Somewhere this past fall (2011) I came across some more wonderful words of wisdom. They were attributed to Charlie Chaplin on his 70th birthday and entitled - As I Began to Love Myself.

A little research showed that perhaps this was not true. And a quote site about Charlie Caplin said, “Actually, a re-translantion (from Portuguese-BR) of a text from the book “When I Loved Myself Enough” by Kim & Alison McMillen (2001).” The reference for this statement is a link to a blog of a person who is adamant, ““As I began to love myself” don’t belongs to Chaplin!” The research notes are there, (not English so I was unable to read them.) When I Loved Myself Enough by Kim & Alison McMillen (2001), is available on Amazon. On cursory review it does not seem to contain the the material that is contentiously attributed to Chaplin. However, this seems to be a lovely little book with a heart-warming back story of mother and daughter, and to my mind equally inspiring and worth reading.

In short, I offer to you the words that so inspired me, even though I am unclear as to authorship and copywriter. I apologize to the true author in the event that this causes offence.

Here are the words that were entitled - As I Began to Love Myself:

As I began to love myself I found that anguish and emotional suffering are only warning signs that I was living against my own truth.

Today, I know, this is “AUTHENTICITY“.

As I began to love myself I understood how much it can offend somebody as I try to force my desires on this person, even though I knew the time was not right and the person was not ready for it, and even though this person was me.

Today I call it “RESPECT“.

As I began to love myself I stopped craving for a different life, and I could see that everything that surrounded me was inviting me to grow.

Today I call it “Maturity“.

As I began to love myself I understood that at any circumstance, I am in the right place at the right time, and everything happens at the exactly right moment, so I could be calm.

Today I call it “SELF-CONFIDENCE“.

As I began to love myself I quit steeling my own time, and I stopped designing huge projects for the future. Today, I only do what brings me joy and happiness, things I love to do and that make my heart cheer, and I do them in my own way and in my own rhythm.

Today I call it “SIMPLICITY“.

As I began to love myself I freed myself of anything that is no good for my health – food, people, things, situations, and everything the drew me down and away from myself. At first I called this attitude a healthy egoism.

Today I know it is “LOVE OF ONESELF“.

As I began to love myself I quit trying to always be right, and ever since I was wrong less of the time.

Today I discovered that is “MODESTY“.

As I began to love myself I refused to go on living in the past and worry about the future. Now, I only live for the moment, where EVERYTHING is happening.

Today I live each day, day by day, and I call it “FULFILLMENT“.

As I began to love myself I recognized that my mind can disturb me and it can make me sick. But As I connected it to my heart, my mind became a valuable ally.

Today I call this connection “WISDOM OF THE HEART“.

We no longer need to fear arguments, confrontations or any kind of problems with ourselves or others. Even stars collide, and out of their crashing new worlds are born.

Today I know THAT IS “LIFE“!

Have a happy, happy day! As always comments and conversation are welcome. Your wisdom makes for better reading and sharing on the site.

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I found the pondering of a fellow attendant at Byron Katie’s School for The Work (Oct. 2010) provocative. His question and my thoughts follow:

The fellow attendant (Antony Lehmann) wondered, “I would very much appreciate any comments that might help me clarify how humility is the opposite of subservience. Katie says this in ‘I need your Love – is it true?’ Page 100 in hardback and soft version. Many thanks and much love to you all.”

Dictionary definitions below:

Main Entry: humble
Part of Speech: adjective

Definition: meek, unassuming

Synonyms: apprehensive, backward, bashful, biddable, blushing, content, courteous, deferential, demure, diffident, docile, fearful, gentle, hesitant, lowly, manageable, mild, modest, obliging, obsequious, ordinary, polite, quiet, reserved, respectful, retiring, reverential, sedate, self-conscious, self-effacing, servile, sheepish, shy, simple, soft-spoken, standoffish, submissive, subservient, supplicatory, tentative, timid, timorous, tractable, unambitious, unobtrusive, unostentatious, unpretentious, withdrawn
Antonyms: assertive, boasting, brave, conceited, egotistical, insolent, pretentious, proud, showy

Main Entry: subservient
Part of Speech: adjective

Definition: extremely compliant

Synonyms: a slave to, abject, acquiescent, at one’s beck and call, at one’s mercy, bootlicking, cowering, cringing, dancing, deferential, docile, fawning, ignoble, in one’s clutches, in one’s pocket, in one’s power, inferior, mean, menial, obeisant, obsequious, resigned, servile, slavish, subject, submissive, sycophantic, under one’s thumb

Antonyms: controlling, domineering”

So here’s my take on the difference between humility and subservience:

All the definitions around subservience imply powerlessness to me. The one who is subservient is powerless or in a victim position to another who is in a perpetrator position. (See Karpman’s Drama Triangle and Lynne Forrest’s discussions on The Three Faces of Victim)

Humility may also appear as being docile or subservient yet it seems to come from a place _off_ the Victim triangle as described by Karpman’s model. Humility seems to come from a place of empowerment not victimhood.

Here is the section on page 100 of Byron Katie’s book, “I Need Your Love - Is that True?” which is being referenced. Katie says, “Well, sweetheart, when you go home this evening admit that she was right. Apologize from your heart, the way you’re feeling now. Ask her how you can make it right - and really listen to what she has to say, without defending a position. She’ll take you where you really want to go, if you’re serious about this unconditional love that you want in your life. Humility is the opposite of subservience and the beginning of you stepping into your power, angel.”

What I get from what Katie says is that humility is about self-empowerment.

Although the outward demonstration of subservience and humility may look much alike, the inner source is much different. To me the source of subservience is blame, ego, separateness, and fear, while the source of humility is acceptance, grace, oneness, and love.

Have a happy, happy day! As always comments and conversation are welcome. Your wisdom makes for better reading and sharing on the site.

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Really interesting read! Tad Hargrave’s Marketing For Hippies - ever been to a ‘gross’ workshop – share your story! post.

Now I know it seems to be focused on what is not right in marketing and workshops of new age, conscious or alternative stuff _but_ as I read it I can not help but pull out nuggets that can inform any arena of Change Management or Coaching or Service.

Tad’s question:
“How do we run workshops that sustain us financially – without selling our soul?“

My question:
“How do we engage people in their change without selling our soul? Or worse pandering to their fears and potentially leaving them worse off than when we started?”

Overwhelmingly I get, if we care enough to ask our client, they will tell us passionately and honestly how to get them to do what we are asking them to do. So simple, so brilliant!

Some of the gold I panned from the comments on Tad’s blog:

• Valerie: “For me trust is built when a facilitator walks her or his talk and if s/he fails to do so, then for me it is important that s/he own her/his error. I think there is much for participants to learn in seeing a role modelling how it is to be out of integrity and then how it is to come back into alignment with grace, compassion, and awareness.”

• Filomena: “Give me the straight goods”

• Kundan: “Isn’t it strange. When we clutch so tightly - people run the furthest. When we sit there open and full - people feel safe to lean in.”

• Tad: “so many of these [presenter] techniques require people to put on ‘personas’ instead of being themselves. and the audience FEELS the shift. and it’s so disturbing to feel.” (What techniques do we use in our fields? Are they requiring us to put on a ‘persona’?)

• Sophia: “Anticipating ‘the sell’ keeps me defensive and on alert for bullshit. There’s a tension and irritability I feel when I don’t know how much something will cost.” (In the case of business change the cost is comfort - what and how much of of my job are you looking at changing here?)

• Linda: “People respond positively to honesty.”

• Tad: “we’re happy to pay them if there’s real value.” (Read here: we’re happy to change is there is real value [for us])

• Erica: “We’re out there. We want to learn from you. We want to be inspired by you. Please don’t let us down.”

• Laura: “…comments were all accepted quietly and with reverence. … told ahead of time that this was meant to be a “safe” place for comments….” (The essence I take from the comment of what should have happened.)

• Tad: “There’s something so core about respecting the people we work with. Honouring their autonomy and dignity.” (Need I quote more?)

OK so you get the picture. Would love to hear the nuggets that touched you. And a big thank you to Tad - well done!

Have a happy, happy day! As always comments and conversation are welcome. Your wisdom makes for better reading and sharing on the site.

If you think a friend might be interested in this article please pass on the url. If you want to be on my email list let me know (djmclean@inflowservices.com) or set up an RSS feed.

Do we as coaches need to consult or give advise? If so, whose need are we fulfilling? Our client’s? Ours?

I started this post thinking about _possibilities_. Throughout my life I have greatly appreciated peoples’ stories over dinner, or wine, or tea or from their books. I like ideas, I like to explore their possibilities for me in my life. I mean if I don’t know a thing exists or is possible how would I ever create it in my life (assuming of course it is something I want to create in my life.) I therefore started by thinking that sharing possibilities was a reason to share experiences and advice within a coaching relationship. As I thought through this argument however, I shifted a 180 degrees to believe that sharing experiences and advise does not belong in a coaching relationship.

What came up for me is my desire to help clients and sometimes sharing experiences and advise seems the best way. I clearly see my helping in this way is my victim need to rescue coming up. Hmmmm?

Here is my thought process through an example:

Years ago I found myself wanting to leave an employee position. I heard from a co-worker that her friend had negotiated her way out of an employee position with a substantial severance package. I was blown away by the idea and talked to her friend to learn more about it. I tried it, failed, and left the company with no package. Many years a later I found myself again wanting to leave an employee position. I had grown enough in myself to try again. This time I successfully negotiated my way out of the company with a severance package in hand.

If I had not heard of the possibility from my co-work the idea simply would not have occurred to me. Hence my initially thinking sharing of experiences and advise aids our clients. However, as I work to find out who I am without my story, I considered further.

Who would I be without my story in the coaching chair? I realized I could just drop my story (my experience and my advise.) I could put all that victim rescuing energy into inquiring into my motives and into framing some coaching questions that offer the possibilities to a client without getting all hooky with my story. Yes I tell my story accountably, and there is more for me to learn. Here is the growth part - what is my motive? I find motive often lies in “my”. When I tell “my” story, I get a hit of, “look at me, look at what I figured out, look at what I am giving to you.”

Wow, I see the growth for me as a coach is to let go of my story and think about questions that open possibilities and broaden contexts for clients. OK that sounded kind of obvious. I admit I generally have to think my way around the whole circle before I get it.

Here are some of the questions of which I thought might apply in such a case:

• What would happen if you asked for a severance package to voluntarily leave your position?

• [Is that possible? Can you do that?] Why not?

• What would be some reasons a company would be willing to pay an employee a severance when they are asking to leave?

• When you think of raising this possibly to your company, what thoughts come up for you?

• Make a list. Inquire into each belief.

In this list of questions is planted a seed of possibility and the generation of a list of beliefs into which we can inquire within the coaching relationship. To me this work of inquiring into beliefs is the real work of coaching. This is the place of transformation.

The subtlety here is, as coaches, we get tons of rich opportunity to continually do our own work, if we are willing. Even in discussions amongst ourselves as to whether consulting and/or advise belongs in the coaching relationship. To me this is the true joy of coaching - the more I coach the more I process myself and my stuff. See there I have made it all about me, pretty neat trick eh?! ;->

Have a happy, happy day!

As always comments and conversation are welcome. Your wisdom makes for better reading and sharing on the site.

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A reader commented to a previous post Accountability - Trust I give To Me:

I struggle with why being accountable to ourselves is so much harder. Even when it comes to the things we really want to do like loosing weight, spending time w/ family, or starting a business of your own it sometimes seems like an overwhelming effort. I think other emotions (besides pride) must be in play and if we aren’t continually being mindful of what we want for ourselves and why (i.e. those personal accountabilities) those other things distract us, or wear us down. I think you also have to be mindful of those ‘other things’ though, and learn to deal with them… easier said than done ;^)

I wanted to share my reply in a regular post as well because I have found this to be such a powerful process for creating peace.

I hear you about “why being accountable to ourselves is so much harder.” It can sure seem that way sometimes. I have come to know that asking “Why?” is the wrong question. I’ve asked “why” most of my life and when I get an answer it is a booby-prize in that it gets me no where. So I know why. Now what? Where and how do I move from here? How do I change? How do I stop doing what I’ve always done and expecting a different result?

I have found the inquiry process of Byron Katie called The Work is incredibly helpful.
It really is a writing meditation and in my experience is far deeper than our thinking mind can conceive. It is a process of identifying something we believe that may be causing us stress, asking 4 questions, and then turning the thought around. This looking at a thought from other angles is a mind-opening process and the result is a heart-opening. The process and the forms are available on Byron Katie’s site at no charge.

Here is a suggestion:

1. Pick the one thing you really want to do the most that you frustratingly find yourself not doing.

I really want to do ___________________.

2. Then fill in the blank in the next sentence with as many things as you can come up with.

I am afraid ____________ would happen if I did what I said I wanted to do (from 1. above - loosing weight, spending time w/ family, or starting a business of your own, etc…..).

Close your eyes and sit with this quietly. Allow your wisdom to come through. Write all your answers down. Don’t edit - even if the thought seems to not fit or your mind judges it as silly or worse.

3. Then apply the inquiry process of Byron Katie to each one of the fears that came up in 2. above.

Resistance is rooted in fear. Find the fear - give the thoughts space to let go of you through the inquiry process - resistance falls away - with that motivation increases. Or if motivation does not increase you may have found that you don’t actually want to do what you thought you wanted to. If more stressful thoughts arise take them to inquiry one-by-one.

Have a happy, happy day!

As always comments and conversation are welcome. Your wisdom makes for better reading and sharing on the site.

If you think a friend might be interested in this article please pass on the url. If you want to be on my email list let me know (djmclean@inflowservices.com) or set up an RSS feed.

I have noticed that a lot of coaches promise, as part of their service, to hold their clients accountable. I wonder, is this even possible? I believe that a coach can’t make me accountable. I believe that accountability is an inner event.

It is true that we humans often find it easier to keep our commitments to others than to ourselves. This seems to be a matter of saving face or maintaining the facade that we present to the world - the story of ourselves we want to believe and that we want others to believe. Is this authentic? Is this accountability?

I am not so sure. So here is my thinking.

To understand the word accountability, I went to my online dictionary which promptly redirected me to the word responsible. (If you’ve spent any time exploring dictionaries as I have, you’ll find they annoyingly redirect you, often in a circle, around a group of words. If I read carefully and sit with the ideas clarity often emerges.) Responsible talked about obligation. Helpful but it did not hit on the head the feeling I had for the word accountable. But, at the bottom of the page after the 16th century origin information for responsible I was given a gift. There was a section called The Right Word and it compared responsible, answerable, accountable and liable.

Here is what was written for Accountable:

Accountable is more positive than responsible or answerable, suggesting that something has been entrusted to someone who will be called to account for how that trust has been carried out (: she was directly accountable to the department head for the funds that had been allocated to her group).

Accountability is linked to trust.

When I make an agreement of any kind it is first and foremost a trust I hold with myself.

So a coach can ask for an account of my trust. My trust and my accountability however is an event that occurs within me. This is were growth occurs - inside us. Everything outside of us, including the coaching relationship, can at best only mirror the truth within us.

As a coach I am incapable of holding you accountable. It is not my business it is yours. What I can do is ask you to account for the trust you have given yourself - to tell me about your specific actions relative to the trust you gave yourself. It is this dialogue - this witnessing - that opens a coaching client to finding their truth. Welcome - to your inner journey.

Have a happy, happy day!

As always comments and conversation are welcome. Your wisdom makes for better reading and sharing on the site.

If you think a friend might be interested in this article please pass on the url. If you want to be on my email list let me know (djmclean@inflowservices.com) or set up an RSS feed.

The Canadian Culture of Peace Program’s article “Drafting a Protocol To Guide Our Conversions and Relationships” is a very interesting read and includes a reference list worth checking out.

It seems to me that a culture of peace could inform us on how to approach change. A culture of peace could inform our everyday work - are we not all, in some way, creating, supporting, empowering, or managing change with people or systems? Is business and indeed life not a series of changes?

What could be added, from my perspective, is a focus on bringing a culture of peace to ourselves first - practicing honesty, respect and understanding with our own thinking. I find this practice closes the gap between myself and others and so contributes to a culture of peace. I hear the truth in Byron Katie’s quote, “The first act of war is an act of defense.” Peace starts with my own thoughts.

As always comments and conversation are welcome. Your wisdom makes for better reading and sharing on the site.

Have a happy, happy day! If you think a friend might be interested in this article please pass on the url. If you want to be on my email list let me know (djmclean@inflowservices.com) or set up an RSS feed.

Wow! What he said. Dewitt Jones, photographer for the National Geographic has a wonderful view of the world delivered in this video “Celebrate what’s right with the world.”

Probably the best 22 minutes of my 2010. The rest of my 523,440 minutes this year will be spent practicing to “trust my own values and vision to step out beyond my inner edges to balance between what I do and who I am.”

See for yourself at trainingABC.com - click the button for “preview full length video.” You will need to set up an account and log in to this site to preview the full length video. Well worth the effort.

Thank you Dewitt Jones - clear, insightful, inspired. You have, “given back with gratitude and grace.”

Have a happy, happy day!

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Wow, can’t believe it is almost a year since I posted the little poem, Words of Wisdom. Yet here we are.

A couple more verses have risen up:

Labels, labels everywhere,

these judgements take their toll,

Still the light of love shines through,

Cause none can hold a soul.

What or who am I judging? What if I just noticed?

Soul is grace manifest,

Within this body concealed,

Look into another’s eyes,

Lest we doubt it can be real.

How is soul revealing itself to me?

My wish for you, for 2010 - may it be a year of noticing.

Have a happy, happy day!

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What’s love got to do with it? With me? With my life? With my joy or success? With my sadness or loss?

Maybe love has a lot to do with it. ‘Loving it like it is’ - is a process of acceptance. Acceptance is not a process of non-action, rather a process of centered, grace-guided action. A process of acceptance starts with self and it starts with love. When I am in the middle of reacting to my life, i.e., not centered within my authentic self and not acting calmly I can apply L.O.V.E.^TM, the following four-step awareness process, to come back to my grounded center and then act with clarity.

The L.O.V.E.^TM process:

L ook at my reaction. Acknowledge it. Say, “I am in reaction.”

O bserve my feelings. Say, “Am I feeling Blame? Self-Pity? Resentment?”

V alue my reaction. This reaction too is loveable. Be the space in which my reaction is accepted and welcomed and loved. Say, “I accept and love me, even the me that is having _this_ reaction.”

E xperience myself from this space of compassionate awareness. Say, “I am compassionate awareness till I am not. When I am not I go back to, Look at my reaction……”

Start. Do what is next. Continue. This is the essence of practice. This is a practice.

Have a happy, happy day!

If you think a friend might be interested in this article please pass on the url. If you want to be on my email list let me know (djmclean@inflowservices.com) or set up an RSS feed.