Debuing a DEEP Truth of the Month Newsletter - Launch 1st September 2013

I am so excited to be debuing my first ever newsletter and new website.  Marney from Artella and her Mind Mapping with Marney programme 
is the reason I get to write this invitation.
I am so grateful.   

You are invited if you wish to receive the DEEP Truth of the Month to visit http://phinspire.co.nz and complete the simple sign up box.   

Dreams expand vision

Inspiring passion reveals

Small steps emerge YES!

Transition - one life to another

"Well cannot believe it I submitted my final piece of home work for my ARTbundance Certification Training - wahoo. Did my presentation and 2 coaching sessions. Needs evaluating first. Cannot believe 20 weeks of learning a wonderful coaching approach that for me has been the missing link. I feel so blessed."

Wow, I cannot believe this.  I wrote this before the 26th June 2012, which was my last day as an Occupational Therapist with the District Health Board.  So much has happened since.   It is my 50th year and my husband's 60th year.  We have been celebrating a friend's 40th and 70th.  Honestly, we have been celebrating so much this year.  I could write so many blogs just about that. 

On the 27th at 2 am we left for the Airport.  Spent 4 amazing days in Sydney, love Darling Harbour and The Rocks and then boarded a 10 day cruise, which was so cheap - 70% off and spent most of the time at sea with 4 days on South Caledonian or Fijian Islands.  We only got of for 2 days.  Lazy I know and this was our whole purpose to experience what 10 days of 'chilling' would actually feel like.   Honestly I cannot believe how quick a day goes when you are doing nothing. 

It was incredible, I did so much journalling, reading and doing various exercises from the books I read.  There was so much transition that occurred on that trip never mind in my life.  I finally wrote all the things that I was embarrassed about, ashamed about and have never told a soul.  Nothing major in the scheme of things but enough to use as a 'beaty up stick' when needed.  I wrote about the things that traumatised me, angered me, frustrated me, saddened me (have to say I have been working on personal development for about oh lets see now 22 years - haha).

I torn up the paper I wrote them on into small pieces like confetti (bio degradable), which I then set free at the back of the ship.  Honestly it was amazing just how gracefully and beautifully it seemed to play in the wind, in the spray and on top of the waves.  What a great feeling.  So transition there. 

The ripple effects have been interesting and not as I expected.  I feel so much 'lighter' and funny that a person I met up with the other day actually used those words, when talking about my energy.  It is amazing just how hard it is to take time out but truly the space in priceless for what occurs.  And we can so create time, which I will blog about soon.

So transition in life.  At the age of 50 I feel as if I am starting out and I am.  I am now certified as an ARTbundance Coach and cannot imagine coaching any other way.  I use Results Coaching Systems and Kaizen Muse Creativity Coaching and honestly with Occupational Therapy what a package.  I am amazed how it all just works together.  Ok, Liz having said that I have been working towards this since 2005 and perhaps did not give it the attention it deserved.  Great excuses - sabotage, procrastination, too busy, not being good enough, fear of failure, fear of success and finally I am here - wahoo.

Up until May this year working for the YWCA was not even in my vocabulary and now I facilitate 3 groups for girls between the ages of 11 - 13 at 2 different schools.  Me Liz, who does not have children, who has never worked with children and  now this is my second week of a 10 week programme, which is about empowerment, self esteem, confidence, positive body image, communication skills.  I am creating stuff, activities to do with the girls.  Have to say the lady before me had done this programme and taught me and it is an established programme with the Y that I am tweaking. 

On Friday I had the first lesson of the Post Grad in Counselling, predominantly in narrative therapy.  Me Liz, doing this at 50.  For those that know me this is the 3rd time I have allowed myself to be here and actually do this and the approach I so love because it is similar to coaching in terms of belief in the client, that they have the resources etc.  It is an 18 month course and I cannot believe I am actually doing it.  Have to do 200 hours counselling next year and looking at placements  now.  My dream and the reason I am doing this is because I want to work with people who have experienced disordered eating. 

I figure that with all this experience and counselling to keep clients safe I can offer one to one stuff and group stuff in a creative way.  Telling the story, metaphors, etc.  As I write my fingers move too fast with excitement.  I have also implemented a plan for where I am taking more time out.  It seems as if this looks challenging and it is but I cannot believe that I truly have made time.  I am less on face book although value this tremendously and time myself more. 

I have time out for so many different things and am just having a ball.  When the home work starts, which it already has and I get busier, perhaps it may be a different thing.  I am also going to be training as a Master Coach with KMCC next week so wow.  Phew,  need to stop now.  My bed times now are 8.30 pm to read, 9.30 pm sleep.  Not quite managing it but not far off. 

At 50 and I guess it has been a gradual transition to an amazing life in my book.  This I could never have envisaged, not ever, ever which as a coach is challenging when we set goals with clients.  It so reinforces how important it is to check out what it is that you want to feel, what will make you feel the way you want to feel and where does it happen already.  Also, trying things on for size and just giving things a go.  Sometimes I have done that with clothes, If I choose one item I think ok well what would I not wear and take that in with me too.  Great fun.  Have bought a couple of things that I would not have but don't do that much shopping - haha.  

I love my life so much and it feels as if this is just the beginning.  I love my age, my stage when I am so much more settled in my own skin and content with who I am.  It has taken some time to get here and is a working progress but I think this age group has so much to offer.  A freedom somehow, an excuse to be a little bit out there.   Who knows and I would advise though is not to wait until 50 and give things ago way before now.  It truly is worth it.  I so promise you that.  It is magic when you listen to you and allow you to be you as a whole, embracing the darker parts as well as the lighter parts. 

Definitely time to go.  Listen to your passion.  What makes you smile, laugh?  What makes time pass by so quickly that you do not even notice?  When, where with whom are you most content, at your  best in terms of being be you, feeling easy in the company you are in.  Definitely time to go - haha. 

Love this from Kate Robertson's Face book

from Gun Gazing's Photos

 

Wellbeing & MIndfulness Green Coaching

This was taken on the last night of a 6 week coaching programme.  The first I had done for Adult Education at Community Education Whangarei, Kamo High School.  Have to say that Shona the co-ordinator is amazing and so organised.

These ladies are quite incredible.  They are just like you and me and yet how little we know of each other. 

We would spend the first part of a 2 hour session/lesson out doors walking with different focuses and environments. We started with a measure of how we were feeling before the walk and then after and you can guess, mostly it was always better. 

It was a real reminder to me about not really having to know or even understand when something feels good for you.  What is important is that you can give yourself space so that you notice you, notice what makes you smile, feel good, laugh and just um hits the spot and follow that as a guide.

I learned a lot from these ladies and was reminded that no matter what we are taught, or the tools we have unless we give ourselves permission and feel deserving to implement them then they will not work.  We only need to make it one tiny small step to show up.  It is a start.

These ladies taught me and reminded me that talking and sharing is one thing but it is in the doing and the being that is another.  I am grateful to them and we are all going to meet up in June to check in with our Wellbeing, Mindfulness and vision statements.  How cool.

Also half of us will being doing a fun/run walk, so how cool is that to be inspired to really walk the talk.  I am grateful. 

Mindfulness

Before you speak, ask yourself:  Is it kind, is it necessary, is it true,

does it improve on silence? - Shirdi Sai baba

It also makes me laugh for some reason. 



Dear Time Travelers
When something really intriguing and exciting comes my way, I feel compelled to share it. And this is one of those cases. I'm totally inspired by The Creating Time Mega Event...three FREE weeks of inspiration as people all over the world will come together and welcome the ending of time as we know it...and the beginning of an exhilarating new life!


The Creating Time Mega Event celebrates the release of the new book, Creating Time: Using Creativity to Reinvent the Clock and Reclaim Your Life by ArtellaLand.com founder Marney K. Makridakis and features 25 amazing luminaries inviting us to "time travel" as a collective community to create a new paradigm of time.

Have you noticed that time is moving faster than ever these days? That it's virtually impossible to engage in or observe any conversation that doesn't somehow bring up "time" in a negative context? That "time" is the one thing that seems to hold most of us back from living the lives we were born to live? I see this all the time in my work, and I imagine that you do, too!

Now is the time for a new time! The Creating Time Mega Event and this exciting movement can change the way we see and experience time forever.

The Creating Time Mega Event is FREE and it all starts April 2, 2012 and runs for three amazing, life-changing weeks. You'll get inspiring live webinars, daily email inspiration, dynamic time-shifting games and challenges, a lively interactive community of fellow time-travelers, and so much more.

I am excited for the ways that this ongoing flow of innovative tools, techniques and ideas explored in this event will shift our experience of time forever. I've signed up...will you join me?

Learn more and sign up here!

OTcoach - Coaching Approach in OT

I am currently developing a workshop about the Coaching Approach in OT and Jen Gash in an amazing OTcoach and has a great web site, has kindly shared some of her resources.  She and I are part of International SIG Group.  Anyone is welcome. 

This narrative from one of her slides:

• Staying with the client, “whole” listening, giving time to think, asking intuitive questions
• Allow their process to unfold and their wisdom to be unlocked 
• Using tools to explore and align values, beliefs and goals

I have just read the Kawa Model and have adapted it for a Wellbeing and Mindfulness Green Coaching 6 week programme in adult education that I started on 23.02.12.  It was only when I allowed myself to adapt this model for the 'well', I guess you could say and specific to Wellbeing and Mindfulness that I am really understanding how much the coaching approach sits so well with OT.

It is a perfect match because these 3 points although of course they are part of enabling skills, as is coaching and OT.  The last point really resonates with me.  I love meaningful and purposeful activity, I get that, however what I have noticed on occasions is that sometimes this is much more than ADL's, functional stuff, roles, and often through asking coaching type questions a persons values, beliefs and goals in life have been revealed not only to the Therapist but also to the client.  Once you tap into this, the flow of life so to speak then we can really engage the client, not that you cannot engage the client anyway with our OT skills, it just that the coaching approach is such that it elicits the whole therapeutic relationship much more quickly, resulting in the client being heard and hearing themselves.

I have been surprised the amount of times I have approached a client (I work 2 days as week in neuro rehab) with so what do you enjoy doing and not even talking about the deficit, impairment yet and the client sometimes comes up with that.  I then ask such obvious questions, like so what do you need to do to be able to do that and this is when options and possibilities start to open up.  Of course as an OT I have ALL THE ANSWERS!!!  I can make great rehab plans, implement a structure and suggest what next, for sustainable on going rehab without me being around,this is not going to last very long.  People are really quite creative and ingenious too.  Almost all of the time this seems to support the client with going to places that they do not want to go to because they are being guided by their values and therefore often their strengths.

I am learning even for myself that when I connect to values more and think about my life flow, it helps me to do the things I don't really want to do.  I am really valuing so much the 'marrying of' OT and coaching skills and feel really blessed to have also discovered the Kawa Model. 

"How do you go from where you are to where you want to be?  I think you have to have an enthusiasm for life.  You have to have a dream a goal and you have to be willing to work for it."  Jim Valvano

I really believe that the dream/goals is driven by our values and once we tap into what really matters, a person can achieve anything.  

The Bodyguard Muse - Live Your Dreams - Kaizen Muse Creativity Coaching

"If your heart is in your dream, no goal is too extreme." - Ned Washington.  This is interesting that this chose me twice today and so I am going to pay attention.  I have been an Occupational Therapist for a number of years now and have been so privileged to be in positions that have allowed me to expand and grow and if not then I have had great lessons and moved on.

I first studied coaching in 2005 and again 2006 with Results Coaching Systems and have to say that I struggled so many times with the structure finally I feel I have a wonderful balance of their training, which is extremely thorough and professional and has taught me the 'coaching skills', in particular the 'coaching 'conversation'.  I love some of the structure that I used to not because having tried to be more right brained and hardly left brain has often left me feeling overwhelmed and a little lost with clients at times.  I feel I now have a wonderful balance and the flexibility with the structure, which has given me the space and time to have much more balance and be creative.  It has also supported my being able to support clients in their creativity and non linear ways of being, whilst supporting that they achieve what is important to them and is sustainable.  I have also been privileged to study and become certified as a Kaizen Muse Creativity Coach and Muse Group Leader. 

All of these aspects I use every single day of my life.  I looked at my web site the other day and was blown away because I could truly say I have experienced every single thing that I offer, how lucky am I and that is why I am so passionate about wanting others to get it for themselves too.

The Bodyguard, I cannot believe my journey to right now.  I am currently doing the ARTbundance Certified Training, which is so fantastic and compliments everything I am doing.  What I am starting to hear is that I am truly allowing my BIG dream to come to fruition, after all these years and now I need the Bodyguard more than ever.  Funny how when you so can be who you want to be and truly step up, that is scares the hell out of you and yet it is what you have been working for for years. 

"When our passion and commitment to the expression of our talents comes from a source inside that's unaffected by anything external, no worldly fear or discouragement will stop us from bringing them into fruition."  The Bodyguard Muse, creator Jill Badonsky.

I have for years been putting off my dream, at times even hiding it or disguising it, wanting it so badly and believing in it and, perhaps if I learn this and perhaps if I learn that then I will be better at doing that and I have to say I am amazed at what I have learned now this package with ARTbundance I know is going to be very useful - ah what crap my first thought, with Audacity Muse was it is going to be phenomenal. 

God, did I say that, yep.  I implore anyone who has done the same as me to please, please drag that dream out, let it shine, breathe air into it, please listen, you will know if it is the right thing because no matter how long you have had it or it has been buried it will have manifested and appeared over the years in different guises but will always have the same theme. 

Please allow yourself this because unless you do, you will continue to have conflict with yourself, maybe with the world because you are in disharmony.  You are meant to live your best life, experience, joy, laughter, awe, sadness, anger, frustration, wonder, curiosity, being.  It will not make life perfect, it will not make life easy, although I promise with all my heart it will be easier, eventually, but you will feel and be alive.  You WILL notice the difference.

So please allow Bodyguard Muse to be along side you, no matter what to protect your dream, your vision, not by hiding it away.  Let you and your dream shine and protect that with everything you have.

"And the day came when the risk to remain tight in a bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom." - Anais Nin