Are you coping too well with a bad situation, a job you hate, a bad relationship?

Have you mastered ways to make things positive, reframe the situation, change your thoughts, focus on what’s working?

Do you believe deep down that he who endures the most suffering without falling apart will be rewarded in the end?

I did and so do most of the people that I coach.

If you share this trait, then you are what Martha Beck refers to in her book Steering By Starlight, as a fire fleer.  A fire fleer is a pain avoider.  We ignore, avoid or repress our suffering and keep it to ourselves.  Super successful fire fleers manage to hide their pain even from themselves.  The opposite of the fire fleer is the story fondler – those people who recount their tales of woe endlessly.  You can spot the story fondlers by looking for the glazed eyes of those poor people that are forced to listen to them.

We fire fleers desperately don’t want to story-fondlers or inflict our pain on anyone else.  We get so adept at coping of looking like we are coping that we even hide how bad we feel from ourselves.  Here’s the problem:

When you flee from your pain, you don’t receive the message that your emotion is trying to send you.

Your emotions are your sophisticated signalling apparatus.  Like the lights on a car dashboard, each emotion signals that you need to check something.

When you are miserable and trying to avoid, ignore or repress your misery you actually hold on to those feelings longer than you would if you stopped trying to ignore them – and you don’t get information that could really help you.

 Karla McLaren in The Language of Emotions talks about the message of different emotions.  Here are a few emotions that most firefleers try not to feel and their messages:

Anger:  a boundary is being violated;

Sadness:  something needs to be released or rejuvenated;

Grief:  something needs to be mourned.

If you have a habit of fleeing the feelings that feel bad here is a simple, safe way that you can start feeling them and figuring out what they mean for you:

Create a Misery Board.

You’ve probably heard of a Vision Board – where you select pictures from magazines that appeal to your heart, cut them out and paste them on a Bristol board.  The Misery Board is similar to the Vision Board, but you select pictures from magazines that resonate with the misery and discontent that you are feeling.

Doing a Misery Board leads to surprising results. 

I first did a Misery Board when I moved to the small Northern town that I live in.  I had been unwilling to admit that I hated living in the town.  I couldn’t find anything to appreciate about my town.  I was scared of being a Debbie Downer.  After repressing my emotions for far too long, I did a Misery Board.

I acknowledged that I really missed the city, that I really missed speaking English (my town is a unilingual French speaking town), that I felt like an outsider and that I feared that no one would ever appreciate the real me.  Doing the misery board allowed me to feel my grief and release my attachment to the past.

Then I did a Vision Board.

As a direct result of that Misery Board/Vision Board combo, I started an on-line business where I work almost 100% in English.  Now with clients all over the world, I don’t miss not living in a big city.  I appreciate the open spaces and nature, and I travel to large cities regularly.  It’s a pretty miraculous shift.  And I really credit the Misery Board!

By permitting myself to feel what I was trying to avoid, I found the space and energy to create my own new beginning.

And you can too.

You can download a 5 minute recording on how to do the Misery Board and Vision Board here.    If you are a firefleer, do a Misery Board first then do a vision board.  It’ll help you to find your freedom and stumble upon your passions!

Sometimes the best advice comes from little kids.  I can’t improve on this one so watch the video below.  It makes me smile every time I see it.

If you are practicing something that you want to do but don’t know if you can; if you are trying something new; if you are afraid and uncertain, believe in yourself……..and watch this video.

Thumbs Up for Rock and Roll!

This week’s worksheet is called The Help.   It’ll help you identify the kind of help you need to achieve your dreams.   Download it here

I don’t want those talents, I want something else!

I’ve heard that statement many times.

Elle, a bright, accomplished solo-entrepreneur participated in one of my coaching groups. She was trying to identify her superpowers.

Superpowers = Natural talents + 10,000 or more hours practice.

When you are using your superpowers it feels totally natural and you feel joy. Often it feels like the activity is coming through you as opposed to being done by you.

I told Elle to think back to the last time that she was doing something where she lost all notion of time – where she was totally focused on what she was doing and the activity seemed to be flowing through her as opposed to her “trying” to get it done. She answered quickly that it was when she was planning her kids’ birthday party. She came up with a theme, made costumes, planned party favours and decorations. She said that she got so involved in her creation that even her kids thought she’d gone over the top with the party.

Me: You love creating, using your hands – coming up with a theme or vision, designing and creating beauty.

Elle: Yes that’s it! I always come up with the same thing when I’m trying to figure out my passions. It’s always design, creating, planning and using my hands.

She sounded disappointed.

Me: It sounds like those are your Superpowers – tell me where I’m wrong.

Elle: You’re not wrong. But I don’t want those superpowers, I want something else!

Does this sound like you?

Are you undervaluing what makes you unique?

Are you undervaluing your Superpowers?

Here is my advice:

Stop doing that!

When you don’t accept your superpowers, you don’t accept your God given gifts.

They are yours.

Use them.

You are needed.

Exactly as you are.

If you use your superpowers with love and joy, you’ll change the world.

And the world needs your help.

Here is an exercise from Martha Beck’s new book, Finding your Way in a Wild New World to help you identify your Superpowers. Click here to download.

What have you practiced for 10,000 hours?

Share your Superpowers below!  Maybe you’ll inspire someone.

Starting a small solo-online business to follow my passions, is one of the most intense things I’ve ever done. I’m beginning to think that it’s not for the faint of heart. I’m five years into this journey and want to share with you the things that no one ever told me. Maybe it’ll help to make following your passions a little bit easier. This is what usually happens:

You discover your passion and start an online solo business so you can offer your service to the people who need you.

This is not at all rare anymore. Entering the online business world is like going through the hidden wall to get on the Hogwarts train. There is a huge on-line community that you don’t realize is there until you go through the wall – so to speak. It is thrilling and new and exciting and gives you the opportunity to make money doing what you love and providing that to a global market. You are no longer restricted by needing to find clients where you live, AND you can compete with large companies by identifying a specialty niche that you service because of your expertise.

You start learning and doing and it feels like play even though you are working harder than you ever have.

People around you can’t believe that you are working so hard and spending so much time on your computer. You have created a little world that you escape to in your mind. You are inspired, borderline obsessed about bringing this “thing” that you see as your true calling, to life. When people (your husband) tell you that you are working really hard you snort inside because it sure doesn’t feel like work. It feels like art. It feels like creating. But you keep that secret to yourself.

You start receiving never-ending marketing materials from people who you don’t know, whose list you signed up for because they had a cool but inevitably useless freebie.

You become overwhelmed with on-line marketing paraphernalia but you still read it all. Every time you read something new, you start to think that there is something you aren’t doing and should learn. You worry that you aren’t keeping up to date with what you “should” know or “should be doing”. Every time you find out about something new to do to make your business work, someone else is selling you a new program. It feels like a tornado. What is going on?

You have unconsciously opened an energetic doorway.

There is no boundary between you and the on-line world. The grasping, clinging energy of the people who are selling these programs has entered your own energy field. And it’s coming in through your in-box. This is not something that you were prepared for. If you are like me, you are used to centering your own energy around people, so that you don’t pick up emotions that aren’t yours.

But from your inbox?

Yes. If you don’t control what you receive you will end up responding and reacting to things that have nothing to do with you. It’s like television. If you watched everything that you saw on television, you’d only eat fast food and feel obsessed about improving your skin, cleaning your toilet, how you smelled and you’d want to look like Barbie.

Energetic overwhelm coming from your inbox is the downside of having an on-line business.

What to do?

1. Ground yourself. Breathe 5 deep, slow breathes. Imagine yourself rooted to the ground. Surround yourself by a golden light that is not porous – won’t let anything else in. This may sound hokey but it is where you start. You will step out of the stress response (flight, fight or freeze) and move back into your body.

2. Become aware of the effect that promotional emails have on your body. If your body feels light and free when you read a promotional email, great it’s a keeper. If your body feels tight, heavy, constrained and panicked when you read a promotional email, dump it.

3. Control the energy that enters into your space. In this case your space is not your physical space, it is your electronic space. You inbox. If you feel tense, anxious and panicky when you read an email, Un Sub Scribe. No matter what. Even if the newsletter comes from someone you like. Keep only the subscriptions to newsletters that leave you feeling light, and invigorated.

3. Focus on YOU. Take back your personal power and remember why you started an on-line business. Clarify what you have to bring to the world. Write that down and post it above your desk or working space.

4. Form or join a support group. Make sure you get out of your own head and have people you can talk or laugh with. This might be an in-person group of other solo entrepreneurs or a virtual group. I’ve been a member of a 4 person support group since I became an online solo entrepreneur five years ago. It works.

5. Get away from your computer and other electronic devices on a regular basis. Plan free time into your agenda. That means going outside, walking, dancing, playing where you are not focused on your business at all. It’ll keep you sane and you’ll probably end up getting some new, fresh ideas.

You can download a recording here, to help you to shift your focus back to YOU.

Let me know if you’ve experienced an energetic drain through your inbox and what solutions you’ve found below!

Purpose, calling, vocation, mission, your soul’s purpose…..it is all the same thing, the work of your soul.  I call it right work.

This is how I define Right Work:

Right work is the work that gives you the most joy;

It utilizes your unique talents, allows you to make a contribution and increases the love in the world;

When your work is RIGHT, what you are doing and who you are being is aligned; your inner core self and your external, personality self are working together.

When your work is RIGHT, you are being fully present, rather than future or past focused.

Your right work may not be your job, and it may not even be paid work. It is the role you get to play rather than the job title.

Right work is the work of your soul, your mission or your purpose.  It does not have to be grandiose.  It is more about who you get to be than what you get you to do.

Eckhart Tolle, Martha Beck, Brooke Castillo and Bev Barnes have all contributed to this definition.

Are you doing your right work? If you aren’t why not? If you are, how do you know? Share your insights below.   It might help someone.

By the time I was four years old, I learned that my value as a human being was based on what work I did.

I watched as people met each other and the first thing they asked was “What do you do?” I was constantly asked “What does your father do?” I wondered why they wanted know. I tried to avoid the question but people were persistent. When I came up with an answer that satisfied them, it seemed to me that they were filing my response in their inner filing cabinet that categorized who people were by what they did.

I dreaded the question.

My father was as immigrant. He took the jobs that he could get. His purpose for work was to earn money to support his family and put his daughters through university so that they could “advance” in life, whatever that meant. I felt my father’s pain and so, by the time I was four years old I had deduced that:

• My value as a person had to do with what I did for work, not who I was;

• A good job was one that was perceived by others as important and prestigious;

• You should never quit a good job;

• It was better to do a white collar job than a blue collar one;

• The best job was to be a doctor because it gave you money, status and prestige;

• It was better to have a secure government job than to be self-employed;

• I should never, ever work as a maid or a waitress;

• I shouldn’t be an artist: dancer, painter, writer because I’d be poor;

• No matter what job I did, I’d end up raising kids, so I should make sure I picked a husband with a good earnings potential;

• Work was supposed to be unpleasant, that’s why they called it work.

Were you taught that your real job in life was to use your natural talents to make a positive contribution?

I wasn’t.

I bet that if my father had believed that, he would have been happier and prouder of himself before he retired. He wouldn’t have let his job define his sense of identity for most of his life. I wish I could have told my father this:

You are not your job.

You do your job.

If you get to use your natural talents to make a positive contribution and that is also your paid work, you have hit the jackpot. But even if you don’t, that doesn’t make you less of a person; you can find other avenues where you can use your natural talents to make a positive contribution.

If you are unhappy at work and can’t seem to make a change, start with identifying what your beliefs are about work and whether you are still following old rules.

It might be time for you to unlearn what you were taught.

Try this out as a new empowering belief:

Your real job in life is to use your natural talents to make a positive contribution.

Suppose we all learned that in school?

Can you imagine what the world would be like?

That’s my dream.

I love hearing from you. What were you taught about work that you now know isn’t true? It’s time to dump your old beliefs. Share your answers below.

I have been plagued by not knowing what I want since I was a young child. Whenever I heard that dreaded question, “What do you want to be when you grow up?” my mind went blank. I watched with amazement as my sister said, Dancer! Astronaut! Social Worker! Teacher!

How did she know? I had no idea what I wanted to be. I had no idea what I wanted. I still don’t – but my heart knows.

Your heart knows what you want, not your mind.

When you ask the question “What do I want?” your mind immediately starts working to figure out the answer to this puzzle. That leads to more mind babble like:

I have to be sure of what I want. I can’t make a mistake.

• I have to know everything that is possible for me to do and then choose something from that list. Since I don’t know everything that is possible, I can’t choose.
• I have to choose what I want from something that exists. I can’t create something new.
• Suppose I make a mistake and I choose the wrong thing or it fails, or I don’t like it?

All of this mind babble keeps you stuck and leads you straight to Limboland, that place where you can’t decide anything.

If you’ve been plagued by not knowing what you want, my hunch is that you are expecting your mind to spit out a goal, a strategy and a guarantee that it will succeed.

It’s not going to happen.

Here is what you can do to get unstuck.

1. Change the question

One way to get out of this mind trap and get unstuck is to ask a different question. Instead of asking yourself “What do I want?”, ask yourself “How can I express my true nature?”  Consider this:

• Suppose you already knew what you wanted in your heart, but your mind just didn’t know it yet?
• Suppose your heart’s biggest desire was to express your true nature?
• Suppose the real reason for your angst and distress was not that you don’t know what you want but because you aren’t expressing your true nature?

Changing the question, asking yourself “How can I express my true nature?” gets you unstuck immediately. You also have a plan. All you have to do is remember your true nature and start bringing it into your life right away.

2. Bring your true nature into your life RIGHT NOW.

 You’ll know that you are expressing your true nature when your heart feels, lighter and filled with joy. When you aren’t expressing your true nature your heart will feel heavy and weary.

I’ve created a worksheet that you can download to help you remember what your true nature is. Download it here.

Start leading with your heart not your head. Bring your true nature into your life right now, without knowing where it’s leading. Maybe you’ll create something that never existed before!  Keep following the desires of your heart. What you want will show up but you’ll only know it once you start doing it, not before!

Martha Beck’s new book, Finding Your Way in a Wild New World is filled with magical ways to help you get back in touch with your true nature. Check it out. It is fabulous!

I’ve been thinking about what helped me to find my true calling in life. One of the major pieces of the puzzle was doing the Myers Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI).

When I first did the MBTI, I was in a workplace surrounded by engineers and nurses. I worked in the occupational health and safety department of a huge corporation in case you’re curious. Nothing is wrong with engineers and nurses except that I wasn’t one of them. I didn’t think the same way as they did. I didn’t see the world the same way that they did. I felt like an alien.

I decided that something was wrong with me.

Here’s a hint, the minute you decide that something is wrong with you, you get totally and completely lost trying to find your passions.

But I digress.

As luck would have it, our corporation was undergoing massive change and hired a truck load of consultants. One of the first things they did was administer the MBTI to all management staff. I discovered two things:

1. I had completely different personality preferences than all of my co-workers;

2. I had the same personality preference as most of the consultants. In fact when I was with them, I felt that I had found my tribe.

This was earth shattering for me. I wasn’t crazy. I was totally different from my co-workers and nothing was wrong with that.

But the bigger issue was…….there were people like me!

There were people who were: not concrete and practical; who liked starting things more than finishing things; who focused not on the facts but what the facts meant – to people; who were obsessed with growth and personal development; who were gifted with a deep understanding of people.

And I learned that people like me could make a living being who they were and not pretending to be someone else!

The Myers Briggs Type Indicator totally rocked my world.

It gave me the confidence to start contacting people who did interesting work so that I could discover new possibilities for work.

It gave me the confidence to use my own personal values to make decisions and not decide based on the pros and cons.

It gave me the confidence to believe my own intuitive hits which I’d often doubted.

It helped me to see that my passion was seeing possibilities for people.

Do this if you feel like an Alien in your workplace:

1. If you’ve never done the MBTI I suggest that you do it. The best way, is to get personalized interpretation with a qualified practitioner. Moi! Click here.

2. If you are a DIY type or the price for the individualized service is too steep, take the Kiersey Temperament Inventory which is similar to the MBTI, for free here.

You won’t get a complete understanding of the tool nor dive deeply into the nuances of your particular situation, nor get a 10 page report, but you’ll get the basics.

3. Read : Do What You Are by Paul D. Tieger and Barbara Barron-Tieger or What’s your type of Career by Donna Dunning. These books are available everywhere. I highly, highly recommend them both!

4. Start seeking out people like you and connecting with them. Like attracts like. People who resonate with you are probably people who do work that appeals to you. Don’t be fooled by their job title. Ask them about what they do and how they do it.

When you find your tribe you’ll find your calling.

Happy Searching! You are on your way.

I’d love to hear what you learned from doing the Myers Briggs Type Indicator.  Leave your comments below!

Welcome to the week between Christmas and New Years, my favourite time of the year.  What I love about this time is the quiet of the in-between.  The old year isn’t quite over and the New Year hasn’t quite begun.  If you are like me, you’ve spent a lot of time just hanging out playing.

I love hanging out and playing.

Before you dash madly into the New Year with resolutions and projects and desires,  my suggestion is that you reflect on last year:  what you learned; what you accomplished and are proud of; what you are grateful for.

Hold those feelings of pride and gratitude in your heart and embrace them.  They are your gifts from last year.  Those feelings help you to connect to your core self.  Spend some time hanging out and playing.  It’ll help you to connect with your core self more than making plans will.

Really.

I’ve put together a play sheet with a few great questions to help you to reflect on last year.  You can download it here.

Now go hang out and play.

I had a pivotal life-changing dream many years ago, that I’ve never forgotten.  I was in the middle of trying to find my true calling in life.  I had admitted that my work was not who I really was and I had decided to only do what felt deeply right for me.  I was at a point in my exploration that I was trying to decide whether to quit my job.  I had a vague idea of what I wanted to do, some kind of facilitating or personal development work, but there was no job-title that I knew of that I could focus on.  I didn’t know who would pay me for doing what I wanted to be doing.  I was really afraid that if I quit my job, I’d have no security.  I was terrified of the unknown.

That’s when I had this dream:

I was in a subway station with many other people.  There was a huge explosion or noise and I knew that the tunnel was collapsing and it was imperative to get out.  Hundreds of people were waiting anxiously for the train in order to escape. I knew that we had to get out before our station collapsed too.     I was really worried that the train wouldn’t come or I wouldn’t be near enough to the doors to get on.

Then I saw this brilliant, blinding, warm, inviting light.  It was the train!   Doors opened up directly in front of me.  A conductor smiled lovingly at me and invited me to get on.  As my eyes were able to better focus, I noticed that this wasn’t a train.

It was a bus!

My mind started to process:   What is bus doing here? – It won’t be able to go on the tracks – The tracks are for trains – This isn’t safe- Maybe I shouldn’t get on.  So, in a collapsing tunnel, with a golden doorway opened directly in front of me, I didn’t get on the bus.  I was too afraid that the bus wouldn’t lead me out of the tunnel.

I was wrong.

I watched the bus pull away.  And it did something I had never considered; it got off the tracks, turned into a hidden pathway and  followed a route I’d never even noticed.  I watched as it got up to the surface and out of the tunnel.

When I woke up, I was filled with regret at the choice I had made.  That dream and its message has stayed with me for over 16 years now.  Every time I feel stuck, or I don’t know what to do next, or how to do it, I remember that bus.

One of the reasons that this dream showed up was to teach me how to follow my passions once I’d found them.  Those are the tips I want to share with you this week:

1.  When you think you’re waiting for a train to get to your heart’s desire, you are probably waiting for a bus.

2.  You don’t have to know the route,  you just need to trust that it’s there.

3.  Just because you don’t see the path, doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist.

4.  Something will always show up, to help you find your way.

5.  When it shows up, you’ll know its “right” by how it feels – warm, inviting and filled with light.

6.  When your bus show up, jump on, even if it doesn’t look like what you thought it would.

Those are my passion tips this week.

In case you were curious, very soon after I had this dream, my whole life changed.  My job collapsed and I was downsized, I had a baby and my bus showed up:  self-employment – that I’d never dreamed of – but it was a perfect fit!

Have a wonderful holiday season.  Rest, relax and play!