LIANNE RAYMOND

borrowing courage

A week ago at this time (8pm), I was already in bed. I was completely wiped out from one of the most nervous and wonderful days of my life. Last Saturday my friend Charlotte and I took what felt like a very big chance - we put on a workshop we had been dreaming of for years (well, more me than her, but once I got her on board, she was just as dreamy as I was).

The fact that I finally had the courage and confidence to walk out on this tightrope is due in large measure to an invisible net of incredible people who have enCOURAGEd me over the years, who lent me their courage until I found my own: my friend BJ, who was the first person to whom I presented the idea and who insisted we had to do it and was the first to sign-up; my online friends, especially my yogalila cohort, who have watched me grow from a yoga newbie to a yoga teacher; my yoga students who make me feel competent and wonderful with their positive response to my teaching; Christine Kane and her Great Big Dreams e-seminar for giving me the courage to even entertain the idea in the first place; and my husband for always believing in me.

Attendance was better than we had dared hope - we had set a maximum of 15 people, but were prepared for less than that to sign-up, as we completely suck at marketing. But we had 14 people -which was perfect.

There was lots we would change about the day, lots that we learned, but the overall response was very positive, with people asking us when we would be doing our next one. Soon, really soon.

I hope if you're reading this and you have some dream on hold, that you'll be encouraged, too.

isabel allende's talk at TED

Totally worth 20 minutes of your time.  Have a listen.

"don't borrow trouble from the future"

famous quote from my grandma

Cheryl Richardson is good, has had many books published and has been on Oprah.

But she still doesn't have anything on my grandma, my original life coach.

a simple idea that has helped me immensely

Whenever I start something you might say I get a bit carried away, and so when I got interested in coaching, I started reading a lot of books by coaches. And last time I was at my version of shopping nirvana: the best Trader Joe's in Washington state which just happens to be right next to a very pedestrian but excellently stocked discount/remainder bookstore, I scored the audiobook version of Cheryl Richardson's Take Time for Your Life. It had some good stuff and a bit of schlock, as one would expect, but it had one brilliant gem of a simple idea:

If it's not an absolute yes, it's a no.

For anyone who has tendencies to indecisive procrastination like me*, this was a revelation. So simple. And it works in so many situations - saving me time, saving me money, saving me from unnecessary stress. I use it all the time now when I'm feeling uncertainty about a decision - I will ask myself, "Is this an absolute yes?"

No more pieces of clothing in my closet that I'll never wear. No more agreeing to put on professional development workshops that I don't care to. No more hanging onto things that are cluttering my house. No more going skiing with my husband and then being miserable the whole time cause it's cold and windy and then blaming him the whole way down for dragging me up the mountain when it was clearly my choice to go.

Not that that last one has ever happened.

(*For those of you familiar with Meyers-Briggs, I'm an ENFP)

rituals instead of resolutions

New Year's Day has always been associated with the particular act of making resolutions. Resolution comes from the Latin resolvere, which means to untie. And this is how many people use their resolutions - as a time to set a goal to break a bad habit. You know the ones. They are narrow goals that are all about STOP! They take the form of "I will stop eating junk food." "I will stop smoking.", etc. These are limiting because there is no new state - no possibilty. We know from the research that we are not motivated by negativity or fear, but we are motivated by connecting to what we really want our lives to be.

Instead of doing the same old resolution thing this year, why not come up with a ritual that speaks to you, touches your emotions (which we know is necessary for change to happen) and allows for space, grace and possibility.

I've gathered some ideas here - maybe some of these will provide ingredients for your own New Year's ritual.

Elizabeth Gilbert, author of Eat, Pray, Love, describes how she brought home what she learned about the importance of ritual in Indonesia (transcribed from an interview with CBC Tapestry):

The Indonesians are the ones who get, "When in doubt, make a ritual. And when there isn't one, make one up that suits you." ...

When you create a ritual, often in Bali they involve burning, smoke, offering up flowers or letting something loose into the sea, you know, you let go of something, you let go of your own sense of doership, you let go of your own sense of "I gotta manage this, I gotta fix this." You give it away. You send it up in smoke, you send it up in prayer, you send it into the water and you come away, regardless of what you might believe about whether God responds to your request, there is no doubt that you come away calmer.

I did a massive New Years' ritual this year with my best friend, Jennifer, here in Philadelphia, who is a yoga instructor. And we got together the week before New Year's and we wrote intentions and we cleaned the house and we did cleanses. And then on New Years' morning we got up really early and we walked down to a pond and we hung these little homemade bird feeders in the trees- you know, little pine cones filled with peanut butter and bird seed, and each bird seed had been put there as a prayer and an intention so the birds could take it and fly it to heaven. And you know, it's all like voodoo, woodoo, goodee stuff, but let me tell you how euphoric that day was - and, you know, coming home feeling like I'm participating in destiny here, you know, I'm making an offering, I'm letting things go, I'm wishing for things, and it's a wonderful way to begin New Years Day, instead of, you know, hung over.

And from Jen Lemen: A Little Ritual for Letting Go of Fear and Other Things That Weigh You Down

Andrea at Superhero Journal makes lists of what she is grateful for and what she intends to create in her life in the next year.

Another popular alternative is creating a life theme or choosing a word for the year.

And emdot and her friends created prayer flags for their words. (If you like this idea, Liz sells lovely prayer flags in her Etsy shop with pockets for your intentions.)

Me, I'm going to do a little combination of things - I'm not sure exactly what it will look like yet, but I'm going for a walk down by the river to think about it and see what inspires me.