Coaching

No One Does It Alone

Posted on by Sandi Amorim 7 Conversations


Buddha in profile, monks walking away

No one does it alone.

It’s easy to forget that.

Maybe your past has turned into a story about why:

But everyone needs help sometimes. Especially those of us who think we can go it alone.

It’s tough to talk about; God knows I don’t like admitting it.

But here’s the truth I know today. . .

No one can or should do it alone, and even the Lone Ranger had Tonto.

We’ve all got stories, plenty of them, but those stories suck the joy out of life and lead to a dark and scary neighbourhood where your lizard brain thrives.

It’s easy to hang onto the stories and forget that you have amazing people in your life. Call me Pollyanna but I am certain that you do.

People who light you up with their joy, show you the way when you feel lost and love you no matter what.

This is a love note to them.

 

Dear One,

Who you are is a recent gift, for which I am grateful.

Who you are gives me comfort, and like Linus with his blanket I feel safe.

Who you are is a beacon, lighting my path when I think I’m at the end.

Who you are is love in human form; remembering your hug makes me smile.

Who you are for me reminds me of who I am for others.

Some days I have to dig deep to remember you are there, nestled safe and snug in my heart.

Some days I try to avoid who you are, for your light reflects mine. . .and I can hardly be with that.

And when you, yourself, forget who you are, come to me and I will tell you. Search my heart and you will find. . .you.

You remind me that I don’t have to go it alone.

And with my whole heart I thank you.

xoS

 

 

The Who of You

Posted on by Sandi Amorim 48 Conversations

Who are you?

 

Who are you?

When someone asks this question, it’s easy to fall back on the obvious. . .

  • where you’re from
  • what you do for a living
  • if you’re married or single

You know, the usual suspects.

But you also know how utterly inadequate (and often boring) those answers are.

You do know that, right?

Some people say they’re the sum of all their experiences in the past. They have long, drawn out stories of why they are the way they are.

Others, thinking they’re clever, declare adamantly “No! I’m better than my past because I’ll never be like my mother/father/that/them!” but that just makes their future a reaction to the past.

Which leads us back to the beginning.

Who are you really? 

And what if that answer was generative instead of related to the past?

gen·er·a·tive

:: capable of producing or creating

In the moment, you can create who you are.

That doesn’t mean you make it up or lie; just that you consciously choose who you say you are.

Your DNA gave you form.

Your words create your world. 

They create the WHO of you.

 

I am. . .

first-born * Aries * prairie girl * ocean lover * Mediterranean * creator * listener * lover * ass-kicker * Fire Starter * wife * daughter * sister * BFF * smart * playful * passionate * writer * coach * instigator * blogger * book lover * pescatarian * extrovert * a collision waiting to happen * spark to your flame * leader * photographer * muse * gypsy spirit * cage rattler

I am all that. . .and more.

Because even that juicy list of descriptors doesn’t cover the gift that is me.

It does tell you a helluva lot more than the facts though:

Born in Winnipeg, live in Vancouver, professional life coach, married to a great guy.

Nothing wrong with those facts. They’re just a little dry.

 

Mostly, you haven’t got a clue who you are.

You fall back on old, familiar stories from the past. It’s easy, you don’t have to think about it, everyone does it. I get it.

But imagine playing with it a bit.

And the next time someone asks, “Who are you?” you smile so big before responding. . .

I’m a gift, who are you?

* Cue dazed, wide-eyed look of bemusement.

Sounds ridiculous, but trust me, it engages people in ways the facts will never do.

My personal favourite is “I’m a collision waiting to happen” and then I have a blast explaining what that means to me.

I unwrap the gift and share my passion, my zest for life, my joy.

Because really, joy trumps fact every time.

 

 

 

Stop. Start. Burn.

Posted on by Sandi Amorim 25 Conversations

 

BURNING QUESTION: 

What would you like to stop doing?

 

roman candle taking off in the night

Burn baby, burn!

STOP

Stop beating yourself up with your shoulda/woulda/couldas.

Stop backing off just as you gain momentum.

Stop playing that damn comparison game.

Stop waiting for permission to do what you want.

Stop holding back because you need more training, experience. . . . . . .fill in the blank.

Stop brushing off compliments.

Stop focusing on what others say is important.

Stop adding to the to-do list that’s never getting done.

And please, STOP waiting for someday.

 

START

Start celebrating each and every win.

Start fanning the flames of your desire.

Start loving. . .truly, madly, deeply.

Start owning your gorgeous, luscious self.

Start reaching out, stretching up and growing inwards.

Start breathing – big, deep, belly expanding breaths.

Start sharing your enthusiasm and watch it go viral.

Start saying what you want, often and with abandon!

 

BURN, BABY BURN

For that’s what you were born to do.

You know it. I know it.

Hell, we all know it.

And wouldn’t it be great if we all cut the crap and burned like a roman candle?

 

Inspired by Danielle LaPorte’s Burning Question.

 

On Grace

Posted on by Sandi Amorim 15 Conversations

 

Sometimes I hear a word and question its meaning.

stone angel, Vancouver, BC

What is grace?

 

Like grace.

Kindness, mercy, goodwill, favour. . .all words that speak of grace.

But what is it really?

Is it a way of being, an attitude, an experience?

The definition most appealing to me is from William Hazlitt,

“Grace has been defined as the outward expression of the inward harmony of the soul.”

This resonates, but still gives me no real access to grace.

Then I remembered a question I first read in Conversations with God,

What would love do now?

The answer to this question gives me direct access to grace.

It helps me let go, forgive. . .move on.

It displaces everything leaving only grace.

 

My Sunday offering – grace in the words of others: 

Anne Lamott  ::  “I do not understand the mystery of grace – only that it meets us where we are and does not leave us where it found us.” 

Some emotions and experiences move through us like weather. Others, like grace leaves its presence.

Brennan Manning  ::  “To live by grace means to acknowledge my whole life story, the light side and the dark.”

The light and the dark. Resisting the dark causes suffering, while accepting it opens the door to grace.

Mary Oliver  ::  “You can have the other words – chance, luck, coincidence, serendipity. I’ll take grace. I don’t know what it is exactly, but I’ll take it.”

Like Mary Oliver I’m not sure what it is, but I”ll take grace too. There’s a depth and a mystery to it that appeal to my soul.

Rumi  ::  “Give up to grace. The ocean takes care of each wave ’til it gets to shore. You need more help than you know.” 

Give up, surrender, let. it. in.

Anne Lamott again  ::  “Sometimes grace works like water wings when you feel you are sinking.” 

Water wings for the soul; a heart pleasing vision.

 

And my personal favourite,

Karl Barth  ::  “Laughter is the closest thing to the grace of God.”

 

I want to know what it means for you, and leave you with the gift of these words.

What would love do? 

 

Ode to Joy

Posted on by Sandi Amorim 16 Conversations

I heard a Hawaiian phrase recently – malama pono – which means ‘take good care of yourself’ and I wondered, do you?

Do you take care of yourself the way you know you should or do you coast through life taking your health and well-being for granted?

heart shaped stone etched with word joy

I know I don’t always take the best care of myself, distracted by business, commitments to others and yes, I admit it – sometimes laziness.

What? A life coach admitting to laziness? Not too common I know, but hey I’m human and I’ve got my challenges just like you do!

It’s been four months since I first focused on self-care in the month-long homage. Four months during which time my focus has waxed and waned as reliably as the moon.

And it makes sense that I’m thinking of it again now as I’ve been in Maui the past two weeks and self-care has been effortless, creating a sense of well-being and joy I haven’t felt in a very long time.

This focus on self-care and joy was partly inspired by Andrea Olson’s recent post 100 Tiny Pulses along with Martha Beck’s Joy Diet, not new but an empowering menu of daily practices for a happier life. But more on that in a minute.

While here in Maui, this is what effortless has looked like.

Typical vacation day:

  • Up between 6-6:3oam
  • 15 minutes of meditation (sometimes watching the horizon for whales)
  • Breakfast of fresh fruit, yogurt, maca and nuts
  • An hour or two of writing
  • Day’s activity
  • Picnic lunch made with fresh local ingredients
  • Lots of walking and fresh air
  • Healthy dinner, usually grilled with fresh veggies
  • Asleep by 10:30pm

What’s important to note about this regime is this – it’s pretty simple, and more importantly it’s sustainable.

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Post Cards from Someday

Posted on by Sandi Amorim 5 Conversations

 

postcards from Maui

If someday sent you a postcard, what would be on it?

 

When I first saw the title of Andrea Olson’s guest post I had my doubts. I thought, “Doesn’t she know how I feel about someday?” But then I read the post and realized she does know and she’s got a unique spin on it that she shares in today’s guest post. 

When I was a teenager, I read a work of fiction re-imagining Charles Darwin’s journey to the Galapagos Islands. I tumbled so deeply into the story that I felt I was there; observing the wildlife, feeling the sweat run down my back under the heat of the equatorial sun, making notes in a battered leather notebook.

Upon finishing the book, I said to my mom, “Someday, I’m going to go to the Galapagos Islands.” She merely nodded and continued folding the laundry.

Fast-forward some twenty years. I’m standing before a large cardboard box that holds the contents of my career as a lawyer. Random papers. Chewed up pencils. A plaque that describes my many wonderful attributes as the employee of the month. A half-eaten Snickers bar.

I have just quit my job. After many fits and starts, I’ve finally admitted to myself that I do not want to practice law. I simply don’t like it and I’m not doing it again. Nope. Never.

Despite my resolve never to practice law again, I have no idea what I’m going to do next. Even more frightening, I have no idea what I want to do next. None what-so-ever.

That is when someday sweeps in to save me.

An oversized post card arrives in the mail describing a trip to the Galapagos Islands, leaving in two weeks.

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Misadventures on the Road to Hana

Posted on by Sandi Amorim 23 Conversations
palm trees, Kihei, Maui

Even in paradise it’s possible to have a bad day because wherever you go there you are.

 

It’s easy to think if you’re on vacation in a beautiful setting you should be blissfully happy the entire time you’re there! Except. . .that would be a recipe for disappointment, as this recent adventure reminded me.

The day started off well. A picnic lunch was packed, the gas tank was full, and good spirits were in abundance as my husband, my mother-in-law and I began the infamous drive known as the Road to Hana; stunning in the way that only Maui can be. Everywhere I looked a photo-op awaited.

Sunshine, great company, and a gorgeous setting – a perfect day in paradise.

And then the first incident occurred to disrupt this ‘perfect’ day.

At one of the stops along the way we got out to take photos and stretch our legs. I spotted a cat stretched out in the sun and then another up further ahead, taking me by surprise as we had seen no cats anywhere in Maui. Distracted by these wild felines and the lush rainforest around me, I paid no attention to where I was stepping and in a split second I tumbled down a slippery wet slope of grass.

Not what I would have hoped for my first experience of a mud bath! I was however, quite proud of how I fell, ensuring that the hand holding my iPhone stayed well above the mud now covering every inch of my backside.

There was no point in pretending it hadn’t happened; did I mention this was a tourist destination? So off I waddled in my mud soaked shorts hoping I could wash most of it off in the restroom.

Insight #1: I realized had this happened a few years ago I would have felt humiliated and quite possibly it could have ruined my day. Instead I was able to joke and laugh with the women who’d seen me fall. There I was in a roadside restroom with no paper towels covered in mud with no spare clothes laughing at myself in that sheepish way we can all relate to at one time or another. Women brought me paper towels, asked if I needed anything, made jokes, called me a flasher (I’d taken off my shorts to rinse them out in the sink) and most of all offered support.

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The Power of Focus (or How Happiness is Like Mountain Biking)

Posted on by Sandi Amorim 6 Conversations

mountain bike on red dirt road

Melissa Dinwiddie shares an excerpt from her e-book Creating Happiness: 9 Essential Secrets for Creative People (and Everybody Else). Melissa is one of the most creative people I know and I’m delighted to have her here while I’m on vacation. Aloha!

A trek up a mountain on a borrowed bike taught me a lot about how shifting focus, even just a fraction of an inch, can radically alter your ride through life.

A few years ago, I went mountain biking on Mount Tamalpais, a mountain east of the famous San Francisco Bay.

As it was my first time actually biking on anything other than pavement, I was fortunate to have a companion for the day who worked as a volunteer coach for a high school mountain bike team. He gave me a lot of tips on how to get up the mountain while staying vertical, and perhaps more importantly, how to get back down.

To any veteran mountain biker, our trail was such a novice one that it would be utterly boring. To me, who was a novice biker at the time, it seemed impossibly rocky. It shouldn’t come as much of a surprise, then, that the tip I remember most from that day was how to avoid those throw-you-off-your-bike stones that invariably seem to appear right where your wheel is aimed.

The secret?

Don’t look at the rock; look at the clear spot next to it.

How many times, I wondered, had I been toodling around the neighborhood on my bike, and ridden right over the thing—stone, pine cone, crack in the pavement—I was most wanting to avoid?

As my mountain bike coach explained, your wheel will automatically go where you look, so if you look at the rocks while riding, that’s exactly where you’ll go. If you shift your gaze an inch over to look at the clearing, however, you’ll “magically” avoid those nasty bike-tumbling rocks.

It’s not really magic, of course. And it’s an idea that you can apply to more than mountain biking.

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Are You Ready to Listen?

Posted on by Sandi Amorim 11 Conversations

statue of the Amida Buddha, Maui

Listen. . .

Your heart is beating.

It beats without instruction, whispering of a life force beyond your control.

Listen. . .

Your soul is speaking.

It speaks of why you’re here, and what’s important.

It doesn’t waste time with external considerations.

It wants what it wants. . .

For you. For your present. For your future.

[pullquote]“Don’t think or judge, just listen.” – Sarah Dessen[/pullquote]

Listen. . .

For when was the last time you truly listened?

Start with 5 minutes if that’s what you have.

But start.

Sit. Or walk.

Your presence is all that’s required.

Now breathe.

Listen to your heart, for there are things that make it come more fully alive.

Listen to your soul, for its only purpose is to guide you.

Turn down the volume of your mind to a barely audible hum.

For just 5 minutes, close your eyes.

And listen.