Running with Mountain Lions
We hear stories about mountain lions at Cougar Mountain, but I’ve never seen one. Nevertheless, the stories are highly motivating. I’ve been running with a women’s trail running group early Saturday mornings at Cougar Mountain. It’s a bit far for me and my nearly bare feet – 8 miles up and down the cold, rocky […]
Finding Flow
Several (well, many) years ago, I said I wanted to learn how to play the piano before I turned 40. The piano has always seemed like one of those impossible mysteries, like speaking French. Or dancing. As my 43rd year looms, I’ve started piano lessons. I got a free ($200 to move + $200 to […]
The Wet Blanket
I have a favorite coaching client who wakes up to dread every morning. She wakes up dreading her day. I asked her what the dread felt like. “Like a warm, wet blanket,” she said. “A gray, wet, stifling blanket.” She can feel it heavy around her shoulders. “Does it find you, or do you seek […]
Pebbles
My approach to coaching is to keep it simple. I look for the small, incremental changes that will make a difference in my clients’ lives. The thing about living the kind of life you want is that it needs to be sustainable. Otherwise, any goal is just a set up for feeling bad. As a […]
Lockdown Frugality
Everyone’s going skiing. “See you on the mountain,” someone called after the last soccer game of the season. We won’t be there. We’ve been in lockdown frugality since I quit my full-time job last year. The answer is now “No!” to things like skiing. I’ve been surprised to discover an odd thing about our newfound […]
GTD Meets Zen
I’ve discovered something cool. Maybe everybody does this already. But I thought I’d write about it in case it could be helpful to you. I try to meditate a couple of mornings a week. I do it in a way that I don’t think the abbess at the monastery I occasionally visit would approve of. […]
Fired Up
A favorite coaching client sent me an email: “I’ve just been fired.” I emailed her right back and the email bounced. I called her and listened to the shock and hurt at the other end of the line. I wondered what our next coaching session would be like. It wasn’t what I expected. My client […]
The Whisper
A favorite coaching client wondered recently why she can’t be content with her job. She works for a good company, enjoys her coworkers, has an accommodating schedule. Sounds great, right? She wondered why she is so restless. So bored. Why can’t she just buckle down and be happy. Particularly in this shitty economy. Listening to […]
Mess or Music
I’ve been thinking about mess. Messy rooms; messy corners of life. I have a coaching client who is trying to turn down the noise in her life. Too many demands, too much complexity, too much chaos. She doesn’t have room to think or breath. We started with the literal. She cleaned up some messes that […]
The Running Group
I had a random idea awhile back. What if I started a running group and invited people who had never run before to come with me? Running is all well and good, but I only do it for that clear, calm, washed clean feeling afterwards. There’s a lot of spaciousness in that feeling. A lot […]