POWERLESS. WHO ME?

I’ve got a friend going for wedding #3 tomorrow, I’m best(questionable) man, and pre-wedding golf game. Thus an early post!

It’s been a day to really think about powerlessness.

Years ago, I came to realize that I was powerless over my addictions, and my addictions had made my life unmanageable. Unmanageable to a point where I was miserable; and I was losing relationships that were near and dear to me, including my relationship with myself

Early in my journey to a better life, I could accept this.

Today, I had an opportunity to reflect on a few things. I must constantly remember that I am powerless over people, places and things. Something bigger than me is in control of the big picture. Because I have the gift of free will, I do have a large amount of power over my own actions. That’s it.

I spent great quality time with a dear friend today (we played golf). He’s got a family situation, involving the actions of an older brother, which has my friend and some other family members in a real tizzy. The situation doesn’t look pretty, but if there is any wrong doing, it was not my friend or other family members that did anything, it was an individual. I’ve learned the hard way, I am powerless over the actions of others and they can certainly make my life unmanageable. The best thing I can do for those I love is just “BE” there for them. Can you relate?

Funny how much golf and sports are like life.

I played a match against another dear friend today. I was certainly powerless over the wind, how my friend played, how the ball bounced, etc. I did have some ability to determine how I play. I was amazed at the results I got by just being there in the match, and doing the best I could with my own ball.

How many try to control the people, places and things around them to no avail? How many feel that they do wonderful things for others, but are never truly recognized? How many take responsibility for everyone around them, but will not be responsible for themselves? How many have the courage to admit that they are powerless over most things in their external life, and when they try to control them they lose hope and serenity, and ultimately their own lives become unmanageable?

A few people read the events of my journey of recovery.

I hope that a few take the time to ponder honestly some of the questions. I coach and mentor people to find answers within themselves, and am blessed that I had great people in my life who coached me to be the best I can today.

So, what are you powerless over? Worth thinking about.

READ THIS NOW! /Assertiveness/Transformation/Recovery

Tuesday is school day, and this lesson was on assertiveness. My headline goes beyond assertive, it would be considered aggressive. Not a good style!

Each and every one of us should reflect on assertive. It is a key to really finding your life’s purpose and spiritually awakening. It is a skill every life coach should incorporate into their client work. I liked the definition of assertiveness as acting to get what wants while respecting the rights of others.

In all the areas I coach in, and the area I love to work in, mentoring clients affected by addictions, assertive is a skill all clients need to know, and put in to practice.

Many I have worked with understand two basic reactions to a problem-fight (be aggressive) or flight (be passive/hide). Somewhere in between is healthy behavior, being assertive, and it is a learned skill that gets better with practice.

I firmly believe that to be properly assertive, you must have a reasonable level of self-esteem. This is an area I really work with clients on, and through a well proven process. With out self esteem, it is likely not realistic for an individual to be properly assertive.

Cautions, never equate good self esteem as ego, and never equate assertiveness with aggression!

There are 10 Rules of Assertion that were taught to us today. They are wonderful, and I will gladly share them with anyone who contacts me directly, either by email or through my web site.

Being properly assertive is a great communication skill. It lets people know in a non offensive way what you think or feel. It makes clear what is required and allows an individual to politely say no-something many have trouble with.

When it comes to addiction recovery, I had to learn to say “no” to a lot of things over and above the substances and behaviors I was addicted to. I had to learn to recognize my own success as they happened, and reward myself in a healthy way. I had to learn to quit basing my positions on what others may think and learn that I had a right to an opinion and a right to be wrong and alter my opinions; and to express these things in an assertive, non disrespectful or offensive way.

I can attest, these were learned skills, they were not skills I had all on my own.

As I began to assert myself, I found resistance from some people in my life. I was exhibiting new behavior, and there is a natural resistance to behaviors that are new. Over time, I found people were pleased because they could clearly understand where I was coming from. I was pleased because I wasn’t bullying or being a wilting flower.

I have learned to take responsibility for my behavior and actions, and realize the key to my own happiness is me, not you. What a wonderful discovery!

One of my classmates gave a truism; we have to learn to pick up a mirror, not a magnifying glass, as we deal with people, places and things!!

Aren’t you glad you read this now? Did you not find a few things that may apply to your life?

I will move forward respecting that I have the right to be assertive, and so do you.

Interested in the 10 Rules of Assertion or learning how to assert you properly, feel free to get in touch!

Life’s Purpose Through Patience and Waiting

I've started to realize that waiting is an art, that waiting achieves things. Waiting can be very, very powerful. Time is a valuable thing. If you can wait two years, you can sometimes achieve something that you could not achieve today, however hard you worked, however much money you threw up in the air, however many times you banged your head against the wall. . .
--The Courage to Change by Dennis Wholey

The people who are most successful at living and loving are those who can learn to wait successfully. Not many people enjoy waiting or learning patience. Yet, waiting can be a powerful tool that will help us accomplish much good.
We cannot always have what we want when we want it. For different reasons, what we want to do, have, be, or accomplish is not available to us now. But there are things we could not do or have today, no matter what, that we can have in the future. Today, we would make ourselves crazy trying to accomplish what will come naturally and with ease later.
We can trust that all is on schedule. Waiting time is not wasted time. Something is being worked out - in us, in someone else, in the Universe.
We don't have to put our life on hold while we wait. We can direct our attention elsewhere; we can practice acceptance and gratitude in the interim; we can trust that we do have a life to live while we are waiting - then we go about living it.
Deal with your frustration and impatience, but learn how to wait. The old saying, "You can't always get what you want" isn't entirely true. Often, in life, we can get what we want - especially the desires of our heart - if we can learn to wait.

My personal situation is a direct reflection.

Thirteen years ago I wanted to work with others on a permanent basis. Friends told me “Everyone new to recovery wants to play councillor”.

For thirteen years the thought was constantly with me, but I was patient, trusting that my higher power would give me the time and opportunity.

Through patience and waiting, I am now able to do what I have wanted to do in my heart for years-focus my life on working with others to help them in the journey to hope and serenity. I believe that the waiting was a powerful tool; over the years I’ve gained both the experience and patience to make me successful in life coaching and addiction mentoring.

I believe in the words Wholey wrote.

Importance of Feedback

Yesterday, I had a mentoring session with a fellow coach, and attended my online class. Funny how you hear things when you should (if you listen) and how one thought can lead into another.

Yesterday I gave thought to benchmarking progress along the journey and how hard it can be to recognize your own progress.

Yesterday, my class work and my mentoring session touched on the subject.

My mentor Gary and I had talked about people who hire us, but really do not want to do what is needed to achieve the goals they set for themselves. In class we talked about the importance of feedback in the coaching process, and it certainly came up that in a coach/client relationship, you can hit a point where it’s just not happening. It may be chemistry, it may be a client who wants, but is not prepared to do the work needed to reach expectations.

In coaching, I am paid to bring out the best in my clients, to help them set goals and reach them. With several of the people I’ve worked with the goals are career or spiritual

in nature; with many, the goals are based around addiction. I like to give great value for money, and appreciate client feedback. I am committed (as are most ethical coaches) to ending a relationship that is not giving the client results. The whys’ of a lack of progress don’t matter. Momentum forward is needed on a journey, whether it’s transforming aspects of life or recovering from addiction. Funny how often in sports you hear a commentator talk about a shift in momentum; just like life. You get on a roll.

The personal journey I’m on mirrors what I do for a living.

Along the trail, feedback, both positive and constructive, keeps the seeker on track. Feedback is both internal (spiritual) and external. I have had great people in my life who have helped me with goal setting and moving constantly forward to achieving the goals.

My goals today are much different than they were 25 years ago. Today’s measurement of success is predicated by the positive impact I’m able to have on others. And I understand that through feedback.

While I coach on a fee for service basis, I am active as a “sponsor” in my 12 step organization. While that role is totally voluntary, and is very different from coaching, feedback is also important, but generally, it is feedback based solely on my personal experience with working a 12 step program and living free from addiction. I enjoy this “service” part of my life, and am truly grateful that I can give back to others and that they give to me in their own way.

There are basics of process in everything that leads to success. Goals must be set, internal talent recognized, and talents applied properly to the achievement of goals, and personal accountability brought in to play!

In golf, the moment you hit a ball, you get feedback because the outcome happens in a matter of seconds right before your eyes. This may be a reason that I enjoy golf and sports so much.

In the game of life, things are not as apparent as a sports game, and feedback on progress (or lack of) is needed to keep us on the right track. May I remember this lesson!

FREEDOM FROM ADDICTIONS-MONDAY

Well, we are coming to the end of the first good weather (supposedly) long weekend of the year. For my American friends, we celebrate “Victoria Day” the weekend ahead of Memorial Day, a tie to our British roots.

I feel for those with cottages and those who are campers. If people were looking for traditional outdoor activity, they didn’t get the weather. I got another round of golf in, and today, without rain, just cold and windy.

Last night, I had dinner with dear friends, both doctors. He had it all to an outsider at one time-family, money, homes, cars, public admiration-, but couldn’t stop drinking, and slowly alcohol took everything from him. He now has mild Korsakov Syndrome (wet brain). Alcohol, coupled with a mild stroke took away a large part of his brain function. A real remember when for me is a night with my friend Paul. In his eyes, you see alertness, but he has trouble putting a paragraph together. Yet he loves me, and it brightens my whole day when we can bring him to laughter over things from the past.

His wife is one of the brightest and “outrageous” people, I know, so the time we spend together is full of good humor.

I was my friends sponsor, and seeing how he is today is a good reminder of how powerless I am over people. He could not open himself up to the reality of the demons from his past, was continually tormented, and the pain, and numbing took him to a point where he is; a shell and to some extent locked into his own world. If I had of continued the route I was going, had not listened to others and been willing to change, and awoken spiritually, I could have easily had the same fate as my friend.

Today he is sober and living a program as best as his abilities will allow, and I love him unconditionally.

In going through some things from my past parts of my journey, I was reminded how many I have known with addictions, and many much younger than me, that are now dead. I am so terribly lucky that my mind was able to open enough to realize I had a problem, to accept the help from coaches, a treatment facility, a great spiritual adviser, and many in my fellowship of choice. Most importantly, to find a power greater than myself dwelling within me and all around me who would guide me if I stayed out of my own way, and did good healthy things. To change my daily living routine, my higher power truly worked through others, and was there for me in prayer and as importantly, in meditation.

The miracle of weekends like this?

I can stand my own company, in fact enjoy it, have people around me that care, and have enough insanity left within that I can walk the golf course in less than ideal conditions and be both happy and grateful. I have hope and serenity, and that is progress, certainly not perfection.

When I look back, I know what has happened to me is a miracle, and I am thrilled to have the opportunity to share my miracle with others!

Brightening One Day

It’s always interesting to see what a difference 24 hours can make, even two hours.

I am a life transformation coach, coach based on many of the principles Eckhart Tolle put forth in A New Earth, I have a strong spiritual foundation, have helped many others, have been addiction free for a long period of time; yet I can lose sight of the very things I know, believe, try to practice and coach.

Yesterday, I started a day in a funk. I journaled about it, externalizing it, and began to see the clouds life.

I went through a coaching the coach session, meditation, a session with an associate and trusted advisor, a 12 step meeting and some exercise and social activity. By the time my wife got home from work, I was in the game and the world had a blue sky.

Time is what we measure by, and things can change so quickly.

When things are on a positive roll, we never seem to have enough time. Recently, I’ve had too much time and have spent too much time in my own head. I learned long ago, my mind can be a dangerous neighborhood and I’m better not being in there alone. Yesterday served as a great minder of this.

Time, properly used is a gift. I am responsible for how I use time, and to a very large extent, I am responsible for my big picture frame of mind. No body can make me happy. I can coach others about this and with results, but now and again, I forget this truth in my own life.

Yesterday, practicing what I know to be true and preach did for me what I know it will do for others. Through the events that took place yesterday, both by journaling and discussion with others, coupled with meditation, yesterday was a wonderful and abundant day.

It is obvious that lately I have not filled my time with enough of meaning. I have allowed too much past and future to creep in, and have wasted time dwelling outside the moment and the day. When we do this, things that are not constructive happen. I am thankful that I recognize these things as they happen, and have been coached to not only develop a tool kit to cope, but to reach into the kit and use it.

I’m looking at a long weekend with a lot of available time. I will live the moment and let time be my friend! I have a great chance to give a little away over the weekend, and will!

I must admit that I missed A New Earth and Eckhart Tolle on web cast last night. I don’t miss Oprah, even though she did a good job. The things that I found in A New Earth, particularly as they apply to addiction recovery, life coaching and transformation, and awakening spiritually are consistent with many of the readings I do.

During the study of A New Earth, it became very clear to me who I am. I am; Keith. This reading explains it well:

”Learn to say I am
We hear a lot about becoming whole. "Become a complete human being." "Start on the pathway to becoming whole." "You won't find romantic love until you know you're complete." Frankly, these kinds of comments often confused me. But then I decided that wholeness relates directly to the process of detaching - letting go.
It's admirable to go after our dreams and know what we want to accomplish. But after we identify what it is we're after, we need to let it go. We need to know in our hearts and souls that we're okay whether we ever get what we're after or not.
Another friend described it this way, "It's the old Zen Buddhist thing," he said. "When you're one with yourself, life becomes magical. You can get whatever you want."
The most powerful and magical words we can say in the language of letting go are these: I am.
Then we step it up one notch by learning to say, I am complete just as I am.
God, help me know the power of the words{font:Arial} I am.”

{font:Arial}

The words are simple, the action required not as simple. Letting go of some problems that occur in life is a challenge at times, yet when resolution of the problem occurs, it is so easy to look back and see how little good worrying did, and how much energy was wasted in the worry.

On a daily basis I work at being at one with myself. Years ago I learned that even with my flaws, I am a product of god who is not perfect but is what god created, I am unique in a positive way, and my purpose in life is to make a positive difference by coaching others.

As I move in to a busy day in front of me, I will turn worrisome issues to the care of my higher power, focus on the moment, remember the success of meditating yesterday and repeat it today.

Most importantly, may I be present in the reality; I Am.