wind in your sails: the untold story

Packet Ship in a Stormy Deep-Thomas Birch

Mightily appropriate to have posted an insight video about the experience of having wind in your sails.

I am nearing the end of my EMM (Executive Masters of Management) at BI, have a paper and an exam due in the next 20 days.  I reached a point this morning where I thought, "okay, I am about to crawl out of my skin from panic at getting all of this done." I know, not what a transformational coach is supposed to admit. But the fact is that I know about how this works because I live it. I dare to talk about performance anxiety and seeing a way through it because it is a daily, sometimes hourly, walk through a hall of mirrors trying desperately to come face to face with the real me. 

The things I have learned since coaching with Tony have made all of this infinitely easier. I love coaching because I help creative people (read: all people!) create, and experience at the same time a return to the real me: the one who I am,  independent of all the ways I have attempted to construct an identity based on conditions conforming not to my true self, but a much smaller version that hopefully won't make any waves or attract any attention.

The only problem with that small version of me is that it is in complete conflict with all I know to be true. I know, I KNOW how important it is for our survival that we all pull in the same direction and create something meaningful, ridiculous, passionate, morose, hilarious, lovely, dark, and wild.

I have to hoist a sail. I don't know how to sail. I have to sail but don't know how.  But something happens when I put up my sail: people show up from all over the place to help me. The sailing teaches me sailing. How is that possible? It happens every time. When I create from who I really AM, people and resources and circumstances align to pull me along and celebrate with me both the journey and the destination. It is true that when I make that version of me welcome, great unplanned things happen.

This works for artists, executives, gardeners, builders, and saxophonists. And everybody else who doesn't give in, doesn't give up, but presses on.