The first time I heard this question was when I went through the New Warrior Training Adventure with the Mankind Project.  We used this on the weekend and we used it every week in our Integration Groups to get at what we wanted and what was blocking us from getting it.  Although it sounds like a very simple question to answer…….it is not…..at least for me.  This is when I really got in touch with the part of me that likes to stay vague with my choices because when I am vague I can stay stuck or I can stay in my victim.  When I get clarity, I get power to move forward. 

Recently when I completed the Shadow Work Basic Facilitators Training, we took the What’s at Risk concept to a much deeper level.  What I learned was that when I get in shame and fear about something I want to change in my life, if I can examine the risk and gain clarity then I can look at new options, create a better self-understanding, create more compassion for myself and others, and most of all create more safety for me to keep looking at these areas of fear in my life.  Most of the time it is fear of something that stands in the way of me getting what I want.

So what I have looks like this…….I can have what I want if I am willing to take the risk to get it.  That is my work and my risk.

This year has been one of the most impactful years of my adult life.  My life has changed so much and I am stepping into places that I only dreamed I would.  What I have found is that the hardest part for me with all this change has been to fully embrace that I deserve all this good in my life.  I have some deep messages that keep cycling over and over that shows up every day as fear, worry, anxiety, and shame.  The only way that I have found to embrace all my gold is to really focus on what matters to me because most of the voices I deal with are just illusions and my fear based ego.

This year my collage says…..Live your best year, It’s that good, Laughter can set people free, I am beautiful on the inside, Create something great, Tone Shaper, Men of a Certain Age, Building a Peaceful & Compassionate Society, Lighten up for Enlightenment, Share the Love, Go with the Flow, The Art of Receiving, Intelligent Optimist, Believe, Laughter keeps you on the right path, Breathing Space, Connections, Really Listen, Soul Celebration, Something has clearly Changed and my all time favorite “I am”.

These are what really matter to me……..what really matters to you?

One thing is for sure, it would not look like the people passing by me one by one.  Some would be angry, some would be sad, some would be really happy, some would be dealing with life threatening diseases, some would be giddy with excitement about the person they met last night, some would be thinking about their relationships, some would be getting ready for marriage….some for divorce, some would be thinking about how many pounds they want to loose and how that might make them happier or if they don’t loose them….sadder……. and some would be thinking about what I was thinking about them and on and on. 

I know that I keep a “sheet” over me every day and only show the world what I feel safe to show.  Over the years I have gotten better at being more transparent yet I know there will always be shadows, good and bad, in my closet.  I have learned to create safe spaces to be vulnerable in and I have also learned in those spaces how to show compassion to the others who dare to come and bare their sole.  There is a big price to pay sometimes when we get vulnerable and there is also considerable power in our truth and authenticity. 

My journey this life time is to keep taking that risk to be open, vulnerable, truthful, and authentic……EVERYWHERE I go…..not just where it serves me.  So today I am choosing to keep compassion in my heart for all of us who dare to be open and vulnerable and for all of us who are scared, confused, and aren’t ready yet……it’s never too late. 

In my garage are a series of piles.  The first one is the trash pile that will be hauled to the curb and will find its way out of my life for good.  The second pile is a pile that is going to charity and will be picked up and recycled for other people to get joy out of the things I once got joy from.  And the third pile is what is going to the new house, the things that survived and still have some usefulness in my life.  This sounds like a clear divination to me.  What I did not count on was how hard the choice was going to be on certain objects.  So I created a system…..if I had not used, seen, or touched this item in the last five years, it was gone…(obviously with the exception of heirlooms, photos, kids pics, etc.).  At that point the only decision was if the item had life in it to be given to charity or was it off to junk land.  You would not believe the logic that I have heard not only come out of my mouth in talking to myself but also the amazingly creative thoughts I have had just to hold on to stuff that is no longer in my life…everything has a story, a meaning or an intention…..….just like the stack of music or the books that I will get to “one day” or “just in case” I want to use them in the future……you never know.

Well, this time I do know and what I know is that change is about letting go of the old and embracing the new.  It is uncomfortable, scary and exciting all at the same time.  My life will never be the same and I am not sure what is ahead of me.  What I also know is that nature abhors a vacuum and I look forward to seeing what stories come into my life in the form of new and wonderful stuff.

 So many times when I get under stress and have lots of anxiety, I hold my breath, put my head down, and plow forward with very focused and limited vision.  As a result of that style of moving forward, I miss so much.  That is metaphorically “holding my breath and waiting for the storm to pass.”  This way of dealing with stress does work…….I just miss so much in the process.  One of the great examples of this was last year when I was taking my daughter up to school and loading and unloading all her clothes, furnishings, etc., I was moaning about how hot it was, how much work it was, hurrying the process so we could just get through with all this work and she turned to me and said “You know Dad, you will miss this when you don’t have to do this anymore.”……….she was so right.  After the weekend was over and I was making that long drive home from Fort Worth by myself, I truly got what she was saying.  I had waves of sadness come over me when I thought that I would no longer get to help her move and be part of her life that way.

So the list of things to do is long and I am right in the middle of one of the biggest change storms of my life and I just signed up for dance lessons from my daughter.  She is cooking us lunch, we have a wonderful day of packing ahead of us, driving to Fort Worth tomorrow, and I am choosing to dance in the rain, even though there is not a cloud in sight.

This story has stuck with me for years because it represents the most powerful aspect of my life…..choice.  My life is a sum of my choices.  I have always felt I had a white and a black wolf inside of me and they are always fighting and whoever I feed wins.  I understand the struggle of choice and I also understand that for years I made the choice not to own my choice.  I would use words like “I have to….”  or “ I can’t do this……” or “This is what I should do….”.  Those are words that take away my power and my choices.  The reason why choice is so hard for me is when I own my choice I have clarity and I own my consequences.  If I choose to be with my daughters instead of a good friend one day…….that is not an easy choice because I love them both  AND it is one that I make because I choose to be with my daughters instead of making some excuse or lying about not being available for my friend.  There is a power is saying “Thanks for the invite and I would love to be with you AND I am making a choice to be with my daughters AND I look forward to seeing you soon.”  That is a very hard statement for me to make because I don’t want to hurt someone….. so instead I hurt myself……and I am choosing not to hurt myself any longer.

This week is a huge week for me in that I am buying a house with my girlfriend and we will be moving in together this month.  I can choose to enjoy the wonder of this amazing moment or I can choose to stay in fear of all the things that could or might go wrong in the future. My choice this week………to feed the white wolf.

As the years have passed and I have learned to welcome all my emotions, fear has been the one that has been the hardest for me to deal with.  I have done a lot of work to identify my fears and I know that I can talk about them, process  them, and keep them out in front of me……….still that is sometimes not enough.  Interestingly enough, most of the clients I work with in my life coaching practice are also working with different levels of fear in their life so it is not hard to realize where my work is.

In recently working with a client l, I came up with a model that has been working well where I took an old concept and married it to the process of working through fear.  Stop, Look and Listen.....it really works for me.  When I get in fear the first thing I do is to stop everything, especially my monkey mind and take a deep breath…..or maybe five.  Then I look at “What does this have to do with me?”.  Most of the time I realize I am buying into someone else’s fear or something that has nothing to do with me.  So once I get centered in my reality then I ask myself “What do I want to have happen here?”……then I listen.  When I can listen to my higher power or the part of me that is not in fear, I can get really grounded on what I want and what I can do.  The one constant about fear for me is that when I get in this grounded, centered, and aware space……my fear goes away because fear is about the past or the future, not the present. 

So thanks for stopping to take a look and listening to what I have to say.

What I have found is that after many workshops, certifications, classes, and other learning opportunities, the information I get seems to tell the same story with just a different voice.  Clean Talk is another perfect example. This method of communicating clearly is what I learned when I went through PAIRS and it is what I relearned when I went through the New Warrior Training Adventure, and it is also the core of how I process my Shadow Work.  This is a huge part of how I develop and maintain my relationships……and obviously a topic that the universe helps keep out in front of me.

 Anybody who has worked with me knows how I am a stickler for language because I feel language shapes our intentions.  In the NWTA work, I learned about “I” statements and how powerful it is to own my language.  If you want a quick lesson on who could use I statements, tune into any sports interview……”When your pitching, you have to be one step ahead of the batter.”…..I want to ask them “who” is pitching….I think what they meant to say was “When I am pitching, I have to be one step ahead of the batter.” 

This one piece of clean talk has totally changed my life. The power in using language to own my feelings, my beliefs, the information or facts I use, and my wants is immense.  These are the four areas of Clean Talk that will absolutely change any relationship.  By using clean talk I can have healthy, shame free, and powerful communication with whomever I desire.  I can also use this language to visit my different archetypes so I can continue on my journey of emotional and spiritual growth.

So whenever I hear from people that words and language are “only semantics”, I wonder “who” is pitching?

This week I am in a Shadow Work Workshop to learn more about the human shadow and how I can facilitate this work to help myself and others to learn and love our different parts.  So life has just taken one of its many loops that I have been experiencing lately.  I have learned this week about so many parts of myself and how each one of those parts shows up in my life.  What I have been reintroduced to was the power of my parts and how I can communicate with each one to help integrate them into the life that I choose to live.  When I did PAIRS, I thought that all my parts were either good or bad.  What I am realizing is that each part of me is BOTH and is a gift and an opportunity to know more about myself.  Some of these parts I have repressed and some I have overused.

This work is about balance to me and also about bringing all these parts of me to light.  I once wrote a song called “The Circle of Fire” where I used the visualization of sitting by a fire and all my parts were surrounding the fire…..some I could see, some I could not.  My work is to invite all my parts to the light and to dance with them because even the parts that look like they are not serving me have served me in the past and helped me get to where I am today.  I have found some old friends that I am learning to love…….what a gift to bring to my Parts Party.

The fourth stage of life to me is about beginnings and endings. I am just entering in the third stage of my life about reflection and being and although I am not at the fourth stage yet, I can see it off in the distance.  I experienced it vicariously through my mother’s death.  I believe we all have some sort of exit strategy whether we are conscious of it or not.  We are here on this earth as humans with a soul’s purpose to fulfill and hopefully we will be able to transition through all the stages so we can exit this world and move on to our next journey.  I saw my mother exit in a way that she wanted me to from her soul’s perspective, yet she was not able to fully communicate that upon her last weeks of her life.  I was able to be with her a lot in the last stages of her life and I was able to share in her spiritual exit with her with the help of my spiritual mentors.  Her exit looked like someone who was reviewing a book of her life, page by page, to connect with why she was here and where she was going to.  Mom was very spiritual so she knew where she was going and even though in her human body she was scared, in her heart and in her spirit she was peaceful.

This is what the fourth stage is all about.  Not just the last few weeks but about the gradual reflection and passing from one journey to the next.  It makes sense to me why each of these journeys that I have shared in the last four weeks is there because each one cycles into the next and the fourth stage is no different.  The only difference is I am not sure what happens after the fourth stage.  My spiritual beliefs give me peace and the truth is no one really knows……it’s a God thing……it’s a spiritual experience…..it’s faith.