Coaching, Creating and Not Fitting In
My mind his often messy with ideas. I get so many I never know which ones to listen to. I want to do all of them. I get excited by all of them. Some stick around, some get forgotten completely and some come up again when there is a bit of space for them to re-appear.
Within society we are encouraged from a young age to "decide what we want to do" with our careers and life and we are encouraged to fit ourselves into a very neat box of find a partner, have kids, maybe get married or at least live together, go on holiday once or twice a year, visit your parents once a week, eat breakfast in the morning, have lunch at around 1pm and then dinner at around 7pm. Go to bed at 10.30/11pm and wait for Friday when everyone celebrates because its the "weekend". This has never sat well with me.
From a young age I have always rebelled against this way of thinking. Sometimes to my advantage, sometimes not. What I do know now at the age of 40 is there is another way. But it takes courage.
I love taking risks, going against the grain, shunning the "norm". I have kept my inner wild child fairly happy with stints of working abroad, camping, snowboarding, partying, creating, thinking, making mistakes, running two businesses, a successful private chef practice and an award winning tapas bar.
Although these all appeared from the outside successful and worthy of satisfaction I didn't fee like that. So I decided to look into that and work out what a feeling of success looked like. Was it money? Was it recognition? Was it the amount of good reviews I get from Trip advisor?
Two years ago I completed a course in Transformational coaching with Animas. I found myself back at school learning, meeting new people, exploring my subconscious, reading, watching endless self improvement videos and generally questioning everything I did. Questioning how I feel all the time`.
What makes me happy?
What doesn't serve me?
Why do I do that?
Why don't I do that?
Why do I do things that I know I don't want to do?
Through these questions I slowly began learning more and more about myself. Learning to slow down and make decisions based on what I want rather than what society leads me to believe I want. Its an ongoing process. Its fun, weird and difficult all at the same time.
I can see my conditioning, I can see patterns, I can see freedom. I can also see with persistence and faith that you can have EXACTLY what you want. I also see that we also never really ask ourselves that question. What do you want?
What I believe that I want is connection, freedom and love. Thats pretty much it. Material things are nice but are truley irrelevant. And in all honesty once you have true love and connection in your life all the material things you want are already there. Freedom comes from being here, in the now. Freeing yourself from identity and desire. Its not easy or difficult, its in the knowing. Once you know you can't un-know. But what you can do is flitter back and forth from your old self to your new way of being. Thats where I am, in the birth canal, trying on the new and shedding the old. Isn't that where we all are? Trying to better ourselves? If we can do that without judgement and criticism it makes the journey so much easier.
So now I'm creating my own world. It has lots of recipes and cooking in it of course but it also has everything else Im interested in. Im consciously creating what I want through my being, writing, art, coaching, businesses and doing.
Marianne Cantwell was a guest speaker at Rich Litvin's mastermind group recently. Although I wasn't there Rich Litvin posted on Facebook about the speach and that Marianne was the author of her book called Free Range Humans and had spoken in a recent TED talk "The hidden power of not (always) fitting in.”
It is all about exactly what I have just been speaking about. Wanting to do your own thing. Not always going with the rules, being a risk taker and daring to speak your truth.
In 2017 just as I had qualified as a coach I went to one of Rich Litvin's London Intensives. I felt like I 100% did not fit in. I also knew I wanted to. I was in a room full of inspirational people. That does not happen very often! I also learnt the amount of work I would have to put in, particularly on myself, to feel a part of this amazing group of people. Its not that the group was unwelcoming or uninviting, just that they had all clearly been thorough the same feelings as me but took their balls and ran with them. Did the deep inner work that was required and kept going. They didn't give up. Thats how that group filters. You have to earn it. Deserve it. Want it enough.
Coaching can be a dream job. It can be a dream lifestyle but it requires dedication, commitment, perseverance.
I’m now 2 years in. I am slowly transforming myself and starting to transform others which is amazing. It continually makes me think outside the realms of what I thought was great. Or amazing. It teaches you that YOU are your creator. YOU are the person that is holding you back. YOU are the reason you have been successful till now but are struggling to get any further. It helps to have a coach to help you see your blind spots and lovingly see through your BS. We label, judge, try and BE what we think we should be, hide, dilly dally, skirt around and unknowingly manipulate our situation. None of this is wrong or bad. It just is. But... when you have person by your side, on your side, questioning your fear, rationalising your irrationalities, all from a space of love, non judgement, curiousness, non attachment and oneness. You have something so precious. Go find the right coach for you. You won’t regret it!
All My Love
Hayley x
