Light At The End Of A Dark Tunnel
February 22, 2010 by Coach Margie
Filed under Health & Wellness, Whole Health, divorce, emotional energy, personal growth, relationships, self empowerment
Pain. Sadness. Grief. Despair. Stress. “Uck!”, you say? I agree.
Unfortunately, that’s where I have been, to be openly honest.
Well, it’s where I was. Hence the lack of new words, in the last 2 months, on these pages.
Yet, there is light at the end of the tunnel. Actually, I am IN the light right now. Whew……sooooo good to be here.
The journey of life is not always an easy one. Try as we may, sometimes we fall down. Sometimes we can’t get back up for awhile. Sometimes we need to rely on our friends to get us through the day, or even more, the night. Sometimes we wonder if we will make it.
One thing I have learned. The universe, or God, or whatever you want to call it, never gives us more than we can handle. And when it feels like we won’t be able to handle it, it is because we need to learn how to.
The last 8 months have been one of the most challenging times in my life. A period where everything that is my life came up for question, and got turned completely inside out, when my partner made the choice to end our relationship. I’ve come to understand that it wasn’t so much the break-up, or that my partner couldn’t show up the way I hoped he would, that threw me head first and screaming into the dark tunnel. Sure, that was painful and had it’s own set of tears and grief. What had more impact though, was what got called up with-in me, what I was forced to confront, how I chose to engage in the process, and how in the end I was the one that had to figure it all out and re-design my life. Your friends can only hold your hand for so long.
Having the opportunity to evaluate everything in your life and discern the truth of it for yourself is a wild and weird ride. However, when you wake up one morning and finally accept that things just aren’t what you thought they would be, you have to do something. While it is hard to recognize it at the time, such a cataclysmic event can be a real gift. The blessing for me has been about reconnecting to the essential elements of my souls requirements-what my soul needs to live a life of authentic bliss. Isn’t it amazing how we can lose sight of what those things are sometimes?
The re-design doesn’t happen over night. (Small manageable steps, as I tell my clients all the time!) It requires deep exploration, internal questioning, values review and lots of time for simply healing. In my journey I have given myself oodles of gentleness, self nurturing and space to just be. It’s not easy. I’m a go-getter, organizer and facilitator. To not have a clear sense of what is around the corner of my life drives me crazy sometimes.
But the truth is, do we ever know what is around the corner? If I had known that the fated relationship was going to end up as it did, would I have gone forward? And if not, then what would I have lost? Certainly the rich lessons of the journey. While they came with some heartache, ultimately, the gifts I am left with for myself are ones I am grateful to have. I do not regret the journey.
And today, well, for today I am just darn happy that I made it through that tunnel! And, I’m here to tell you, if you happen to be finding yourself in some dark tunnel with no light in sight, that you will too. I just know it.
Adding Value and Giving Thanks
November 24, 2009 by Coach Margie
Filed under Life Coaching, celebrations, personal growth, relationships, retreat
(This is a re-post from another blog I had. I share it with you today as I scurry off to the mountains and cold of Colorado to spend Thanksgiving with dear friends. May you have a marvelously abundant and joyful Thanksgiving holiday! Thanks for being a reader. )
Lately I have been pondering, and sitting with, the question of “How can I add value to your life?”. Your being the collective your; all those around me, all those I touch, have contact with, and intersect with in various ways.
As we approach the Thanksgiving holiday, a time when we naturally take stock of all the things we have to be joyfully grateful for, it’s a bit of an interesting twist. As I list my mountains of abundance that I am so thankful for, I also get to consider all the ways that I might be able to positively impact another’s life.
How can I add value to your life? Depending on who I ask will certainly influence the answer. Actually, it is not even imperative that I really ask the other person, it is a question I can ask of myself about another person. “How can I add value to so&so’s life?”.
It occurs to me, that unless those I am asking really know who I am, they may not be aware of how I may add value to their life. If, for instance, the person I asked did not know that I am a Life Coach, they wouldn’t know that I might support them in gaining clarity or in creating balance in their lives. If they know I am a Life Coach, they may not understand that my focus is on Whole Health and Wellness, especially within relationships, and that my passion is in helping others to gain a sense of complete healthiness in all aspects of their life. If they are needing respite and renewal, and didn’t know I facilitate custom designed retreats for individuals and groups, they wouldn’t know I could help them step out of their usual lives and into a safe place of stillness where their authentic voice could really be heard. Likewise, if one was unaware of my community building experience, or organizational skills, networking prowess, or love for collaborative ventures, how would they know to ask?
As we consider the possibility of adding value to lives of others, in ways that they will be thankful for, while we count our own blessings, it seems important that we let others know who we are!!
But first, we must ask ourselves…how do I value myself? In what ways can I add value to my own life? What aspects of myself do I believe adds value to the lives of others? Believing in ourselves and trusting that we have something of value to contribute to the world at large, and knowing what that is, is as important as wanting to make a positive impact.
Sometimes we are not always able to connect to our intrinsic value and positive contribution to the world. Hopefully, this is when our friends and loved ones take notice, and ask us how they can add value to our lives! And then, we get to count our blessings and have give thanks and the circle continues.
Today, I am grateful for many, many things, and I ask: how can I add value to your life?
The Red Tent Temple Movement
November 17, 2009 by Coach Margie
Filed under Health & Wellness, Self Development, celebrations, personal growth, relationships, retreat, self empowerment
Awhile back a Facebook friend, and fellow Womyn’s Circle facilitator that I originally met back East in what now seems like life times ago, posted a link to a movement that she is starting, called the Red Tent Temple Movement. ALisha Starkweather is well known as an extraordinary and skilled facilitator for personal and global transformation and is the founder of the Women’s Belly and Womb Conference and Daughters of the Earth Gatherings; a Women’s Tribal Event, and her Priestess Path Apprenticeship.
ALisa says, ”
“The Red Tent Temple Movement is a way for women to gather our inner momentum, that feeling like the time is now, and to authentically come forward with everything we are as women. It gives us a place to incubate, dream, slow down, without an agenda or plan. It is a woman space where we can share stories, laughter, songs, food and honor our unique feminine cycles that we experience each month, whether we are in our bleeding time or going through peri-menopause and menopause. The Temple provides a way that is more consistent with our actual rhythms, cycles and ways of being in relationship to each other that support, foster and give us strength and courage.
It is time. The women are ready to co-create a vision in the societies we live in and make a place among us where women are honored by honoring our own unique journeys of womanhood. Join us in a revolutionary act. It is more than a woman’s circle. It is a deep learning process of unlearning the busy and finding the moment.
Inside the Red Tents we give ourselves time to remember who we are at our very core, while honoring that to remember we must turn from our identities and roles towards the innermost temple of our own hearts. Come into the Red Tent and stop. In the quiet and sometimes celebratory company of wonderful women, feel. In what you feel, there is much that is waiting for you.”
I am pleased, and happy, about bringing a Red Tent Temple to my local community of Bisbee, AZ. It’s important. It’s time. Womyn need a place to come together, to gather, to reconnect. We live in such crazy times, and our ancient ways of womynhood and divine feminine experiences are getting lost. As we struggle to fit into the boxes of societies demands and our various roles, the essence of our authentic spirit cries out to be heard and attended to. Come to the Temple. Relax. Unwind. Be nurtured by other womyn. Share stories and wisdom. This is how we create, design, and maintain sustainable relationships in our lives. Reconnect to your spirit, your story, your dreams, your purpose. Laugh, Dance and Play. The time is now.
My heart sings in the anticipation of being in your presence inside The BisbeeRed Tent and/or of visiting your Tent wherever you are. Join the movement. Erect a Red Tent in your community.
(The Red Tent of Bisbee, AZ will be starting Dec 15th. Connect with Coach Margie for more information)
Self Ecology, Planetary Sustainability
October 22, 2009 by Coach Margie
Filed under Health & Wellness, Whole Health, nature, personal growth, sustainability
This Summer has involved a lot of pain for me on various levels, as you know if you have been reading my blog. Now, I’m not telling you that to get sympathy or elicit your feeling sorry for me. It’s just fact. It is, what it is, what it is, as my clients often hear me say. Now that I am over the worst of it, I can look back and see what an amazing process it has been and recognize all the growth it has produced. The hugged-to-hard rib is healing, and so is my heart. I’m able to see beyond the intensity of my emotional self and things are looking pretty good!
Recently I found a wonderful piece of poetry, in an old “We-Moon” dayplanner, that I glued into my journal because of it’s perfection with regards to my process. What I have realized, as the seasons change and I come out of this Summer, is that the most important and wise thing I did through it all was to practice radical self care above and beyond any other concern. As I allowed myself to grieve my losses, and cry with the pain, or scream with the agony, and rage with upheaval of it all, I was facilitating a healing process. Had I ignored or denied what my experience was, it only would have come back to haunt me in the future.
This is true for our planet as well. The longer we deny and ignore the undeniable problems we are being confronted with, such as radical climate change, the larger the problem will become. If we accept what is, and set about changing it, then there is some prayer and hope that we just might heal things. In the process we also need to grieve our losses, rage with the absurdity of it all, and shed the tears of despair that rise from the depths of our spirit souls. Arne Naas calls this our Deep Ecology. It’s the place were we realize that we and Earth are one, and in caring for ourselves we care for the planet, and vica-versa.
The poem in the We-Moon calendar (http://www.wemoon.ws/), by Mary Steel, is called Self Ecology, and it speaks to the same thing.
Self Ecology
Without reverence for my
ecological self
without my own inner balance
where I find poise between
the skies of my ambitions
and the requisites of my earthly state
I cannot be that warrior
Without the quiet place reached
in grace and thanksgiving skywards
while the daily needs of my body
her bones, her flesh
draw me earthwards
I cannot engage in planetary survival
Without opening the portals
cosmological to base
in my own energy systems
I cannot go forth
and open the portals
for survival
of our planetary systems
And without standing aside to
watch in peace
the quiet flow of the energy
in my body
and the soft waterfalls of my mind
I cannot be that warrior.
Practicing Self Ecology is a radical act of planetary health care. For, when we understand our own micro-systems and bio-regions and changing seasons, we can better relate to, and want to protect, the natural environment around us.
Here, at Bliss101, we encourage the design of sustainable lives, relationships and environments. Self Ecology/Deep Ecology is a primary cornerstone of the philosophy that motivates and drives my engagement with, and support of, my clients. I invite you to join us on this journey as we move into this critical time on this planet. In the meantime, take good care of yourselves!
