Running with Mountain Lions

Kathryn Crawford Saxer Self Care

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 trails of the mountain. It’s the highlight of my week. I’ve been thinking about why I pull myself out of my warm bed, drive for …

Finding Flow

Kathryn Crawford Saxer Self Care

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 tune = free, my partner points out) piano and found a spectacularly over-qualified Russian-conservatory trained instructor. And I’m making music. My left hand and right …

The Wet Blanket

Kathryn Crawford Saxer Self Care

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 it out?” I asked. “I seek it out,” she mused. I asked her to reflect on the blanket as it descends in the morning; to …

Pebbles

Kathryn Crawford Saxer Self Care

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 coach, I listen for warmth, for joy, for passion. Those are the emotions that sustain us. The skill of the coach is to harness those …

Lockdown Frugality

Kathryn Crawford Saxer Self Care

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 frugality: It’s a lot easier. There are fewer decisions to make. Fewer choices to sort through. We’ve already decided:  the answer is “No!” There’s no …

GTD Meets Zen

Kathryn Crawford Saxer Self Care

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. I sit with a legal pad on my lap. If something interesting occurs to me, I open my eyes and write it down. That way …

Fired Up

Kathryn Crawford Saxer Career Transition

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 looked radiant when I next saw her. There was a lightness to her step I’d never seen before. She laughed and was spectacular. “I don’t feel …

The Whisper

Kathryn Crawford Saxer Career Transition

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 her, I was reminded of a lovely man I once dated. He was a great guy, but he wasn’t the right one. I tried to …

Mess or Music

Kathryn Crawford Saxer Self Care

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 had been distracting her: the unscheduled chaos of her family’s school day mornings and evenings. The noise began to quiet. And a little magic happened. …

The Running Group

Kathryn Crawford Saxer Self Care

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 of power. What if I invited other people to experience that feeling? What would they do with it? Once I wrote the invitation email, I …