Growing Into Consistency

For my dear friend, Jennine

All my life, I struggled to be consistent—I struggled with self-care, chaotic emotions, and figuring out who I wanted to be when I grew up. (Does this sound familiar?) “I was doing so well and then, bam!, I just stopped.” I could be absolutely enamored of something one minute and be totally turned off by it the next.

Then, I was at a workshop once and the presenter started talking about “roller coaster results.” Oh, I was very familiar with those! Wait! Was she saying there was another way? I wanted it. I longed to be someone who was steady and centered. Some part of my consciousness knew that it was possible, I just wasn’t letting that part be in control of my choices very often and it was ruining my confidence. Could it be that consistency was foundational to actually feeling confident?!

Over the next ten years or so, I learned to tune in to all the little ways I get “off my game.” They have become some of my greatest teachers. They’re subtle. Some of them are psychological, some are physical. But they have a common thread: They need me to show up for them. Those little things that happen are actually life trying to wake me up to my true nature, which is amazingly consistent.

Now, I am one of the youngest people to ever earn a Master Certified Coach credential. I raise two children who know what to expect and how to approach me. I have a circle of the most loving friends you could possibly imagine. My body, which was once my greatest source of pain, is healthy and feels whole—and when it doesn’t feel good, I know how to turn toward it and work with it. To me, these things are miracles but I also know that I grew into them, day by day. And you can, too.

So, what are some strategies that can help us grow the energetic muscles of consistency? Here are my top six:

1. Work with a teacher who truly gets you, a mentor or a professional coach—someone who can validate your progress and support you to maintain focus on whatever you are inconsistent about. This allows in the energy of true support, which is a game-changer.

2. Honor your own feelings, even if they don’t at first make logical sense. They are messengers and they are trying to tell you something.

3. Start a bodywork or breathwork practice. Start small if you must, but start. The mind affects the body and the breath directs the mind. As your strength grows in these things, it will bolster you from the inside out.

4. Remember that ideas are innately light and fun, but physical reality takes energy and therefore feels not fun. Don’t take that personally or fight against that. Learn to expect it. This is the nature of life and if we let it, we will achieve personal mastery as we answer rise to meet it.

5. Define your vision. It’s much more powerful and sustainable to move toward what you want than to push away from what you don’t want. One feeds you where the other one drains you.

6. Discern your purpose. This differentiates the natural automatic, negative instinct of the brain from your spirit or higher self. It’s energizing to operate from who you really are, rather than to push away from who you are afraid you are (which is probably informed by shame, fear, worry or inadequacy).

If you need a partner in growing your consistency muscles, call me or dm me. I’m here for you. The world needs you to do this, so don’t wait another day.

Much love,

Coach Flame

What is coaching? A true analogy

About a year ago, my shoulder completely locked up after a stressful business trip. In an effort to restore mobility and strength (not to mention alleviate the crippling pain) I started working with a transformative bodyworker. She is brilliant.

I have always had rounded shoulders, despite years of ballet class and my mother’s constant admonition to “stand up straight!” My body just. Won’t. Do. It. But then, there I was, at a breaking point where I had to find my way past this thing that has been with my literally my entire life. I wasn’t very hopeful, but Cathy came highly recommended so I decided to put my trust in the process.

In our first meeting, she got to know my body—my history as a dancer, my premature birth that set me up to have a sensitive nervous system, my journey as a mother who nursed on only one side due to some scar tissue. With her training, wisdom and intuition, it was like she could see into my skeleton, with the muscles, tendons and nerves laid on top of it and how my history had shaped them.

Then, she began to pull and push and stretch me. A “massage,” I guess, but not like a massage I have ever had before. She wasn’t always gentle, but she never hurt me. I felt pain, but she supported me to breathe into it and therefore move through it. Sometimes we talked as we moved and the words coming out of my mouth were reflections of what was stored in my flesh.

At the end of the session, I felt renewed somehow. My energy was more grounded and my muscles were firing in new ways. Driving home was like driving with new legs and arms. Did me shoulder still hurt? Yeah, it did a little, but it also felt taken care of and supported by my muscles and bones in ways I had never felt before. I felt relief, even though there was still tenderness.

I’ve been working with Cathy for a little more than a year now and the pain in my shoulder is gone. There are still positions I can’t quite reach but my relationship to my body has been altered fundamentally. My default stance is, “You’re not right. I’ve got to fix you. Do what I tell you, body.” This process of listening, breathing into the pain and stretching other parts so that I can support my body as a wholistic system has softened me. My new stance has more of a “I’m listening. Tell me. Show me what you need. I’ll give it to you if I can.” kind of vibe. I am still fixing myself, but from a place of love rather than rejection.

My close friends have heard me marvel about Cathy and her brilliance all year (and several have noted that I’m actually standing up taller). Then, last week, one of them said to me, “Isn’t that what you do? You just do it with the mind.” Well, snap! It is! The parallel to the coaching process is so clear.

Coaching is the process of unwinding the defaults of the mind so that energy can flow through the whole of who you are. In the process, your goals and dreams get the support they need to come to life. A skilled coach is someone who can see the structures of your thinking layered on top of one another, even though they are unseen to you. She can push and pull and stretch you in order to re-fit the structure so it is strong and flexible.

The re-fitting can have moments of pain, but you know she would never actually hurt you and that once the thinking is rearranged, you will feel more alive and capable. Of course, you will go on living life so the process is never truly complete. It’s a relationship with yourself that you are cultivating in coaching, and your coach is one part of that life-long journey.

You may need different coaches along the way, and that’s okay. The key, though, is to ask for support when your thinking gets painful, rigid or limiting. There is a way through it and coaching can help you find it.

Equation for Successful Communication

It all begins with an idea. Maybe you want to launch a business. Maybe you want to turn a hobby into something more. Or maybe you have a creative project to share with the world. Whatever it is, the way you tell your story online can make all the difference.

Don’t worry about sounding professional. Sound like you. There are over 1.5 billion websites out there, but your story is what’s going to separate this one from the rest. If you read the words back and don’t hear your own voice in your head, that’s a good sign you still have more work to do.

Be clear, be confident and don’t overthink it. The beauty of your story is that it’s going to continue to evolve and your site can evolve with it. Your goal should be to make it feel right for right now. Later will take care of itself. It always does.