found many of these behaviors coming from me as well.

As human beings, it seems that we instinctively know that shaming another person will cut a person to their core.  It is one of the most painful emotions humans can experience and goes right our sense of belonging, worth and being enough.  But when did being shamed ever really get someone to change?  And what are the unseen consequences of those shame experiences?  Perfectionism?  Withdrawing?  Guardeness?  Masks?  Secrets?  Pretending that everything is OK?  People-pleasing?

My experience as a professional (working with business people who are trying to bring change in their organizations), as a parent (and mother of three sons), and as a friend is that shame has never brought about the desired end results of new behavior, healthy dreams, happiness, and so on.  So what does?  And for those of us who are looking to help others change, reach new goals, or overcome barriers, how do we become the catalysts for the kind of change where others flourish and are willing to be who they really are.

Author Brene Brown writes about shame in "The Gifts of Imperfection" and says that we can kick-start our shame resilience by claiming our story. Take a look at these questions for your own life - they really knocked me in the head!

1. Who do you become when you're backed into that shame corner?
2. How do you protect yourself?
3. Who do you call to work through the mean-nasties or the cry-n-hides or the people-pleasing?
4. What's the most courageous thing you could do for yourself when you feel small and hurt?

Brown goes on to say, "If we're working toward relationships based in love, belonging, and story, we have to start in the same place:  I am worthy".

Hugs,

Terri

When will we be burned out enough to recognize the impact that "multi-tasking" is having on our lives?  When I took my first management position back in the eighties, I had about 25 direct and matrixed reporting relationships.  My work came from multiple places:  the boss, direct reports, internal clients, and external clients.  I quickly realized I needed to organize myself differently and took a Franklin Time Management class.  It was here that I learned about the skill of starting one thing - and learning how to note tasks that were dependent on others to take action - so that the request didn't get lost.  This was my understanding of multi-tasking - being able to manage multiple projects, at multiple stages and remaining proactive about moving them forward.  When speaking with groups today, I remind them of this origin for multi-tasking - and that our business culture has taken this concept to an extreme that exacts a very high price.

While at the HBA conference this week, I saw numerous examples of leaders in hallways with their laptops open and their smartphones in hand (didn't they come to be in the conference?).  In my coaching practice, I frequently meet with clients who are overwhelmed by the demands of their work and personal lives, and feel they were failing everywhere because they are faced with impossible choices to be in more than one place at one time.  In business meetings, it is not uncommon to see people constantly checking and responding to emails while agenda items are being covered (do you really think they're hearing what you're saying?).  While our minds are wonderful computer processors, incoming information  needs to be digested on multiple levels.  Remember when you were younger and your mom would say you had to wait 20 minutes after eating before going back into the swimming pool?  Why was this?  Because the blood flow required to digest food was of the same pool of blood required to activate the muscles and lungs to swim.  The body would ultimately make a choice about where to send the blood if one process began before the other had sufficiently completed.  This metaphor holds true in our intellectual and emotional processes as well.  Incoming experience kick-starts a chain reaction of the digestion of cognitive and emotional data.  Multiple systems work in coordination to move and transform information from the incoming state, to the chewing state of breaking down and understanding the parts, to the absorption and integration of what's valuable, to the elimination and release of what's not needed or useful.

The next time you find yourself in a meeting where you're thinking about your next meeting, checking your smartphone, and jumping in and out of meeting discussions - take a pause and notice what's happening in your body.  Chances are you'll notice racing thoughts, rapid heart beat, impatience or irritability with "something or someone", perhaps you've even had moments where you've become an annihilator of another person or their ideas.  Is this really the way we want to live our lives?  Is this the life we want for our children?

It took a 20-year career and "hitting the wall" twice for me to get this.  I was known as a person who did the heavy lifting on projects, who took on work no one else wanted, and always got it done.  Friends - this came at a price.  Frequent migraines, not being able to sleep or sleep deeply, on-the-go diet of caffeine and fast-food, few relationships outside of work, and many missed moments with my children.  I measured my value and worth by what I accomplished.  And did I mention the crankiness?  Are we really effective when we work this way? 

Today, I've decided to stop running upstream with the other salmon and to beach myself.  Twenty years of an engrained habit is hard to break, and every day I'm working, "to do one thing at a time".  I am learning to say no to others and to myself.  I send myself daily reminders to eat well, take time to meditate and journal, and reassess if I'm putting energy towards my highest priorities.  I put exercise right on my calendar.  I have post-it's on my bathroom mirror to remind myself to enjoy being where I am, to learn from the present moment, and to put my attention fully on the person in front of me - whoever that may be.  You may be wondering how or if this is changing my life.  Well, let's see.  My thoughts are clearer.  I have creative bursts of energy.  I'm generally happier.  I'm in a career that I love and love working hard at it.  My children are in my life and I'm in theirs.  My conversations with my husband are moving past the coordination of our lives and into sharing our lives.  I truly love my clients and can't wait to be with them.  Don't get me wrong - I don't have it all figured out!    As my pastor says, I'm a work in progress, and that's ok.  Some days are better than others and each day is a fresh start.   What I can say with certainty is that I'm committed to this change in my life and to setting a different example as a leader, a mother, a wife, a friend and a coach.