From the Deep

A Transformational Journey for Women

The Destiny Project is an eight-week, communal coaching journey toward naming and designing your life around your deepest life purpose. Through this teleconference journey, the leader will personally guide you through the 8 practical steps of the proven Visioneering Process that will break you out of stuck patterns in your life, reawaken your heart’s capacity to dream, guide you to create a crystal-clear vision for your future, and provide practical tools for stepping up to the bigger life you were created to live.

Participating in a Destiny Project Group may be one of the most significant explorations of your life. It is an exploration not merely of your career path (though that will certainly play a part), nor is it just about balancing the many tasks and roles you must fulfill in your daily routine (though that is certainly important). This journey will take you deeper than personality tests and time management programs can go–to an exploration of who you really are at the core, what really makes you come alive, and what big gift lives inside of you that, if unleashed, will inspire the world around you to come alive as well.

• You’ll discover your deepest life purpose, and describe it in detail.
• You’ll “map” out your dreams for the life you most want to experience and enjoy.
• You’ll transform your dreams into specific, clearly-defined visionary goals that you can and will achieve.
• You’ll forge accountable friendships with others just like you–people who’ve had enough of living small–and are committed to stepping up to the life of their biggest dreams.
• You’ll learn practical tools to move beyond the obstacles that have historically stopped you from your goals.
• You’ll “plan for success” by designing a practical, personalized road map to get you from where you are to where you want to be.
• You’ll move from what you want to do to what you will do.

I rise from the basement, where I spent the last week nursing my own sickness, like a phoenix from the ashes. After four weeks of commitments followed by illness, I reclaim my life on the main floor of my home and my self. I feel new. And I’m ready to jettison anything that deigns hold me back.

Spring is right around the corner, and I can feel it here in Colorado. We’re doing the Colorado Spring Swing around here, and I’m not talking about any Western dance. I’m talking about the weather swinging from the 70s one day to the 30s and snowy the next. It’s that time of year.

Do you feel it? Do you see the signs of Spring around you? If so, how do you feel inside?

Some of us feel the urge to purge. Spring cleaning starts soon. We shake off the dust from winter. We open our windows and let in fresh air. We pack away winter clothes. We hose down the patio furniture and prepare to take in sun and fun.

Do you feel it?

We can do Spring cleaning within us as well. Just as I feel the desire to clear my house of clutter, I feel I want to declutter my heart and mind as well. Old, unhelpful attitudes? Trash ‘em! Stale beliefs? Shred ‘em!

While on my sick couch in the basement last week, I watched a lot of daytime television. One of the shows I enjoyed was “What Not to Wear.” On this show, the hosts guide a victim…er…participant through the process of culling through his/her clothes and creating a new, more stylish wardrobe. As I watched this show repeatedly, I noticed that in order for these people to transformation outwardly, they had to make an inward transformation first. The mom of young children had to adopt the belief that she was worth spending time on herself. The muscular landscape architect/surfer dude had to decide he wanted to present a more adult face to the world. Only in throwing away old beliefs could new ones take plant in their hearts, and when that happened, their outward appearance changed too.

Where do you want to go in your life? What old, musty, beliefs are holding you back from going there? What out-of-style attitudes are keeping you from fully expressing yourself in the world? Isn’t it time to let them go and make space for something new, fresh, and healthy to guide you?

Today it begins.

For some, it began January 1, 2009. But for those of us with children, the New Year starts today. The husbands (if we have them) go back to work. School-age children return to academia; younger kids return to preschool or their scheduled tot activities. Perhaps we, too, return to our jobs. Whatever our scenarios, moms around the world are facing the first Monday of 2009 and going back to the grind.

So how will it be different? When the New Year approaches, some of us create resolutions to make the current year better than the one before. Some of us eschew resolutions yet want to invite change of some sort. It’s natural. A New Year denotes a new beginning, an opportunity to take stock, to see what we like about our lives, to jettison what we don’t, and to invite something new to manifest itself. But those high hopes born in the holiday euphoria won’t ever become realities if we don’t take steps toward them in the harsh light of the Monday morning after.

Today, January 5, 2009 is where the rubber meets the road. If you want to create true life change this year, begin by answering these questions today:

• What do you want to leave behind in 2008?
• How will you practically accomplish that today?
• What do you want to invite into your life in 2009?
• What step will you make toward that beginning or change today?
• Who will you invite into the process to help you along the way?
• Will you contact that person today?

I wish you all the joy and richness of creating the life you want beginning today where the rubber meets the road. And if you’d like guidance from a life coach along the way, please contact me. I’d love to take this journey toward change with you!

Everything is in chaos. My house looks like Santa’s elves threw themselves a little party here after all their hard work: paper strewn everywhere, toys pieces exploded from containers, empty cardboard boxes lying in wait to trip unsuspecting humans.

But I feel chaos within me too. The kids are enjoying Winter Break, so is the hubby. What they don’t realize is that they’ve infiltrated my peaceful schedule, abode, and office. Their vacation mode translates into work for me, even though I’ve put certain practices into place to maintain my sense of self (see this post). I’m happy they’re having time off, but if you see my sanity anywhere, tell it to give me a call. I miss it terribly.

Not only this, but I tend to have existential crises at an alarming rate. I must admit they tend to come at one particular time of the month, but they also come when I experience disruption to my schedule and space, such as now. In these angst-ridden moments, hours, and days I wonder what I’m offering to this world other than taxi, cook, and maid services.

By God’s grace, a friend on Twitter sent me this quote when I was (unbeknownst to her) feeling particularly chaotic:

You must have chaos within you to give birth to a dancing star. –Friedrich Nietzsche.

What a redeeming thought! I’ve struggled with this chaos inside me for so long over a variety of subjects and at various times. I’ve recently let a dream die (see this previous post) and accepted that sometimes we just can’t force our lives to become what they’re not. So then what? What do we do with the resulting pain and chaos?

Apparently, I’m attending the Dancing Star Academy, and on the AP Honors track! I want to be a dancing star, and this goal brings meaning to what often seems pointless. Suddenly, what feels like pain and craziness has transformed into a refining process that I embrace.

Do you feel chaotic within and without? Well, join me in the dance, my friend. Dance on!

Last week I went off the radar, and when I returned, the game had changed. I recognized my place in the Bigger Story. I received greater clarity about what I’m doing and who I’m being, and that clarity has been confirmed over and over in the days since. So I feel the need to make a declaration: I’m all about transformation. When I talk with people, parent my kids, coach my clients, I want to be a conduit for meaningful, lasting life change.

If you’ve looked at my website, followed my Twitter feed, or read this blog, you know that for the past year I’ve focused my work on moms of gifted children. I still consider this a focus of my work. In fact, I truly want moms of gifted children to experience life change. I know how hard it is to spill yourself out for these youngsters who, delightful as they are, require extra vigilance and energy. If you mother gifted children, here’s what I long for you: that you would know yourself at your deepest core and create your life–your mothering and beyond–from that place.

And that’s what I want for every person I meet. I am now opening my arms and my coaching practice wide for whomever wants to taste life deeply. I’ve named my coaching business Deep Waters Coaching and Communications after this proverb: The purposes of a person’s heart are deep waters, but someone of understanding can draw them out (Proverbs 20:5, my paraphrase). As a coach, I have skills to help people discover the purposes swimming deep within themselves. I know how to tell them where to look. And I love to help people look there and to witness their journey as they begin to recognize themselves in the reflection of those deep waters.

I do not do this work alone. I follow God’s leadership. I allow His Wind to blow where it may, and to blow me along with it. It’s who I am and what I do.

And that’s my declaration. I don’t know where this will take me, but I’m looking forward to the journey!