Posts Tagged ‘power’

The Thigh Bone’s Connected to the Knee Bone: Part 2

Written by on 14th October 2010

Check out my experience with chronic health concerns in  part 1 of this story…

As I wrote yesterday, it seemed unconscionable that I would give a presentation on having a solid relationship with health and wellness while experiencing deep dissatisfaction in my own relationship. I felt out of integrity and if giving a brief presentation on the topic was making me feel this uneasy, I’d better pay attention.

So I did. I allowed this opportunity to be the driving force of a wake-up call and decided I wanted to show up for this October 28th event having taken some creative steps in the re-writing process. I wanted a new story about health.

First, I took a cue from all wise, romantic plotlines, where the protagonist experiences heartbreak: I sat down and had a good cry. Where did we go wrong? How did it get to this? If you leave your sneakers where I’m inevitably going to trip over them, I’m inevitably going to throw them away, mister! Oh, wait, that’s a different story…

Then I took a page from my standard coaching playbook. I wrote. I answered my own questions, such as:

  • What are my symptoms telling me?
  • What is the deeper longing here?
  • What’s the benefit of not feeling healthy?
  • What would it look like to be in relationship with my body?

The most insightful piece of information this process provided was, unsurprisingly, around responsibility. I realized that I’ve kept looking externally for answers. I’ve been operating under the assumption that if only I found the right doctor who would be the perfect synthesis of Eastern and Western medicine, the epitome of heart-centered care and connected to top-notch specialists, I would quickly find my way. In this one part of my life, I longed to be puppet, I kept looking for someone else would tell me what to do at every turn. I realized I needed to begin viewing myself as the primary care physician. I needed to be the person I kept hoping someone else would be for me.

So it all comes back to me? Sigh. But then I realized I have experience in this area! After all, while this problem might feel overwhelming, I have tremendous experience solving troubling problems. We all do. I also know that my head can only make so much headway, so to speak. When solving troubling problems, it is better to access the heart. And in my perspective, the heart is that special point of connection to the Divine, to Source, to God, to the Light. It’s where I get intuitive hits. It’s where I feel less afraid.

To access the heart, I followed the lead of the Sufis. Sufism has this super cool practice of prayer called Remembrance, wherein you are essentially remembering God, that you come from Source, from Love and that everything is a part of Love. Even my crappy relationship with health is enveloped in love. Sweet, huh? (Note that I’m not actually a Sufi, so if I’m misrepresenting Sufis here, consider it plain ignorance. Mostly, I’m just a little in love with this spiritual practice.) My experience with Remembrance – and occasionally some other forms of prayer and meditation – is that it leads me to paths I wouldn’t have otherwise noticed. I come away with a measure of clarity about the next step to take.

Which is exactly what happened.

Tune in tomorrow for part 3 to this story…

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Posted in health | No Comments »

The Thigh Bone’s Connected to the Knee Bone: Part 1

Written by on 13th October 2010

Physical pain – the kind that isn’t caused by a known injury – has been with me much of my life. I first remember it surfacing in mid childhood in my feet and knees. Myriad doctor’s appointments and years later, it was deemed connected to structural abnormalities of my feet and legs, easily corrected with foot orthotics. And so it was, to a large degree.

A couple years after that, however, I developed chronic headaches. And then pain and numbness in my right arm and hand. Bursitis in my hip. In general, I took all of this is stride. I made doctor’s appointments as needed, adjusted my activity as warranted and assumed I’d always get better. And then my voice stopped working. At least, it stopped working fully. Maybe not enough for others to notice, but for someone singing 1st soprano with the Philadelphia Chamber Chorus, my lack of vocal range and control hit me like a brick. I was diagnosed with idiopathic (i.e., no known reason) partial paralysis of my right vocal fold, a condition for which there is no sure-fire fix. Singing was generally off the table and speaking can be effortful. This was in 2005 and I was devastated.

Unfortunately, my experience of my body has not significantly improved since then and I’ve waded in and out of the waters of proactive treatment and the desert of resignation. But with a life that is concurrently filled with goodness, my lack of ease in my body has been a story I’ve generally kept to myself and that I’ve glossed over with good Irish humor.

And then the unthinkable happened: I was asked to give a talk on health later this month.In fact, I’m kicking off an organization’s year-long programming around health with the topic, “Your Story About Health.”

Now, I’m no adherent to the belief that helping others is predicated on me being perfect but every time I went to make even the most nascent preparations for this talk I could feel my stomach sinking. Why would I stand up in front of a room of people encouraging them to take responsibility for their stories about health when my relationship to my own health feels so tenuous? As someone who relies on personal stories to support others in their own paths of transformation, what story could I offer to those attending that would be both true and inspiring?

It’s not that I didn’t believe I could help them with their own stories about health; it’s that I couldn’t understand why I wasn’t helping myself.

Check back tomorrow for part 2 to this story…

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Posted in health | 2 Comments »

How Not to Manage

Written by on 2nd September 2010

There’s a lot of bad advice out there that really gets under my skin. The kind of meaningless-at-best or destructive-at-worst advice that people buy into, soak up and pass around like currency.* While I notice quite a bit of it in my field and in the “self-help” field in general, it really seems to come on full force in the world of business.

Take a recent blog post, Managing Older Managers: A Guide for Younger Bosses, published recently by the Harvard Business Review. Here’s an excerpt:

“Send emails early and late. Invite meetings on weekends and at odd hours. Be in the office or online all the time. Dial into meetings at insane hours during overseas travel. Understand that managers older than yourself may have families that require them to live by different rhythms from yours — they may need to be offline from 6 to 8, for example.”

I invite you to read – nay, skim! – the rest of the article. On a recent LinkedIn discussion, here’s what I had to say about the author’s advice:

As I read it, what the author suggests here has very little to do with younger bosses managing older employees; it mostly seems like it’s his take on management in general. My experience working with multiple generations throughout organizations suggests that very little has to do with age, other than some preferred methods of communication, but not always that, either.

In terms of his approach to management, I actually disagree with much of what he posits, especially around his comments in “Let them know that you are working long and hard.” While I think the basic premise might be valuable, the idea that a younger employee should essentially put on a show to demonstrate work ethic to the tune of being “online all the time” or scheduling weekend meetings, is counter-intuitive to my understanding of good management and, more importantly, good leadership. In my opinion, that and other suggestions border on crazy-making and deceit.

As a rule, I tend toward a more collaborative approach to management, which requires explicit communication, and he is clearly immersed in and advocating for hierarchy, where implicitness rules the day.

Whether you agree or disagree, I’d love to know your thoughts!

* There’s also this part of me that wants to hedge. That wants to say, “To each his own.” There’s merit to that as I certainly don’t wish to throw the baby out with the bathwater. And of course, I’m sure I, too, have unwittingly offered something meaningless or offensive at one time or another.

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Posted in career | 4 Comments »

Your True Story: A Pilot Coaching Program

Written by on 26th July 2010

Stories are everywhere.

There is the story of your day, your week, your first love, your career, your professional development, your body. Since the beginning of time, we have been making sense of our world through story and we use stories every day to inspire us, hinder us, explain ourselves, understand difficult concepts and more.

At this very moment, you are in the process of writing your own story.

Because your story is integral to how you experience yourself and your world, I am SO excited to be launching a pilot coaching program to help you create your most powerful and authentic story!

Click here for pilot program details.

After you read the program details, my guess is that you’ll quickly have an inkling if this is the right program for you. The following list of reasons might also help you decide:

  • You’re feeling stuck
  • You keep experiencing the same problem over and over again
  • You have similar symptoms in many areas of your life
  • You’re ready to take a truthful look at your situation and take action based on what you discover
  • You have the time and energy to devote to a powerful, life-changing process
  • You want structure and end dates
  • You always wanted to experience coaching
  • You like significant cost-savings without a decrease in service
Keep in mind that this pilot program launches in August and that I’ll only be signing up participants (who are getting a deep discount!) through the end of this week. If you are ready to craft your own true story, schedule a time with me to talk. I would LOVE to support you in this process!

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Posted in coaching | 2 Comments »

Our Bodies, Our Obsession

Written by on 24th May 2010

I used to think poor body image was an issue unto itself. I’ve since come to realize that poor body image and the obsession around it has a far reach, preventing women, in particular, from being powerful forces in the world. In other words, when we are spending time obsessing over our bodies and how (ugly) they are, we are not spending time and energy, and money, and intelligence on other things. Like developing a spiritual practice or ending global warming.

This is a problem.

In an effort to address this problem, I’ve crafted a workshop – and now a FREE teleseminar so you can call from anywhere – on this very topic. It’s happening on Thursday, June 3 at 8pm ET and, if you’re a woman, I would really love to have you participate. Really.

Register for Our Bodies, Our Obsession - A Teleseminar in Wherever you and your phone happen to be! on Eventbrite

In the meantime, take a look at this video from Dove’s Campaign for Real Beauty and think about the standard to which you’re holding yourself.

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Posted in power | 2 Comments »

Day 17: Sport (30th Birthday Countdown)

Written by on 4th March 2010

As a countdown to my 30th birthday on March 18, I’ve committed to offering 30 people, things and experiences I want to celebrate from the last 30 years. Grab a piece of cake and enjoy reading!

After leaving my grandmother’s funeral yesterday, I mostly wanted to curl up on the couch with a bottle of vino and watch Law & Order reruns. But since I don’t have cable – and therefore no 24/7 access to the series – my husband was able to convince me to hit up the gym.

My experience with sport began like it does for all kids – with trying to walk. And then run. And then by the time I was five, I was signed up for the town’s soccer team (read: running in frightened herds adjacent to the ball). Like most people who’ve played soccer for over 10 years, I have a respectable level of athleticism. I can move through a beautiful vinyasa (my apologies to those who insist that yoga is not sport); I can throw the occasional spiral; I can take down my husband in a game of racquetball; and I can hike in and out of the Grand Canyon in one day.

(Click to enlarge and you'll notice me on the far right and my name mentioned as an age group winner. More importantly, you'll notice my older brother 2nd from the left, whom I beat fair and square that day. Try not to get distracted by the three ripped men between us.)

In looking back over the years at the benefit of sport in my life, I keep circling around variations on the same theme: I feel comfortable in my body. By which I mean I understand how my body moves, what it needs, what it’s like to move powerfully through space, what it’s like to take up space.

I may not have done much at the gym yesterday – what with my mood and a nagging pain in my right ankle. But it doesn’t matter. I’ve got 25 years of athleticism behind me, reminding me to keep breathing deeply, to square my shoulders toward the direction in which I want the ball to go and, mostly, to experience the fullness of being a powerful physical presence in this world.

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Posted in celebration, change, creativity, power | 3 Comments »

Are we inspired? Or just really shallow?

Written by on 15th April 2009

If you haven’t yet watched Susan Boyle on Britain’s Got Talent, you might as well take a peek and see what all the hubbub is about:

Almost every response I see to this video includes the words amazed, cried, or touched. But I’m skeptical. Are we responding to the overwhelming power demonstrated when someone – ANYone – expresses themselves authentically in a public fashion?

Or are we simply amazed that someone who isn’t 5’8′, 25 years old and sexy could sing so beautifully? Would sing so beautifully? Would dare to expose us to such an imperfect, unaltered, everyday kinda picture?

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Posted in inspiration | 5 Comments »


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“Jen is an effective no-nonsense get-er-done East Coast gal with a sensitive side.” – Dave, Los Angeles