"Passion burns down every branch of exhaustion" Rumi

On the 5th November, I celebrated a year of being a Co-Active coach. I will always be able to celebrate with fireworks the weekend that I reconnected with who I am and brought her back to life and the weekend that I found the role I was meant to play in this world. During the last year, I have coached a minimum of one person every week, I have also coached a team and run coaching workshops. I still have to remind myself that it is a real job and always feel so much gratitude that I get to do this for a living. Its one of those vocations where the more you fully step in to who you are and the more you bring that to what you do, the better you are. And it is fuel. I don't know any other work where, it doesn't matter how tired I am, coaching is thrilling and energising.

So I am putting a wish out there that I would like to expand my practice to more like minded souls who are committed to living their "wild and precious life" and ready to start taking up their space in the world. Coaching can be a technicolour experience. It takes work, some real self-awareness and honesty, and just committment to your own journey, and the rewards include the following:

- You get to create the life you want on your terms
- Working through self-limiting beliefs and old and outwarn behaviours and releasing them so that you can really start to move forward
- Richer relationships with others and with yourself
- Bringing to life dreams that you didn't believe were possible
- Clarity and focus on what is important for you
- The freedom to be consciously at choice and present in each moment

I work from the belief that who we are being and who we are becoming creates actions that get us moving towards where we need to go and that the whole process starts with how we relate to ourselves. Coaching is permission to take your life and play and create, and to know that even when you fall over you are still learning and moving closer to where you need to go.

If you'd like to find out more and experience first hand what this experience is like, I offer a sample session that is free and comes with no strings. I have Skype and am happy to coach people from anywhere as long as the time difference works! I can be contacted at wild horse coaching [a] hot mail dot com.

Dreaming

I've started to have vivid dreams again. Having cleared away everything I don't need, I am back to my core, alive and awake even when sleeping! My days have themes now or at least I am awake enough to be seeing the threads that go through each day and connect everything. The other day I was listening to some 1950s crooners in the car on the way home from work. The romanticism of that music has always really appealed to me. I grew up listening to it through childhood, when another favourite past time was watching old Hollywood films with Judy Garland, Doris Day, Audrey Hepburn, Sophia Loren. I still remember the candy colours of those films, the songs, the heartache, the certainty that no one was going home without at least a marriage proposal! Then I became a teenager in 1980s London where a boy wanting share his last cigarette with you was about as romantic as it got!

Please don't get me wrong, I am not the Anti-Feminist. Women only having the opportunity to be housewives, nurses, teachers, secretaries or nuns can stay in the 1950s. I am just allowing myself to want some old fashioned romance.

So, on my way home, I decided to go the church where my parents got married. I'm not sure if I have been inside before as a child, I may even have been baptised there, but its just near where I live and I've been meaning to go for ages. As I drove past, I could see it was open and just took the opportunity to stop and go in. It is one of the most beautiful churches I have been to. It was just lit with candles. It has golden mosiacs, a black and white tiled floor, dark wood vaulted ceilings and that smell of incense that just takes me back to my childhood. I'm not religous any more, but being alone in a church is very powerful for me. I immediately feel like worldly burdens have left me and I can just be in Spirit, in my own spirit and connect with spirit. Its also a place where I can be with my father and mourn if I need to. I walked around the church with my shoes off, not to make any noise in the dark and lit candles just remembering what I love about my religion, what it has taught me.

This post is getting long-winded, I apologise. Its the first time I've felt like I can just be brave and talk!

So I've embraced that little girl who wanted a white wedding with a sweetheart in front of God and all her family. The truth is I've always taken it personally if I am not in a relationship. I'm reclaiming the right just to wait, to focus on other things, to save myself. While I have my juicy, rich life, I'm not missing or lacking anything. To have a partner will be a welcome extra that will let me explore and "weave" my life with another's life. Until then, I have other things going on.

So to get to the point, not long after, I dreamt that a British TV celebrity took me out to the cinema. It was a pleasant suprise, but I was almost ignoring him. He was patient, warm, wearing a suit like a leading man from the 1950s. He was quietly confident and waiting for me as the film finished at the end of the row for me whie I untangled my MP3 player. I took so long that he sadly left. I woke up feeling annoyed with myself for just letting him slip away, for being distracted and not stepping up to meet this male couterpart. Am I missing something here?

Wish Box

Far away in the sunshine are my highest inspirations. I may not reach them, but I can look up and see the beauty, believe in them and try to follow where they lead..." Louisa May Alcott

Following Jamie's example, I made this wish box yesterday after reading this quote. I've put in a high shelf in my cupboard so that I can look up and imagine my "highest inspirations".

I'm in a real period of movement and transition, about to embark on the next part of my life. While making this box yesterday, I was listening to Marianne Williamson talking about the story of Isis and Osiris. Since resigning, I've just wanted to clear out all the clutter in my room. Bearing in mind that everything I own fits into a car, I just don't want anything in my life that doesn't have a purpose, that isn't congruent with who I am becoming. So feeling this real urge to start clearing out my cupboard and start packing, Marianne was talking about how she remembers a time when people were just happy to be functioning and how now is the time to move from functioning to being truly alive and awake and standing in our own greatness. She made a joke along the lines of "I'm not ready to be great, I still need to clean out my closet".

So I am nearly ready! I've filled two more bags with clothes, books and CDs that are ready to go to a new home. I've never liked to let go of books, they are like gemstones to me, but having only kept the books a really love and the ones I really love and can't replace, I am being to feel lighter and clearer. The more I get rid of, the more I want to let go of all these objects that just take up space. I never touch my CDs, all the music I listen to is on my laptop. I have many books but only a few that I treasure. And I have a whole load of "things" like wires, post it notes, blank CDs that have that sticky not quite useful, not quite useless energy about them. I'm trying to find new homes for everything and its SOOOO liberating and energising!

I'm making a clearing ready for the new life that will only hold what's important and resonant for me. A spacious, conscious,wild horse life, fully lived in the moment, vibrant, energised and full of colour!

Freedom

Yesterday I resigned!

Faith

Uncertainty...is the fertile ground of pure creativity and freedom. Uncertainty means stepping into the unknown in every moment of our existence. The unknown is the field of all possibilities, ever fresh, ever new, always open to the creation of new manifestations. Without uncertainty and the unknown, life is just a stale repetition of outworn memories. Deepak Chopra from The Seven Spiritual Laws of Success

This month has been about letting go and embracing the unknown. My department is restructuring and my job is looking unsafe. So my question has been, facing uncertainty and change, how do I stay strong and let go at the same time? In three short weeks, I have made the decision to move back to Spain, have arranged an interview with a company I used to work for, have contacted friends there and am starting to build up a network of coaching friends that I will thrive in when I'm out there. One week after making my decision, I found out that two coaches who I hugely admire and would love to work with are moving out to Spain next year too. Not only that, but I plan to do a course next year and I found out that one of those coaches will be leading that course in Spain next year (she lives in the States).

The answer to that question has been by enjoying the unknown, staying creative around possibilities and being really clear about my vision, while just doing what I need to do to keep moving in the right direction without knowing that I may ever get to the destination has been the way for me. This is the way that I have stayed strong while letting go. Its been thrilling!

On Being Brave

A few days ago I read about a new project on Maddie's blog, inspired by this quote from Eleanor Roosevelt:

Do one thing every day that scares you.

I immediately realised the thing that I most long to do that scares me more than anything else would be to give up my job and really committ to creating the life of my dreams. So I wrote the project off straight away as not being for me because its impossible right now, I'm not ready, its too big, I have to wait until January, its easy for them, I can't even do small acts of bravery because there really is only one act to do and so on and so on.

The idea stayed with me though. Every night while writing out my dreams of what I'd like a year from now, I'd write "I live in Grananda..." and think "That's going to take much longer than a year". Why? Is anything really stopping me? So, I've let bravery take over my thinking. There is a big restructure going on at work at the moment and even if I keep my job, it will be very different to the job I have now. My real passion is coaching and I will still get to do that, but only privately. When I got back to work after a few days holiday last week, the old sick feeling came back and I started to feel panicky so I decided it was time to be brave and get creative.

What are some of the great possibilities that could come out of this change and how could I start getting the life I really want?

I could move to Spain and work teaching English in companies which I loved when I was there which would mean I'd get to build good relationships with people in lots of different companies and build up a coaching practice out there. I'd also get to assist on Spanish coaching training and possibly even start interpreting on courses. And I'd be truly in love with my life! If my long term goal is to live in Spain and work full time as a coach, does my nice job with a big company get me closer to that dream or keep me stuck?

So thank you to Maddie and Jessie, I've joined the be brave project and today applied for jobs in Madrid and Seville!

Inspired by a True Bohemian*

"Love is not a thing to understand. Love is not a thing to feel. Love is not a thing to give and receive. Love is a thing only to become And eternally be." Sri Chinmoy

Love has always been an obsession of mine ever since I was a little child, I've always been led by my heart. So, without wanting to quote Whitney Houston, here are ten things that I do for myself to feel loved:

1. Eat well and consciously. Cook food using fresh ingredients while listening to music and eat every mouthful awake and in the moment.

2. Clear away all the useless objects and clutter to create a clean and clear space where I can breathe. Infact any homemaking activities like putting photos in albums, mending, sorting and I feel really looked after.

3. Twenty minutes every morning focusing on my breathing and getting really connected and and centred, acknowledging whatever is there and accepting it.

4. When I write every day, I wake up like a person in love, on fire and lit up with the anticipation of spending that sacred time creating and discovering.

5. Reading my favourite blogs religiously keeps me on course, inspired and creative.

6. Walking in nature. I just don't get to do that nearly enough. It keeps me feeling alive and awake.

7. Yoga gets the energy flowing all over my body. Yum!

8. Spending time with people I love and laughing. Sharing champagne and Turkish delight.

9. Being kind and being my own best friend when times get tough.

10. Staying present. Being in each moment filled with possibility and choice, knowing that we only really have right now.

*Thank you Boho Girl