Christina Brandt

A cynical relative recently expressed concern about how much time I spend volunteering for a non-profit organization. She said “aren’t you forgetting your business?” I heard the well-meaning intention, but also the fear that if I don’t keep my nose to the proverbial grindstone all the time, I’ll wind up living under a bridge.

I get it. Totally. I used to be like her. But not anymore. There was no defining moment where the proverbial light bulb went on, but rather a gradual softening…sort of a gentling of my spirit. I suspect it was due to a combination of maturation and the hard knocks that come with being alive. Who knows.

What I know for sure (to borrow a phrase from Oprah) is that we’re put on this planet to love and serve. To use our passions and talents to leave this place a little better than we found it. In all areas of my life, I now look for opportunities to love and serve. It may mean holding open a door, speaking pro bono to job-seekers, or the volunteering that troubled my relative.

I’ve learned that by giving, I receive far more than I ever gave. It’s not usually a direct, linear, tit-for-tat sort of thing, but there’s no mistaking the fact that my life is far richer since making a more concerted effort to help others. If you’re unemployed or in the wrong career, volunteer for an organization that will help you gain skills while making a contribution. If you can’t sort out a problem of your own, helps someone else solve theirs. Share job leads. Write a Linked In recommendation for someone whose work you admire. When you network, aim to meet people whom you can help, rather than who can help you. Teach someone to read.

Generosity of spirit and resources creates a connection to the abundance of life. “Woo-woo,” I know, but oh so true. Just give, and watch what happens.

I’m writing this in the living room of the house in which I grew up. Having temporarily moved in to help my mother with post-surgery rehab, I find myself revisiting old summertime rituals. If you’ve been following me on Facebook lately, you know I’ve bought a hula hoop, run through a sprinkler, hung laundry on a clothesline and have eaten a lot of watermelon. I kid you not – the ice cream truck drove by about ten minutes ago and it was all I could do not to run after it.

While it’s lovely to revisit childhood traditions, I’m not getting much work done. I tell myself it’s because I’m cooking, cleaning, running Mom back and forth to physical therapy appointments and doing laundry. But it’s not, really. There are plenty of schedule gaps where the chores have been done and Mom wants for nothing.

So what gives? Why am I not squeezing in more time catching up on business reading, blogging, clearing out old emails, or creating new programs and offerings? I blame it on The Battle In My Head.

The Battle goes like this: “You should work harder,” says the Judgy Tyrant who’s all business and spends her life wagging her finger in disapproval. “You should play harder,” says the watermelon- and sprinkler-loving kid in me. These days, I’m letting the kid win. Sure there’s the occasional thought that I’m a total slacker and I’ll starve to death, but it passes oh-so-quickly.

It wasn’t always that way. Before I made a decision to honor what feels right, right down to my bones, I used to do a lot of things because “that’s the way you’re supposed to do it,” or “because it makes good business sense,” or “because it’s logical.” And I often found myself in situations where I wasn’t engaged, had nothing to offer and was bored silly.

Forcing yourself to follow others’ rules, to work when there’s just no mojo to be found, is just plain dumb. Playing is what keeps us creative. I’ve learned that if I can’t easily find an answer to some question, it’s time to set the question aside and play a bit. Our bodies learn and create better when we’re moving. Hula hooping, even as badly as I do it, is a way to stimulate the right side of my brain.

I often tell clients to make stuff. Any kind of stuff – placemats, finger paintings, potholders, watercolors – will do. Creating helps them access wisdom they’re not tapping into now. By doing the unexpected thing, eventually something jogs loose in one’s brain. Ideas will come. And if you don’t believe me, how ’bout Albert Einstein?   He said “We can’t solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them.”

So, if you’re feeling stuck, unsure of what to do next, I highly recommend a run through the sprinkler.

Our friend and fellow coach, Michael Trotta, was so excited about our upcoming retreat in Spain that he decided to interview Susan Baghdadi and me about it.

I thought you might like to hear the story behind the retreat – why we created it, what our intentions are for it, and what you can expect if you join us (or just live vicariously through us) on the Camino de Santiago.

Here’s the recording:

I’ve recently had the misfortune of experiencing truly horrible service from a company of whose I’ve been a long time customer. I wrote emails, I called, I begged for them to come do what they promised and install my deck’s awning…and no one listened or responded in any fashion, for months.

The culmination of all that neglect led me to drive way too fast down I-95 this week with the intent of forcing a showdown at their offices. I wasn’t gonna go postal or anything, but I kept thinking “these people have to pay for what they did.” I was gonna let ‘em have it.

When I got there, I found a man working while his boss (the target of my anger) was “at the store.” Deflated, I looked around. Dirty, disorganized, junk strewn everywhere, a company vehicle with a bashed in window…not exactly the kind of place that instills confidence in a customer. I waited a while, then found my awning lying in a heap in a corner. I picked it up, folded it, and left the premises. On the ride home I was a little calmer but still had the “they should pay” story going on in my head.

Then I got coached. When the coach called, I trotted out my tale about the awning. She helped me see that my “they should pay” story was keeping me stuck in a loop of anger and frustration.

So I changed my thinking to “they’re already paying.” How did I know they were “paying”? Their voicemail boxes were full (every one of them – I called ‘em!), probably with angry customers’ complaints. Their finances were likely so bad they couldn’t maintain their vehicles, and they lost a customer (me) that day.

The coach asked me to think about the head of that company, knowing that he was already paying. Suddenly I was able to let the anger go and think instead with compassion for him. I don’t know what’s going on with him or why his employees behave the way they do, but I’m free to find a company that feels better to me, and I’m not stuck feeling crappy anymore. In fact, I found someone who showed up on time, repaired stuff the other company didn’t notice, suggested ways to extend the life of the awning’s fabric, and charged me less than the other company would have.

So why did I tell you this little story? Because when you’re angry, hurt, or anything other than joyful, you’ve created a story about your circumstances that just doesn’t serve you. The energy you’re devoting to making someone – a toxic boss, the person who didn’t hire you, or the colleague who stole the credit for your hard work – wrong is keeping you from finding an opportunity or situation that’s right for you.

Compassion for yourself first, and then for others, will always help you find the truth – your true calling, the truest expression of your creativity, a work environment that lets you be yourself, etc. And, the truth brings peace.

I have several friends who are going through profoundly difficult challenges in their lives right now:  protracted unemployment, homelessness, disease, intense physical pain, money woes…truly big stuff.  If I were in charge, I’d wave my magic wand and erase it all from their lives, but I don’t have the power to do that.  So I do what I can – offer a shoulder, a hug, a tissue, a meal, a distraction for a little while – some small gesture that is in my power to make.

In her Cycle of Change model (described in Finding Your Own North Star), Martha Beck calls this Square One – Death and Rebirth.  It’s the death of an old way of being (healthy, employed, pain-free, etc.), and a time to acknowledge just how powerless you feel – and are.  Beck says the motto of this time in one’s life is “I don’t know what the hell is going on, and that’s okay.”

12 Step program participants learn that Step One, the one that comes before all the “doing” found in the remaining 11, is “we admitted we were powerless…” (over drugs, alcohol, shopping, gambling, cheating, etc.).  They can skip that step, glossing over the notion, but if they do, participants always end up back where they started.

Square One. Step One. Call it what you want, but it’s a time to just let go, give in to the fact that life sucks at the moment, and admit we don’t have all the answers. I’ve noticed that when each friend gives herself over to the loss of control she’s experiencing and acknowledges that she’s not always in charge, a moment of grace, a smidgen of peace and help always arrive in one form or another.

Why is powerlessness so valuable? Because there’s truth there, and telling the truth always sets you free.  Recognizing that life as you’ve known it is unmanageable (as they say in “the rooms” of 12 Step programs), that pretending all is well when it’s not is a struggle that’s worth giving up, feels so much better than faking it.

Whether you’re a believer in a higher power or not is your business. Personally, I’ve seen far too much grace and everyday miracles in the lives of the people I mentioned above (and in my own) to doubt the power of some unseen force(s) partnering with us on this journey called Life.

Suffering ends, one way or another, and then it comes back again somewhere down the road.  That’s just the way of things. But if we see the time of suffering as a dissolution of what was, choose not to fight the painful reality and instead acknowledge that it’s a rotten time, we might just notice that there will soon be an opportunity to create something new.  And then, somehow, it all gets just a little easier.  And that, my friends, is the sweet spot in which new lives and careers are born.

Lately, I’ve been thinking a lot about the importance of community.  And then I spotted this sign:

Who are you seeing through, and who sees you through?  Be grateful for the people on this list, and decide to see someone through today in some small way.  There’s nothing like helping others to help yourself; finding your right life becomes a lot easier when you’re focused on love.

My client (we’ll call her Nancy) was paralyzed by a question that so many of us get stuck on when we’re trying to incorporate our passions into our lives:  How will I know when this is happening?
We want so badly to quantify and measure the progress of creating our right lives and careers, naming milestones and benchmarks to help us stay on the path.

Nancy was stuck for the same reasons we all get stuck:  she was trying to solve the problem in the same way she always had.  In her case, she felt that she needed to fill in the blanks in a self help book, even though it felt waaaaay too much like school for her liking and went against her creative, artistic inclinations.

So I decided to make a chart. It went like this:  5 columns, one column header called “my passion” and four called “How will I know this is happening?”  As she spoke about her passions in response to my repeating the question “How will I know when this is happening,” I typed her responses into my little chart.

And then a funny thing happened. Every column’s responses got more and more spiritual, as if they were written by someone else.  In fact, one of her responses was “Answers come through me, not from me.”  Goose bump stuff.

If you find yourself stuck in left brain model, attempting to apply a linear, rational, and logical approach to your problem, stop. Get someone else to handle the left-brained stuff for a while and just focus on the feelings – the emotions and bodily sensations – of what it’d be like to have the things you desire.   Make a vision board.  Imagine your future, successful self being interviewed by a magazine you read and enjoy – and let someone ask you questions as if you were that future self.   Ask your 80 year old future self to give you some advice.  Finger paint. Watch this video. Just don’t do what you’ve always done and expect different results.

Surprise yourself.

You look in your rear view mirror and see nothin’ but hood.  There’s a driver on your bumper, wanting you to move faster.  You’re annoyed, but get into it with him, deciding you’re not gonna budge.  You’ll slow down, maybe tap your brake, but you’re not gonna change lanes.  There’s no way you’re gonna cave…sound familiar?

If you can relate, then you’re starting to get why some of your dreams haven’t come true. Yes, it sounds odd, but I respectfully request that you suspend your disbelief for just a few paragraphs and hang in there with me.

When you push too hard and ignore the signs that you’re doing so, you’re riding up the (ahem) butt of the very thing you want so much, and are likely to meet some resistance. Here are the signs that you’re a “dream tailgater”:

Your body speaks to you. Sometimes I walk too far, or stand for hours, or take on too many physical tasks in a short period of time.  When that happens, my knees “speak” to me by forcing me to stop and lie down.  While I want to keep going, my body’s got other ideas.  What signals is your body giving you?

Animals speak to you. While teaching an Arabian horse ground manners, I was applying pressure on his nose (not directly).  After a few minutes of this, he decided that I’d gotten too far up into his space and he took that beautiful nose and gave me a shove in the stomach.  He didn’t hurt me, but gave me a clear signal that I was pushing him too hard, and too fast. (He also wanted a break from “class” and wanted to play!)  How do the animals in your life show you you’re pushing too hard?

The people around you give you feedback. The political climate in Kenya coupled with a rainy season causing impassable roads has caused the postponement of a trip until June.  I love an adventure, especially if it involves Africa, so I’m getting antsy for details.  After emailing the trip’s organizer once too often, I got this reply:  “What would you have to be responsible for if you dropped this tension?”  A brilliant question, and a clear message to back off.  My relentless need for info was alienating the organizer – not exactly helping me realize a lifelong dream of combining coaching and travel, and getting paid for it.  Who’s been sending you subtle, or not so subtle, messages to back off?

So now you see it.  You’re “dream tailgating.”  Why? By focusing on the minutiae of the Kenya trip, I was trying to ignore the fact that I’m nervous about the role I’ve been asked to play in a very important effort.  By pushing my body hard to get in shape, I’m ignoring the fact that maybe it’s not meant to go that far this time.  By pushing that horse faster than he wanted to go, I stopped noticing how much I wanted to achieve “success” in our lesson. What part of your dream feels scary?  How are you projecting that fear into the world around you?

How do you back off? First, take Dan Howard’s advice and do some intentional resting.  Take a breath and say, in your mind or out loud, “I’m going to rest into my need for everything to work out quickly,” or “I’m resting into my anxiety.”  Doing this creates a pause, sort of a “comma,” in your relentlessness.

Then, ask yourself: “What would I have to be responsible for if I dropped this tension? In other words, look for the real issue behind the urgency.  Find the emotion so you can clean up the thoughts behind it.  Result:  peace, which is far more attractive (in every sense of the word) than fear.

If you’re marketing like crazy to find new clients and they’re not showing up, working to find the perfect new career and don’t have a clue what it is, soldiering on with your novel but the paragraphs won’t emerge, interviewing for jobs but not getting hired…back off!  Set clear intentions for what you want, do your part, then take a deep breath and trust that the rest will happen.

New clients always ask “How long is this going to take?“  When I reply, “I don’t have a clue, but you do,” they get a little freaked out. So, I remind them about each of our roles in creating a life and career they love.

My role is to ask them questions to uncover their passions/skills/interests/values/beliefs, teach them to spot the limiting beliefs that are keeping them stuck, teach them how to clean up those thoughts, and if asked, make suggestions about steps they can take to keep up their momentum.  (Basically, I work myself out of a job.)  For some it’s a quick process, and for others it takes a bit longer, but the process is always the same.

Here’s your role in creating a life/career you love:

1.  Ask questions. So often, we just accept what we’ve got without daring to imagine anything different.  I respectfully submit that this is ridiculous and grownups have it all wrong.  Go back to when you were a kid.  What was the question that drove most adults crazy:  “Why?“

• Why do you work in that soul-sucking job?
• Why do you keep dating the same kind of guy over and over again?
• Why does your stomach hurt every time you hang out with that friend?
• Why can’t you ask that guy on a date?
• Why can’t you go back to school?
• Why are you afraid to change?

When you examine the responses, you’ll likely uncover some deeply-held beliefs that no longer serve you.  Once you know what they are, you can start punching holes in those theories.

2.  Accept dead ends and failures as part of the experience. Moving out of a life that no longer serves you is often not linear or straightforward.  If you’ve been anesthetized for a long time, you don’t just suddenly wake up and start running in the direction of your dreams.  Experiment, knowing that you’re likely to screw up.  That’s okay; it’s all information to help you get it better next time.  Learning what doesn’t work is just as, if not more important than, learning what does.

3.  Be willing to go back to the beginning, especially in your mind. We Westerners think we’ve pretty much got to have our lives figured out by the age of 25 or so.  You know, go to school, get a job, work a bit, find a mate, find a home, have kids, and that’s that. We become experts at something or things, and we’re done.

In Eastern philosophy, there’s a concept called “I don’t know mind,”  the willingness to be a beginner again.  And again.  And again.  If we stopped trying to be such know-it-alls and allowed ourselves to be beginners who are curious and eager to learn, we might surprise ourselves with the new things we’ll master.

4.  Be persistent. Don’t give up when you hit your first “you’re overqualified” or “you’ve got no experience” or “why would you want to do this at your age?”  Reinvention isn’t for the faint of heart, but when you finally “get there,” it’s a damned good feeling.  Think of the rejections and failures as a test of how badly you want something.

5.  Accept the mystery/cosmic help. When you get serious about making changes, opportunities start to present themselves:

• A woman at a nursing home where you’re visiting your relative tells you about her brother the governor, to whom you’ve been trying to send your resume
• An article filled with critical info appears in a publication you normally don’t read but felt compelled to buy
• A “We Buy Gold” event occurs at a local hotel, where you sell your unwanted jewelry and make money to cover the cost of a few voiceover lessons
• A friend who knows lots of people with horses
• Just days before your three month sabbatical from work, during which you’re going to Paris to determine if you want to live there, a friend calls you about an apartment-sitting opportunity in, of course, Paris

When you start to put in the time, asking questions, being persistent, dusting yourself off when you stumble and fall, and getting clearer about what you’d like to have in your life, all sorts of things get put into your path to help you achieve your goals.  Those bullets above?  I didn’t make ‘em up.  Every single one happened.  Just ask my clients.

I stumbled upon this Native American saying somewhere recently, and it’s stuck with me:

“No tree has branches so foolish as to fight among themselves.”

Imagine if…

• we each thought of ourselves as a branch on the tree of life?  How would we act if we remembered that we are an interconnected system, dependent upon each other in order to thrive?  What would change if we lived our lives remembering this?

• we each remembered that what others think of us is none of our business, but what we think of ourselves IS.  I believe it matters a great deal to the world that we treat ourselves with grace and respect.  Once we do that, it’s far easier to apply the Golden Rule, don’t you think?

• we realized that, as we find our right lives and careers, everything we think, say and do has the ability to create our world as we go.  What kind of world do you want to live in?  What are you doing to create it?

• we stopped fighting amongst ourselves.  And amongst our “selves,” the different versions of the self we project to the world.  When was the last time we cut ourselves, or someone else, some slack? What if we took the “tree” metaphor to heart and learned not to be so impatient with the part of us that’s mean, uninformed, lazy, scared, insecure, or jealous and treated those “selves” with patience, respect and grace?
  

Imagine that.