Following the signposts on the Enneagram path

How I came to be in HK on a 5 day long enneagram coaching certification course is a story in Syncronicity itself.

I was merely searching the web using two words "coaching" and "Asia". When I found the program, my first instinct was to sign up. However, being a careful prudent person ( I can't sign up for every course I find after all) I decided that I would send an email asking for more information on the course itself, especially since it was held in HK and details will need it be worked out.

As a pre-requisite, participants needed to have read Ginger's Lapid-Bogda's book on enneagram coaching, and at that time, I certainly have never read anything on the enneagram.

I do know my ennea type, thanks to my mentor, but my knowledge of the enneagram can only be described as superficial at best. So I spent 2 days going into every bookshop I can find, but nope, no book.

So I took the natural (at least it was natural for me) next step which was to throw the challenge to the universe. If it was right for me to attend the course in HK, the book will turn up.

The next day, I shared the course details with my mentor, just for another opinion, and lo and behold, he not only has the book I need to read, but two others that would be good to read.

What's a girl to do? I sent a warm thank you to the universe, and signed up for the course.

The course changed my understanding of human relationships, and the drivers of behavior. Just as many teachers have appeared in my life, Ginger was an amazing teacher. Always challenging paradigms, but with great humour and a gentle type two love for humanity.

I am again reminded that when the student is ready, the teacher will appear.

There are many moments of insight and discovery during the course, but that is a story for another day. Key take aways, cherished moments are moments of exploring different coaching methodologies, centering exercises: Colour washing, NLP basics, projection, reframing, energy and voice and my all time favorite, the use of metaphors.

The journey continues, and the path becomes clear.

Walking in Dante's footsteps

Once again I find myself drawn to Dante Alighieri's poetic masterpiece, The Divine Comedy.

 

It would appear that fourteenth-century Florence has so much in common with present day urban existence that it defies logic and imagination.

 

We would have thought that as society marched on in search of progress and prosperity, and people would be happier now that they had all of the comforts of present day living that even Kings and Queens did not enjoy in ancient days.

 

Dante's main protagonist, the Pilgrim, started his journey in the Divine commedy trapped in a "dark wood". In a way, many of us do live in a forest of similar treachery, a sinister place where we create our own sorrows and our fears.

 

Spying a mountain top "shawled in morning rays of light, he was determined to escape towards the light. Being then blocked by fearsome beasts, he retreated. In a way, this is what many of us do on a daily basis, we dream, we seek, and we tell ourselves a thousand reasons why we are not good enough. These reasons distract us, soothe us and comfort our ego, but they are at the end of the day, our personal illusions.

 

Just as all appears to be lost, the Pilgrim is met by his first spiritual guide, Virgil, one of many others on the path. The journey however was one that brought the Pilgrim through hell before, purgatory and paradise.

 

In the current day and age, instant gratification is the order of the day, fast food, fast cars, 24 hours everything you can want. However, somethings nags at us. In our minds, encased by our material possessions and the trappings of modern life, we remain unhappy, dissatisfied, plagued by anxiety, fear, envy, a mind that seems to distort our own reality, a mind that seemed to control our emotions.

 

My personal journey has been one that mirror's the Pilgrim's journey, having found myself in a hell of negative states, I had no awareness that my mind is not all that I am. I was fortunate to be joined in my journey by souls of light, real life friends and guides, who were willing to stick it out with me, and light a candle instead of cursing the darkness.

 

Somehow the journey seems to go on forever, just as I thought I've gotten somewhere towards a state of peace and joy, the path leads me back where I started, and I am forced to admit my own human failings. But what seemed to be a circular path was a only deception of the mind, one of mockery and despair. With clear insight, I realise that the journey has taken on a different level, I cannot discount the peace I feel in my heart, although negative stages still exist and intrude on an otherwise blissful existence from time to time.

 

I no longer stay mired in negative stages, choosing to witness, and let go. My Reiki teacher, Elaine Grundy's words echo in my mind, "If sadness is leaving, let it leave, do not hold it back with questions and further examination!"

 

 

Being able to choose. Feeling good for no good reasons at all.

I feel that I am perched on the threshold towards a different path, and whilst I still do not have answers, the feeling I name this time around is one of excitement, hope and joy.

I am witnessing my fears and trepidations, recognising it in some of the people I love and care for, and choosing to say to them (and to myself), there is nothing to fear, nothing to lose.

I am with you, and our higher wisdom will guide and protect us both.

Patterns

Understanding your own patterns can change your life.

I'd like permission to ask you a question to start. If you recalled early memories of childhood, the happy and sad moments, up to significant events in your formative years, schooling, your first job, can you "see" each of those memories vividly and clearly? Does it appear to be a linear timeline? Past, present and future?

I believe that for many of us, the past is still very much in our present. Afterall, most people would agree that experiences in their past, be it success or failure, have unconsciously shaped their words, thoughts and deeds.

Just to take a personal example: From young, I loved drawing. I would happily draw the same style of roses, again and again, in different colours, and in different stages of flowering. I did that all through my pre-primary years. Other people took naps, I painted roses. My mother passed non committal remarks about my first roses, teachers were appreciative, but in an absent minded way, but to me it was a masterpeice. I had dreams of exhibiting my paintings of roses in a gallery. I was in blissful state, caught in a reverie of my own construct.

Recently I was asked, do I paint well, my first automatic response was a strong negative. "Of course not!" I said, but if asked to just draw something (no pun intended for those who are fans of the iphone game "draw Something")I would happily comply. And although I'll never be the next Van Gogh, my love for beauty, art, and aesthetics forms part of my being.

What does the example I used tell us about the creation of memories?

1. Memories are constructs Just as I can easily list an example from my early childhood today, most of our memories are as easily accessible to us all. However, just as Anais Nin said," we don't see people as they are, we see them as we are."

Our reality and memories say more about what we believe, then what things really could be. It then means that we can still choose how we see things in the past. For every memory that was filed in the deep recesses of my unconscious, imagine what it would be like if I only recalled the happy snapshots.

When I was 5 years old, I fell down during a kindergarten sports day event, and started crying. A photographer then snapped that picture of my mom comforting me, and to this day, although I no longer remeeber the pain of the fall, I still have the yellowed news article, and it always makes me smile.

2. Memories anchor emotions
I work in human resources, and as part of my role, I meet people on a daily basis. I noticed that the people who made the most impression on me are those I was most interested to understand. Not the "powerful" or the demanding, but the ones I focused my attention on. I may not remember specific incidents (which is a good thing!), but I remember how certain people made me feel. Some people are beacons in the dark stormy night, whilst others can only best be described as a black hole. What do I choose to remember? You guessed it, I remember the brightest shinning stars in my life, people who turned grey days into sunny days.

3. Just as you have chosen in the past, so can you choose NOW
Do an experiment with your own thoughts. Recall a certain incident, and whilst you paint the entire scene with vivid detail, notice all the emotions you have. Excitement, apprehension perhaps, or is it just fear. Maybe it is uncertainty of the new experience, hey maybe it is just adrenaline coursing through yor system, it's joy at feeling alive and trying new things!

Freeze the scene for a moment. If you imagined yourself from the perspectives of others, what new thoughts comes to mind? Isn't it amazing that was we call the past, is very much here in our memory today!

Someone told me recently that people can't change, old habits die hard, you can't teach an old dog new tricks. Well, that is a belief one can choose. Old adages do speak of what is commonly perceived, but it is merely an opinion, which you can choose to agree with or not.

Humans are wired to prefer familar things, but just for today, try breaking your own patterns. If you always said to your child, "No you can't go out to the 7-11 to buy ice cream." Try instead, "Do you really want ice-cream? Are you hungry, which flavour do you want, anything else you prefer, Can I go with you?"

Just as we can shape our own memories, on a daily basis, we are also constantly shaping the memories of those we love.

Imagine the power you have.

"Every avalanche start as a snow flake."

Life's Golden Ticket

Today was an ordinary day. It was a day of cloudy skies speckled with rain, filled with people rushing about trying to get somewhere.

What was magical was the book I read today. A book titled "Life's Golden Ticket" written by Brendon Burchard.

But this blog post is not about the book, although I would urge anyone and everyone to get a copy. It is about me being given a second chance in life, and yet for 10 years I chose to continue in life pretty much the same way I always have.

The year was 2000, 1 day after my 23rd Birthday. I am almost ashamed to say this, after a horrid shouting match with my Mother the day before, I was felled by a brain Haemorrhage. The massive bleed in my brain caused seizures, and disabled all of my visual, motor control and balance. It was by divine grace, that I got in touch with my Dad through my mobile. I did so by hitting the redial button on my trusty Nokia 3210, though at that point I could no longer see.

After I woke up in hospital, I begun a painstaking recovery, learning to read, learning to write and speak again, learning to balance, and learning to do up buttons. You read it right, I had to learn to button and unbutton shirts. It required immense effort. To my loved ones, it was great that I was came out of the coma, but to me, life was never really the same again.

Along with my old friend fear and self doubt, I have acquired self pity, a victim mentality, and a continued antagonistic approach towards my family, whom I saw as not being able to understand me.

The voices in my head whispered: "Of course they don't understand, they just want to brush your pain aside, they want you to go back to work, and get off their back...."
I can tell you that that was a dark space to be in. I was scarred physically and mentally, and the face I see in the mirror was clouded with despair.

I forced myself to recover as quickly as I could, I read even though focusing on any thing made my head hurt, I tried to read aloud, although words came out in a gibberish, I cried myself to sleep every other night.

Of course, as you could guess, I did recover, and life went on,but somehow, I realise now that lessons that unlearnt will be re-learnt. Just to prove that I am perfectly fine, I worked harder than most, I took on challenging roles and portfolios, worked deep into the night most days.

Yet everything wasn't fine, I was unhappy, lonely even in good company, depressed after work, tired and burnt out.

Like a refrain, the words in my mind haunted me, no they taunted me.

"You escaped death only to live this sorry, meaningless excuse of a life, what else is there, what is the purpose? Do you have a purpose?"

What if there is no purpose?

As I read "Life's Golden Ticket", I felt myself unravelling. I was always so full of excuses, I wanted the world to run according to me, I was going to achieve everything, it was my right after all that I suffered. I wanted people in my life to change, yet I failed to see that I was the one who needed changing. I have changed for the positive in many ways, but now it is time to empty the cup, and fill my life anew.

Over the last year, almost by magic, I started to re-examine my life, I slowed down, in part due to burn-out, I was a strong assesrtive person at work, but at night I crumbled. I had mysterious gastric ailments that no doctors had cures for. The ones in my life counldn't understand my depressive moods and mad reliance on sleeping pills.

My doctor during one of those visits said quite clearly to me:"Perhaps you need to do a different job."

He was right in a way, but what I needed was not a different job, it was a different perspectve on life.

These days, I am a different person inside. Still strong willed, and still seeking growth, but I have tempered all of these expectation with one very key ingredient. And that is Compassion.

I cannot coach others well until I deal with my own shadows. And my mentor was right, I self-coach all the time, and in doing so, I have found peace through a new focus on others important to my life. I listen like I never listened before, if my best friend calls, I will pick the call no matter what.

Just as I learnt in 7 Habits, I must place the big rocks in my life into the bucket first, pebbles and sand can go in last.

I am privileged to be able to learn coaching, and even more privilege to have a good mentor who nudges me into clarifying my direction.

It is never easy, and achieving goals will always take time and tenacity. But today I know that I have found my strength, and slowly but surely I will become what I've always wanted to be. I will stop saying it's too late.

And to all my loved ones, friends and people I have yet to meet, will you take my hand, and walk with me? There are wondrous sights to behold, and great many adventures to embark on, if you want it.

_______________________________________________________________

Dedicated to my parents, my best friend Farene, Colleen, the best coach trainer and to Tze Meng, my mentor and my friend. Yes, please hold me accountable to what I promise to do.

Who's to say never?

Last Saturday, I had the first tuition session with a good friend's niece. I've only tutored sporadically in my university days, but I had no hesitation tutoring this young lady, because what I was to do was not purely to teach English, I was to coach.

If you find this odd, you are not alone in feeling so.

I've seen this young lady in social and family settings. She is very generous to share, she defers to her siblings, she is obedient but rather slow, very kind and giving. What is sadly the missing part to this otherwise wonderful girl is that she has no interest in anything, not her herself, not her future, no ambition, no likes and dislikes.

How curious, I thought.

The purpose of my weekly lessons with her, was to comment on her weekly jounals, run through essays she writes, and assess her work in a creative writing workbook.

I quickly realise that she writes relatively well, albeit with colloquial interjections and careless tenses. She write 'badly' because that is what she believed. As such, she never checks what she writes, trusting instead that it's bad anyway.

Our conversation goes:

Me: What did you learn completing the workbook?
Her: There are many things that can be used in a compo(sition).
Me: Good, So how would that change your writing habit?
Her: Maybe prepare more and think of more things
Me: How do you remind yourself of that?

Me: How you do see your writing on a scale of 1 - 10?
Her: maybe 7 - 8? (with a scared sheepish look)
Me: That's good. Let's talk about what need to be done to get to 10, and what is a 10.

Does this sound familiar already?

Do I think she will pass her PSLE? Let's just say that we'll do our best, both of us, and the neuroscience research says that each week, as she builds more neural maps on English, writing, being expressive, adding more details to her essays, being more confident, being more interested in her work, as a side effect, she will pass her exams.

Well, that's my theory anyway.

As an aside, when I started learning to coach, there were two groups of people I believed I couldn't coach. 1) teens and children, and 2) people much older than myself. In 8 months, I've done both, so what's to say what can or cannot be done at the end of the day?

So learning point:this year, I shall try breaking some old beliefs and patterns. Chief of all would be:

1) that I can't write a book
2) that work that is meaningful can't pay the bills

I believe in a having a healthy dose of confidence, but still, I think my Ego is in for some shock and resistence!

And never say never.

If singing bowls could talk...

Anyone who has tinkered with a singing bowl quickly realises that sound is a energy wave, and even the softest chime carries a current.

My singing bowl is a small inexpensive one, but the tones that it carries is clear and resonant. I like to believe that bowls choose their owners, and mine certainly chose me.

Learning to play the singing bowl requires more than a strong and steady arm, it already requires a focused, calm mind. I found that out only last week when out of sheer frustration at how the work day ended, I picked up my bowl and starting tinkering with it.

I couldn't get a clear tone out of the singing bowl.

And I became aware of how my mind was distracted, and how heavy my shoulders felt. On impulse I used the mindfulness exercise taught in my intuitive coaching class, which in essence is focusing on my breath, allowiing the breath to flow through every part of my body and engaging all senses, touch, smell, sounds, sight,

I tried the singing bowl again afterwards. The sound that came out was so strong and clear, that everything in the room vibrated and my hand tingled for minutes after.

The thought came to my mind, that everything is energy, and the universe did begin with a sound. There is no past, not future, no seperation, everything is permeable.

What a wondrous thought indeed!

If everything is connected, every soul is energy, you and I are one. And we are one with the universe. This feeling is priceless.

Intuitive Coaching teleclass #1 - Being intuitive

What exactly is Intuition?

Words like "gut feel", "sense of unease","6th sense" comes to mind.

Houghton Mifflin's online dictionary defines Intuition as:

The act or faculty of knowing or sensing without the use of rational processes; immediate cognition.

Reflecting on this definition, one gets a sense that intuition is a subconscious activity, and perhaps not a wholly controllable one.

I have found however, that intuition is very much tapping into a space within your learning and knowledge, where useful but unconscious thoughts amalgamate into wisdom. If we follow that line of thinking, it simply means that our intuitive senses are only at good as our ability to perceive, assess and learn. We cannot have a concept of something that we don't know about or are not even aware of.

Intuitive individuals learn from the world, they consume books, ideas, they embrace new and exciting things, they question and they reflect. So if one desires to become intuitive, what are the possible ways? To me, two things come to mind:

1. Read voraciously
It is said that reading opens your mind to different worlds. One person's exposure to his or her native country provides information, knowledge of culture and practices of one location. Reading allows us to see places, some imaginary, some real, and broadens our horizons. When we understand more, our intuition grows.

2. Mindfulness
Many of us go through each day on auto pilot. We drive to a place on habit, we allow our reptilean brain to sense the environment around us, so we operate on a fight, flight or freeze mode. Let's take the example of road rage. If someone overtakes us, our response more often then not is to speed up. It's your ancient reptilean brain saying, "danger, there is competition and let's fight!"

When we become aware of our throughts, we the can more mindfully decide, is it a real danger? Does it matter? Is it worth my entire body tensing up? Why is there fear? or is it anger? If the driver in front is my husband, what changes?

Most people believe that they are masters of their life and their experiences, but if you asked most people why they behave in certain ways, they may not be able to fully explain why. That is because many of these emotions are brain based, and are reflexes and not conscious decisions. You don't choose to get out of your car to have an argument with the car in front just because she sped up to overtake, you allowed your emotions to get ahead of you, and your system to act in protection. Did you choose? How baffling is your response?

One useful method I have found is to name the emotion that we feel. Naming the emotions allows us to think whether it is really what we want, and if yes to act in a more purposeful manner, and if not, to let the emotion go.

And more importantly, brain research tells us that when we practice mindfulness, we build new maps in our brain, new connections, and eventually our responses will change to where our intention brings it.

Changing how our mind thinks and how we respond, now that is a whole new world.