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Friday Spark – Reframe the View

by | The Friday Spark

Frameperson This weeks Sparker is from Reframe the View by Christie Latona
Using the power of metaphor to reframe what’s limiting you and to discover what’s possible.

New Beginnings

School is back in session and with it comes a host of crisp metaphors. It is about new beginnings (a favorite new outfit, a box of new crayons, a new backpack, a new teacher, and sometimes a new school). In our school system, the kids are encouraged to set intentions about the quality of work they intend to do. In our home, the structures get modified and re-implemented in the hopes of making getting out the door in the morning and getting homework done at night less stressful and more productive.

Somehow these new beginnings and setting of intentions are much more positive than my experience of the New Year’s Resolution. Perhaps it is because we EXPECT the crayons to break, the backpack to get torn. We EXPECT to have to constantly evolve the systems we put in place to make routines more manageable.

Look at those places in your life that need a new beginning, a fresh start. Ask yourself:

• What are my crayons and my backpack? What new supplies do I need? (No guilt over your current ones being no longer useful. We understand that supplies become worn out from use.)

• What subjects am I taking? Choose things you love and/or have a strength in. No more than 4 please!

• What intentions do I have around my performance in these subjects? Straight “A”s is an outcome. The intention behind that is about effort, commitment and doing your homework.

• What systems do I need to put in place to support those intentions? For example, in our house we have a family homework center that has all the supplies for doing homework (which we all do together). Before bed we make sure backpacks are packed and clothes are laid out to make the morning go more smoothly.

Expect to have to modify the systems and to replenish the supplies. Most everything that gets used a lot needs replacing or refreshing.

Read more creative Sparkers by Christie at www.coachingtoys.com/reframetheview.html

Sparkers – Reframe the View © 2006 Christie Latona for Coaching Toys Inc – Sparkers, all rights reserved.

We would love to hear your comments and experience with this Sparker.

Connecting with the ground of being – A personal retreat as a business strategy

by | Business Building

 

Yoga1
A retreat is often thought of in the context of a spiritual
journey but it can also be a powerful tool to rekindle passion, commitment and
energy in your business. In a busy schedule it’s a guaranteed way to slow down
and reflect. A client of mine made it a
habit to schedule a three day retreat every quarter. What an inspired thing to
do.

In thinking about a retreat for myself, I pulled out one of
my favorite books; Synchronicity, The Inner Path of Leadership by Joseph Jaworski.
He recounts his story of creating the American Leadership Forum. He describes
the ease and synchronicity that happened when he was in the flow and connected
to his passion, what happened when he fell out of sync and then his journey
back. He describes two forms of commitment
necessary for success; the ground of action – as entrepreneurs we are very good
at this one, we know how to make things happen – and the ground of being. The
ground of being is about being a part of an “unfolding, generative process” –
deeply connected, aware on many levels and following your bliss as Joseph Campbell would say.

One of the traps that can get us disconnected from the
ground of being is the trap of overdoing. Like many entrepreneurs, I’d been doing
a lot of over-doing and my ground of being was getting ground down. I was
over-ripe for some down time and decided to give myself four days to slow down,
re-connect and renew.  I didn’t go to a
fancy retreat center (although that’s a wonderful option) – I created the
experience in my home and you can too.

In many ways my retreat experience surprised me.  Part of me wanted to “do” the retreat. I had a
whole list of things that required re-evaluation, decisions and direction. I originally envisioned doing values work,
brainstorming and mapping out the goals for the year ahead. It isn’t that those
things aren’t perfect for a retreat but they wouldn’t give me what I was most
hungry for. The simple guidelines that follow helped me get what I truly needed
– a reconnection to the ground of being.

 

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