• Willing to Risk

    • April 2, 2010 10:07 am

    Dearest Readers,

    I’m in Dawson City, AKA Dodge, and the sky is clear, the air is fresh and the water tastes a little bit like sweet nectar. It’s a great place to be for the long weekend.

    Recently someone was asking me if I’m still leading the Cultivate Your Courage workshops and generally, when someone asks, it’s because he is hoping to take the workshop himself. This person in particular was struggling with the fear of expanding his business practice to new heights. We had a good chat.

    One of the things he asked me was, “How do you cultivate the willingness to take risks?” What a great question!

    The only thing I have to offer is my own experience. As I always say, “I’m an expert on that.” So how have I cultivated the willingness to take risks? As is most often the case, I’ve taken a deeper look at the underlying fear.

    Why am I afraid to take risks in the first place? Is it fear of failure? Fear of success? Both? Fear of making a mistake? Fear of exposure/being discovered (I’m really a fraud)?

    Once I understand which fear happens to be driving the bus I can then begin to work on walking through it, which will eventually lead to its decommissioning and my freedom.

    For example, if I am afraid that people will find out that I am, in fact, less than they think I am (which, in itself is a LIE, so best to fire positive affirmations at that one ASAP, i.e., I AM GOOD ENOUGH etc.), then what is perpetuating that Old Belief System (Old BS) in the first place?

    Perhaps I am carrying around some shame from my past. Something that I did, something that was done to me. So we gotta exorcise the demon! Get rid of it. Let it go for F&%$ sake! It is time.

    I’ve had a few crying/letting go sessions that have led to my finally releasing the shame burden(s) and what followed, not surprisingly, was a greater willingness to be seen.

    By “seen” I simply mean known. I’m not talking about exposure in the sense of going on a reality TV show to air dirty laundry. I’m talking about expanding my personal playing field, in business or socially, to encompass a wider spectrum.

    Today, I am able to “put myself out there” in a bigger way because I am no longer ashamed of myself and I am no longer afraid of being “found out”.

    If shame is not the issue and just-plain-and-simple-fear-of-making-a-mistake is, then I can look at that, too. Taking risks means making mistakes. I know mistakes will happen if I take a risk. It’s a given.

    So can I become willing to live with the feeling that comes when I make a mistake?

    Can I allow myself to be imperfect?

    Can I allow myself to feel uncomfortable/vulnerable/powerless?

    Can I do these things knowing the excruciating turmoil that comes from change will not last, it will not kill me and I will not die?

    Can I trust that I will come through the other side of this change with a greater sense of confidence in my abilities and a whole new (radical) level of self-esteem?

    Say “yes” and then stand back and prepare to be amazed.

    None of this stuff is easy, BTW, but all of it leads to greater and greater freedom. The freedom from fear is worth the pain of change.

    Inspiring Message of the Day: I don’t have to change the Old BS in one day. I just have to become willing to be changed. The rest will come through opportunities that arise as a result of my willingness.

    Just Did It

    • April 1, 2010 7:04 am

    Dearest Readers,

    It’s a holiday weekend and I’m heading to Dawson City for the Dawson City International Short Film Festival. I’ve got a few things to pack, some folks to pick up and then we’re on the road, heading into Dodge.

    The DCISFF is a great fest altogether, as we’d say in Ireland. Great town, great people, marathon films of all calibres. I’m looking forward to it, not least because I have a film in the program this year, a 2-minute animation.

    There were ten filmmakers commissioned to create 2-minute films for the DCISFF’s 10th anniversary last year and I was lucky enough to be one of them. I’m a rookie filmmaker but the shorts I’d made were pretty big productions with full crew and mad locations (back roads of the Yukon, Paris, FRANCE). For the 10North Project I decided to go small.

    The challenge I gave myself was to make a film without a cast or a crew. So I did that. I used a digital camera to take photographs and then I downloaded them into iMovie on this laptop and edited them with sound I created on the iPhone. It’s a pretty rough piece but I’m extremely proud of it despite its jagged edges.

    Some of you may know that I lead an Inspiring Workshop called Cultivate Your Courage, which is all about learning new tools to do the thing we think we cannot do. Last year, at the end of one of these workshops, one of the participants, an Adult Educator, shared with the group a little song-and-dance number she likes to perform for her students when they’ve accomplished something new.

    This woman, a tiny, compact little fireball, held up her fists, wiggled her hips, sashayed from side to side and sang, “You did it! You did it! You did it!” It was as endearing as it was powerful. Whenever I accomplish something now I cannot help but hear that song.

    So, today, for the wee film I managed to put together all by myself I’d like to sing it. Join me, please:

    “You did it! You did it! You did it!”

    Inspiring Message of the Day: When I accomplish something, no matter how small it is, I will sing the YOU DID IT song for myself. I will also offer it to others when the opportunity arises!

    The Being

    • March 31, 2010 9:15 am

    Dearest Readers,

    With millions of copies sold, I am probably one of the few people of late who hasn’t jumped on The Power of Now bus and ridden its journey to enlightenment. Heck, I haven’t even seen The Secret. But the other night, in a state of sleeplessness, I downloaded the audiobook version of TPON on my iPhone and joined the masses.

    Whether it was curiosity that led me to do so or the need for a soft-spoken German man to lull me to sleep I cannot say. All I know is, I fell asleep in the Now. Then.

    What I like best about Eckhart Tolle’s message is his use of the word “Being”. This statement is from Wikipedia: “Occasionally [Tolle] uses the term God, but he prefers Being as “an open concept,” something “it is impossible to form a mental image of” and which “does not reduce the infinite invisible to a finite entity.”

    Those of you who read this blog regularly know I use a number of different words for this same entity: Higher Power, Higher Guidance, Love, Spirit of Unity Back of All Things etc.

    I’m actually okay with the word God and I often use it myself. But it’s so loaded, and so open to misinterpretation that I tend to be pretty careful about it.

    I wish I didn’t have to be. I wish I could just use the word God all the time (just three little letters! So easy! So little typing!) but then I’d have to reassure y’all that I’m not talking about a white man in the sky or a Father of the Church and that would take just as long as writing Life Force Energy of the Benevolent Universe.

    Eckhart kinda nailed it with Being though, didn’t he? “Being” not only conjures the image of a Power Greater than Ourselves but simultaneously describes exactly how we can dwell in the presence of that Power. By be-ing. Just by Being. Here. Now.

    One of the criticisms of the book (again from Wikipedia) charges that “there is nothing new in the book, that it simply repackages concepts familiar from various spiritual traditions.”

    Well, duh. Until we get it, folks, we gotta keep on hearing it.

    So no matter how many times we hear it, no matter how many times it’s been re-packaged, no matter how many times it’s been blogged about, we can still open ourselves to receiving the message anew.

    And the message is so simple, so beautiful. And so flippin’ challenging! Be. Be here. Be in the experience of Now.

    Inspiring Message of the Day: I will land in my body, right now. I will land back in my life, right now. Every time I fly out and away I will practice coming back into the experience of Being. I’m alive!

    Be a Child

    • March 30, 2010 8:55 am

    Dearest Readers,

    This morning, during meditation practice, I visualized the idea of living until I was 130 years old. For a gal who once thought she wouldn’t make it past 17, this is rather amusing.

    The image came to me as a way of seeing myself still in the early stages of my spiritual evolution. I needed to do this because yesterday I put my foot in my mouth and am feeling the painful effects of having done so. Imagining that I am only 30-something years into my actual human journey gave me great reassurance.

    To put one’s foot in one’s mouth means (according WikiAnswers) “you said something you shouldn’t have said in a certain situation.” Yup. That pretty much sums it up.

    Actually, I sort of think what I said was okay but how I said it was not. I could have been kinder. I could have been more compassionate. So I feel bad. I feel remorseful. I feel imperfect.

    For a recovering perfectionist feeling imperfect is the perfect growth opportunity. It feels like crap but its exactly what we need to do. Not perfect yet, Celia. Never will be. Enjoy!

    Transitioning from crap to enjoyment is a tricky business. This is really where the need was coming from to project almost 90 years into the future on the cushion. It was a way of accepting that I still have a great deal of work to do and that it’s okay. I’m just at the beginning!

    Inspiring Message of the Day: Sometimes it’s tempting to think I’ve learned everything I need to know. But how arrogant is that? Today I will open myself up to the idea that I am still a teachable child with a long road of learning ahead of me.

    Mystic Calling

    • March 29, 2010 9:24 am

    Dearest Readers,

    Yesterday I got a call from an acquaintance who had heard me speak on several occasions about the mystical path and my belief in the Power of Unconditional Love that is Back of All Things. He wasn’t quite sure why he was calling but I have a feeling he knew after we hung up.

    What is the mystical path?

    The dictionary on this computer describes “mysticism” in this way: “belief that union with or absorption into the Deity or the absolute, or the spiritual apprehension of knowledge inaccessible to the intellect, may be attained through contemplation and self-surrender.”

    So the mystic uses prayer and meditation to align herself with Higher Guidance thereby achieving a spiritual understanding of the way things are that is beyond the intellect.

    The mystical path is available to anyone who seeks it. One does not have to be special or chosen. One simply has to say, “I’m willing,” and then begin to do the work.

    And why would one choose to become willing to walk on the mystical path? Because it’s fun! It’s an adventure. And because without a spiritual understanding of the way things are, life can be a slog, it can be painful and it can be very dark.

    I find that seeing things through a spiritual lens takes the slog right out of the experience of being. All of the horror, all of the injustice, all of the pain can be viewed from an entirely different perspective, which makes things not only easier to grasp (bear), but even exciting and, yes, fun.

    People with faith in the Unseen have been accused of using their beliefs to explain away the bad things of this world. That faith is, in fact, a kind of denial. I couldn’t disagree more strongly. I have been guided to faith. I said “I’m willing” and I began to receive Guidance. This tells me that the Path is not of my making.

    Marianne Williamson says that a miracle is “a shift in perception”. What that means is this: if I can shift my way of seeing, indeed, my way of being, from the intellectual to the spiritual, amazing things will happen.

    Amazing things like phone calls from people who are working through that shift, which is not easy, BTW, and who need a little support along the way. And lemme tellya, my spiritual understanding of that phone call is that it was not just a phone call. It was nothing less than Higher Love calling me up on the phone to say hello.

    Inspiring Message of the Day: What would things look like if I viewed them with a spiritual understanding? How would it change my life? Today I will look at what is happening in my life through a spiritual lens and ask for Higher Guidance to show me my True Path.

    Seatbelts!

    • March 27, 2010 10:39 am

    Dearest Readers,

    It is a beautiful, sunny Saturday with spring-like temperatures outside. I am young, healthy, talented and prosperous. I have a lovely home and a full, abundant life. So why am I full of anxiety?

    Because I am in the process of working on fulfilling one of my dreams, which is to make a feature film, and it’s triggering fear. Because I’m about to go traveling for 10 days and it’s triggering fear.

    If there’s anything I’ve learned on the healing path, it’s that no matter how far I’ve come, no matter how much progress I’ve made, the fear will still get triggered when I take any kind of action that requires me to surrender control and take risks.

    So what is the point, you ask? If you do all this work and the fear still comes up, what is the f’n point?

    Well, the point is this: the fear may come up but it doesn’t have to take charge. It doesn’t have to control the situation. It doesn’t have to make the decisions. It can quite simply come up.

    Then the work begins. No one said fulfilling your dreams was going to be easy. Life is not a wishing well. I gotta do the footwork. I have to take the action steps necessary to manifest the vision. And when I do this all my Old BS will come to the surface to stop me.

    That’s when things get uncomfortable. And that is when we tend to give up, avoid, procrastinate, abandon ship and bail. But today, I refuse to bail and so I must learn to get comfortable with feeling uncomfortable.

    I heard that little gem this morning on an inspiring phone call. Boy, does that hit home! If I can stay with the discomfort, knowing that it’s coming up because my Old Belief Systems are being challenged, then I can learn to observe, relax and let go.

    So I’m feeling uncomfortable but I don’t run for the hills. Instead, I do what needs to be done to move forward.

    First, I name it. Check. Next, I share it with someone else. Check. Then I might say a prayer or do a positive affirmation to help me relax. Check. Finally, I do the next right action.

    The next right action might be footwork around the vision or goal or it might be resting or it might be something else. I can find out by getting quiet and going within or calling a friend and talking it through. But no matter what, I do not have to let the fear win.

    Those of you who are regular readers already know that one of my visions is to live fearlessly. Does this mean there will be a day when I never have to experience fear again? That would be good. Until then, when the fear comes up I do what’s necessary to overcome it.

    Inspiring Message of Day: Today I will take action toward fulfilling my dreams and when the fear arises I will practice getting comfortable with being uncomfortable.

    The Atonement

    • March 26, 2010 9:34 am

    Dearest Readers,

    Do you have a favourite movie? I have several but if I had to narrow it down to one right now I’d have to say Atonement. I’ve probably seen it 10 times and could easily see it ten more.

    Yesterday, after a full day of doing the hardest thing first I was exhausted and in need of a break. So I watched my favourite movie.

    As you may know, the film, based on a novel of the same name written by Ian McEwan, is about a young girl who separates her sister and her sister’s lover forever when she names him for a crime he didn’t commit. She atones for her “sin” by writing a novel that gives them a life of happiness together.

    It’s devastating. And devastatingly good.

    The dictionary on this computer defines “atonement” as “reparation for a wrong or injury; reparation or expiation for sin (religion).” In Christian Theology the Atonement is “the reconciliation of God and humankind through Jesus Christ.”

    As a teenager, I was a thief. I stole merchandise from stores and money from employers, family and friends. It’s not easy for me to admit this to you but I am able do so freely today because I am no longer ashamed.

    I have found freedom from that shame by atoning for my wrongs. I have admitted my thievery to those that I robbed and I’ve paid each and every one of them back.

    Making those amends was terrifying and sick-making but once done, I was free. One of the most amazing things about getting honest with people on this level is their reaction. One thinks they will chastise and judge, cast stones even. My experience has been just the opposite.

    Here is an excerpt of a letter from the manager of a store where I stole a bunch of stuff in my youth. He wrote to me after receiving the money I owed him, included with my own letter of amends:

    “I am glad that you are able to come to terms with some of the things in your past. I have posted your letter on my staff bulletin board and I believe that you will be an inspiration to my staff. It is never easy to admit and rectify any wrongdoings but I do firmly believe that it does cleanse the soul.

    I have decided to make a donation to a charity on your behalf so your monies will be going to a great cause.

    I wish you well in your journeys and if you are ever back in the city, please don’t hesitate to drop by.”

    Does that not blow your mind?

    Maybe Atonement is my favourite movie because I can relate to the character of the girl, who lives with her guilt until she can’t anymore and then tries to make it right as best she can. Maybe it’s because it’s just a damn fine film. Either way, it cleanses my soul each time I see it.

    Inspiring Message of the Day: We can find freedom from shame through atonement. It’s a way out of the darkness of the past to the light of the present. To freedom and hope and joy.

    Hardest Thing First

    • March 25, 2010 8:56 am

    Dearest Readers,

    Thanks again to the friend who passed me the tool of “Do the Hardest Thing First” because it’s helping friends and clients and has totally changed the way I operate.

    In the past, I would always save the hardest thing until last and then be in a severely compromised position to get it done, which often meant I was needlessly orchestrating my own burn-out.

    Each day, I now look at the to-do list and ask myself, “What is the hardest thing?” Once I know the answer I experience the feelings of dread and fear, probably say a prayer to help set them aside, and take action. It’s a revelatory experience!

    There are other benefits. Yesterday I completed 2 tasks, which I managed to do only because I’d already begun to do the work at an earlier date. I was able to achieve the goal(s) because I’d broken the hardest work down into stages.

    By tackling some of the work when it was the hardest thing, leaving it for a few days and then going back to it, I lightened my work load and finished before the deadline.

    There was a time when I would work all day and night before a deadline and then I’d spend the next couple of days crashing, cursing that I needed a day off and couldn’t take one because there was more work on my plate!

    So what’s that all about?

    Well, I think not wanting to do the hardest thing first is about fear of success. And fear of success is really about fear of the unknown and fear of failure.

    Leaving things until the last minute and then crashing and burning is about low self-esteem. Somewhere deep inside I think I deserve this level of treatment, which is pretty poor if you think about it.

    So real change comes from digging out these Old BS’s (Old Belief Systems) and replacing them with new ones. I need to become willing to let go of the fear and start practicing the behaviour that scares the crap out of me.

    The rewards are plenty. More time to play, to rest, to actually enjoy this life. What a concept.

    Inspiring Message of the Day: What task am I avoiding, telling myself I’ll get to it later? I will tackle it now, saving myself time and effort down the road and opening the door to feeling successful.

    Coaching Success

    • March 24, 2010 10:09 am

    Dearest Readers,

    Yesterday, after a session with the Business Coach with whom I’ve been working for the last couple of years, I wrote the following “something” on Facebook:

    “Celia McBride thinks everyone should have their own coach.”

    Grammatical violations aside (should be “her/his own coach” in case you didn’t catch it), the statement is absolutely true. Coaches are a marvel.

    As an Inspiring Coach, I get to witness the growth and progress of clients that I work with, which is a major inspiration in itself. I get emails saying, “I did it!” or “I’m doing it!” and my heart fills with joy. As a client, I get to experience my own progress first hand.

    One of the things I love about coaching sessions is that they often start with a review of what the client would like to celebrate. What are the victories or “wins” since the last session? It’s a super way to build confidence and if you could measure self-esteem with a thermometer the mercury would shoot right to the top.

    So as I described my wins with my coach yesterday I got to hear myself say how much progress I’ve made and how far I’ve come as a businesswoman since we started working together. Things I could never even have imagined a year and a half ago are now the reality of my existence. Pretty awesome.

    To give you an example, one of the things I first started to work on with my coach was increasing my income. I vividly remember having heart palpitations as we talked about specific numbers. The fear of success and the Old BS that being poor meant I was more spiritual made the process of visioning more money incredibly nerve-wracking for me.

    Since that session I have increased my income by 50%. This amazing fact has afforded me certain luxuries both practical and necessary for my business and also for my own self-care. It didn’t come from wishing it came from work. But I sure didn’t do it alone.

    So here is to Coaches of all kinds! And if you don’t have one, consider it. It will change your life for the better.

    Inspiring Message of the Day: Change takes effort. But help is available. Today I will seek the help I need to achieve the goals I have.

    Love is Law

    • March 23, 2010 10:07 am

    Dearest Readers,

    So Obama’s health-care bill has become law and some people are not happy about it. CBC Radio played a clip of Rush Limbaugh, the Republican radio host, saying, “We have get those bastards. We have wipe them out.”

    Now, presumably he was speaking about the United States Senate elections, taking place in November of this year, but considering the fact that US President Kennedy was assassinated for his radical policy-making, Limbaugh’s words are more than just a wee bit scary.

    A fellow artist posted this statement on Facebook this morning: “I don’t understand why anyone would NOT want their countrymen to have health-care.” Well, I don’t understand how people can talk about wiping other people out with such non-chalance. The hatred is so disturbing.

    The next story on CBC News described the fatal stabbing of 8 elementary school children by a mentally-ill former doctor. At this point I turned off the radio.

    Last week I blogged about the story I was going to tell for World Storytelling Day, which I ended up calling “God Lives in Edmonton.” The piece describes the spiritual awakening I had while living in desperate circumstances in that fair city.

    Through a series of very dark and painful episodes that led me to a radical experience of Higher Love, I came to believe that good comes from bad. Not wishful thinking, not Pollyanna-like white-washing of pain but direct experience of Love borne from hate.

    When I listen to frightening men like Limbaugh who are so full of that hate or hear about a man so sick he slaughters 8 little children on their way to school, I admit that the temptation to crawl under the covers and never come out is mighty. The world is too crazy. It’s out of control.

    But then I remember Love. And I remember that Good comes from bad. And I remember that I know this not because of blind faith but from direct and personal experience of Love as the only Truth. And I can feel the grief and I can respond with compassion and I can offer that Love to every single person I meet, including the hateful and the sick.

    We must fight the hatred with Love. It is the only Way.

    Inspiring Message of the Day: “It makes no difference how deeply seated may be the trouble, how hopeless the outlook, how muddled the tangle, how great the mistake; a sufficient realization of Love will dissolve it all.” ~ Emmet Fox