Your Life A-Z EXPAND

The World is Yours.  Create Tracks to Where-Ever You Want to Go 

EXPAND

Yesterday, the word was Develop, something that is already working in your life to be more successful.  Today, expand on your development.  Expand means to express something more fully.  Allow yourself to do just that.  Express yourself, your thoughts, ideas, and successes more fully.   Be successful at what you love, at what gives you joy.  Expand your goals to enrich your life.  We are just beginning this year, expand into it, stretch yourself into being all that you want to be.  If you have been afraid of taking the next step, take it.  Remember, there is a three step plan for everything. 

Three step plans:

11.)  Write out what you want to accomplish.

22.)  List what you will need to do or have to accomplish it.

33.)  Begin with one step toward your desired accomplishment. 

Photo: Pam Smead

Your LifeA-Z DEVELOP

Well-Developed Nest Building on What The Wasp Started Just Keeps Growing. 

DEVELOP

Yes, develop the thoughts and ideas that you have been wondering about.  Build on what already exist and what is working in your life.  Nourish it, like fertilizer on a tree, so it can bloom fully and deeply bringing new life to old works.  You do not have to recreate the wheel.  Examine your life and ask yourself what do you like about what is working?  Then establish a plan to develop those positive things and accentuate them this year.  Create a three-step action plan outlined below to grow, mature, nourish, and enhance the parts of your life that already work well for you. In doing so, you will also enable them to work better.  

If you are not happy with anything in your life, you have fallen into a place of apathy.  In order to move out of apathy, make yourself list three things that are working in your life.  Did you pay your rent or mortgage?  What plan can you develop to make that a positive choice eliciting a positive feeling?  Force yourself to list one positive action you have taken toward change and develop it further.  And lastly, force yourself to write down a desire that you have been ignoring.  List it and develop it.  If you work this Twenty-Minute Coach Your Life A-Z you will discover positive changes blooming for you in a few months. 

Photo: Pam Smead

Your Life A-Z CURIOUS

Really Look, Observe, Wonder. What is this?

Curious

Young children are curious by nature.  They love to explore, observe, mimic and try to emulate the actions and behaviors of the adults around them.  That is why it is so important for adults to remember we are role models for young children. But what are we modeling for ourselves?  Have we stopped exploring and asking questions? We started just a couple of days ago with the word of the day, being aware.  We get to choose what to focus our awareness on.  Go back and look at what you wrote.  Look through the open window again and ask yourself, “What is it about this picture that makes you curios?"  What questions about this New Year rise up within you?  

I know it is not always what you hope to hear, but only you can answer the questions about your life.  No one else can answer them for you. You get to choose and the more curious you become the more you will be able to open doors that looked as if they are closed.  If you let yourself come to today with a sense of being curious, like asking yourself, “What will happen if do_________________, instead of ________________________?”   You won’t know if you don’t try or change it out.  What is the worst thing that could happen if you tried being curious?   What is the best possible thing that could happen?  Be curious and see how anticipation and excitement build up within you.  Take some curious steps to explore your current circumstances and see what you can change right now as a result.

Photo: Pam Smead 

Your Life A-Z BREATH

Learn the Art of Breathing Deeply

BREATH

Breath is our friend.  Breathing is something that the majority of us do without thinking about it.  It is also true that most of us hold our breath when we are anxious or troubled.  We only realize that we have been holding our breath when we let go with a long sigh and notice how good it feels to let go.  

During these 365 days of the TWENTYMINUTECOACH, YOUR LIFE A-Z, I will be referring to “breath” often.  Breathing, conscious breathing, softens our eyes and how we view the world.  Conscious, slow breathing, reduces our heart rate and decreases our anxiety.  Breathing allows our thinking to become calm and clear.  Make learning to use your breath as a positive influence in your life this year.  Count your breath. Count six breaths.  Count ten breaths.  Learn to breathe fully in and exhale slowly and completely out.  Notice the positive change in your feelings when you actually focus on your breath.  Notice how your body has relaxed and take a look around you and notice how "soft" the world feels. This is a free and fun tool to help you through the most awkward and frustrating circumstances.  

Photo: the Mystical Arts of Tibet, Puerto Penasco Mx. By RBDilley

Your Life A-Z AWARE

Check out Your Options with an Unobstructed View 

I have been asked by many, “what happened to the daily blog, where you published a word-a-day?”  I  reminded myself that I made a commitment to publish daily for one year a new word each day and readers could meditate, reflect, or journal about the word.  I kept my commitment for one year and now I will re-post those blogs in order that more of you can take part in this challenge to make the next 365 days count as you move into the present and become aware of your choices and actions. Enjoy.  

AWARE

The word of the day is Aware.  Look out for yourself from the best vantage point.  Rather than getting to the bottom of something, get to the top of it.  In the movie, The Dead Poet's Society, the students climbed to the top of their desks and looked outward as they said with gusto, "Seize The Day."  

Seize your day from the top of the rocks, look around and be aware.  Make a commitment to yourself to live in the present.  Ask yourself some inner investigative questions.  Start with centering yourself.  What emotion are you aware of right now?  How does that make your body feel?  What happens if you breath six deep breaths and stretch?  How does the feeling change?  Be aware of you!  Be aware of your emotions, thoughts, body and use your breath to deepen your awareness.  

In an interview between Pema Chodron and K.D. Lang. earlier this year these two Buddhist referred to the Gap experience.  The Gap is that space where we stop, look up, and notice that there is a sky and it is blue, or stormy, or dusk.  The Gap is taking time to stop and notice.  Where ever you are right now, look up.  What do you see?  Does you visual environment make you smile?  If not, what do you need to change so that you can smile?   

Becoming AWARE is a practice of being alive in the moment.  Don’t miss this moment.  

Photo:RBDilley

INTRODUCING THE TWENTY MINUTE COACH FOR 2014

HAPPY NEW YEAR!  Today is the first day of 2014.  Allow yourself to acknowledge this opportunity to grow, change, and be different in 2104.  Today this blog starts a daily entry, Your Life A-Z, The Twenty Minute Coach.  Each day I will post on a letter from alphabet to keep you focused and moving forward with your life.   The posts may automatically post to www.facebook.com/inamomentsnotice.   However, to assure daily delivery please sign up to have this blog delivered directly to your email.

The basics of the Twenty Minute Coach are these three simple questions:

1. What do you want to change?  (Are you sure?)
2. What steps do you have to take it change?
3. Start step 1.  Repeat


Other questions to ask your self are:

1. How is the thing I want to change serving me? (What are the positive benefits?)
2. What will it cost me to change it?
3. Am I ready to pay the price?
4. What will I enjoy as a result of making this change?
5. How will my life be better by making this change?
6. Will I feel a sense of pride and accomplishment by making this change?
7. How will I keep encouraging myself to do this change?
8. Who can I recruit to help me so I don’t have to do this alone?
9. Now, that I am clear, what is my action plan?
10. When is my finish date?  If this plan is too big break it down into three parts with three separate finish dates.

Walk Your Talk -Personal Experience at Labyrinth Training with Dr.Lauren Artress

San Francisco in and of itself is a magical place.  It was proabably over an hour of my first walk down the streets of China Town and North Beach before I heard a word of English.  People of all colors, of all sizes, of all ethnicities walked with intent on the street while tourists meandered like me.  Here is is November and my first purchase was a baseball cap because the sun was beating dowon on my thinly covered scalp.  I wandered with anticipation about what these next two days would hold.  I was curious as to why I was here now.  

Yes,  I know I chose to come here.  But there have years of training and I have designed and conducted several Labyrinth workshops on my own already.  So, why here, why now?   I opened the door to the room to find Lauren Artress preparing and I said, "Hello Lauren," as if I knew her.  From that moment on I entered a space that unfolded piece by piece. 

We used Seven Whispers by Christine Baldwin as our text and I certainly would recommend The Lily and the Lotus by Janet Conner (which I used to prepare myself for this time).  We sat in a circle and told stories, stories about who really were, not what we did for a living.  We told stories of heartbreak and joyful experiences. We connected to our source deep within and to each other.

At one point yesterday, I was expressing my doubt, and said "Really, God.  Is this what you really want?"  Lauren looked at me and said,  "The question is, what is it Robin wants?"  It became chrystal clear in that moment.  I want to conduct life changing workshops using the Labyrinth and other metaphors of healing, that bring the best out of people so that they can be about the business of making a differencei in the world.  I want to transition my practice to workshosps and twenty minute coaching.  

I have been working over the past few weeks on a new project, The Twenty Minute Coach.  I will  be premeiring the program in January and I am excited that my practice is morphing into something new.  It is an evolution.  Those of you in my practice, do not get scared.  I am not going anywhere and you may not notice the change, and the changes you do notice will be positive.  Life is always changing and if we allow ourselves, we can be transformed through those changes.  We can resist.  I did not know how much resistance I had on board until yesterday, but In A Moment's Notice yesterday, my direction changed.  I will be resposting some old blogs on the labyrinth andI will be doing, "Walk a DIrect Path in 2014 on January 11, 2014.  For those of you ready to experience the Labyrinth as a transformative tool can go to my website and sign up today for that workshop.  More blogs to
come!