Entries Tagged 'Life Coach' ↓

The Fort Collins Museum has a Mask fundraiser annually and this year I attended the Masquerade Ball with my friend Anna.

There were many beautiful masks but this one gave me pause. The opportunity to confront Father Time about his tricks and schemes doesn’t present itself everyday, so I faced him head on.

Listen Father Time,

We need to have a little chat. 

You seriously need to relax, dude. 

*

You’re not the boss of me.

You gotta stop chasing me around reminding me that you’re limited. 

You gotta stop acting like this one is the only hour,

day, year in the time-space continuum to get shit done. 

You gotta knock it off with the 45 minute hours. 

*

You’re such a task master there is an entire industry 

devoted to the management of you.

And still another to help us understand that if 

we don’t tell you what to do

you will tell us what to do. 

*

Back in the day a summer lasted a million years, 

why does the space between Christmas and summer vacation last only five minutes now?

Why, when you have a kid, does the space between birth

and high school graduation last both two seconds and a million years? 

Why am I 17 one second and 40 the next?

Why you gotta be so relative?

*

America’s not fat because we like Cheetos. 

America is fat because of YOU!  

You start chasing me at 6 am

and I can’t get a breath between all of the mothering,

empire building,

housekeeping, 

kid sports running,

and time-sucking snigglies that gotta get done,

finally, falling into bed realizing that this body can’t maintain

without my yoga and kickboxing indulgences. 

Self-care is not an indulgence, mother-fucker.

You conspire with Mother Nature and your second-cousin gravity,

pushing us to grieve our youth.

Back off a little. 

*

You need to stop with your little lying tricks. 

You know the ones where you pretend that if I haven’t achieved an ambition yet

then my opportunity will vanish any second

or has already done its disappearing act.

That one keeps me scrunched up in knots,

and you know it.

It’s a big fat lie.

And you know it.

*

You deceive us into believing that money is your submissive wife,

when the truth is

she’s an independent woman

and you don’t even have her phone number. 

*

I don’t know who you think you are,

You’re not even real.

You’re an invented social convention 

which allows us to meet for coffee at the same time.

We’ve invented holidays 

solely to give us an excuse to celebrate a brief truce with you.

*

A nap feels like a sin. 

God knew you were gonna be trouble. 

That must be why one of the first things he did was to 

free us from your tyranny one day a week by 

granting us a Sabbath Day.  

And you’ve convinced most of us that even this minor respite from your scheming

is a luxury we shouldn’t allow ourselves. 

*

As  I well know Father Time, you are un-battle-able.

Try as I might I can’t ignore you.

I can’t fight you.

I can’t beat you.

When I try it only makes time constrict, 

right when I’m begging you to expand.

So, I surrender.

I’m turning 40.

Be kinder, Father Time, be kinder.

*

Tracee Sioux is an Authentic Power Coach, author of Love Distortion: Belle, Battered Codependent and Other Love Stories; and she blogs atTheGirlRevolution.com. Contact her at traceesioux@gmail.com. 

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I have had some amazing massage experiences since I made the commitment to my own healing work in a luxurious way.

And I’ve had some pretty bad experiences too.

Every single time it was because I was cheaping out on massages. I was paying rock bottom prices on Living Social and I went to a lady who charges $25 out of her house. Which sounds great, until you get there and he wants to play heavy metal music and smells like cigarette smoke and it makes wish you hadn’t stripped down to your undies. And her house is unkept, the yard is a crappy dirt hole and there are broken down muscle cars in the driveway and trash in the flowerbeds and you question how sanitary the sheets are, so you can’t relax. Incidentally both of them played Pandora during the massage, and without the upgrade to avoid commercials.

Should I care about this stuff? Is it worth getting a deal on massage?

I realized that massage and healing body and energy work is worth paying for because I’m there to heal and that requires an exchange of energy. And both of these people had an energy that screamed lack, poverty, not enough. 

I buy many things very frugally, and there’s nothing fundamentally wrong with that, except when I’m doing it because I feel I have to.

When I get a high from scoring a badass dress at the thrift store it’s great. It’s a happy light-hearted energy of abundance! I have an amazing new dress! The Universe gifted me a pair of designer leather boots for $5! I can buy a new wardrobe for $20!

Cheaping out on myself has been a pattern though. When I’m seeing a massage therapist who’s giving me the heeby jeebies, it’s coming from a place in myself that feels like I don’t have enough. And that’s the energy that makes life suck and it withholds wonderful things from us.

Do you cheap out on yourself? Take one step toward light-hearted abundance today.

Tracee Sioux is an Authentic Power Life Coach, author of Love Distortion: Belle, Battered Codependent and Other Love Stories; and she blogs at TheGirlRevolution.com. Contact her at traceesioux@gmail.com.

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My moods and personality can currently be predicted by my menstrual cycle. They call it perimenopause. It means that my body, spirit and soul is going through a life-changing transformation, as every woman does.

Abundance Week: The real me is optimistic, powered, productive, ambitious, full of self esteem and self approval, and reacts to life like water—taking it as it comes. I’m enthusiastic, passionate and bright. I’m witty and fun. I think there are supposed to be two weeks a month of this, but I am being tragically robbed of the second week. I love the wonderful beingness of this phase in my cycle. The Universe appears to roll out generosity and abundance for me. I am my authentic self.

F* You Week

F* You Week: The PMS week is pretty much a big F* you. Because I feel like everything and everyone is saying F* You to me, I want to say F* You to everyone and everything. Especially those that trample all over my boundaries, like my children. I suck this week. My usual optimism turns into a sad frustration that the Universe isn’t moving on my behalf fast enough. I usually feel like I’m in poverty this week and struggle with time and the feeling that there is not enough of it. Not enough money and not enough time.

I Surrender Week: The week of my period is a relief. I’m not as annoyed and frustrated. I don’t hate the Universe. I’m introspective. I surrender to God with the acknowledgement that I’m not controlling this show. I take better care of myself. I still work, but I don’t fret about it. I get more rest. I am less social. I often get great ideas and inspiration. My Soul speaks to me. Things move without much effort on my part. This week I’ve pretty much run out of fight, so I just sit back and tell the Universe, I surrender, use me, do what you want with me. 

F*ing Bitch

I often feel pretty bad about F* You Week. I feel like this week shouldn’t happen if I really am who I think I am during Abundance Week.

But, there’s a deeper part of me that understands that during the rest of the month I tend to let things slide. I let things slide with my kids because I’m focused on other things. By the time F* You Week comes, they are getting away with way too much. I sometimes feel like a mother dog, a Bitch, if you will. She lets the pups bite and claw and wrestle and test her boundaries. When she’s had enough she gives them a hard enough nip to remind them that she’s Alpha Mother Bitch and they better get their ass back in line.

This applies to the Universe too. The Universe works in contrast. What I do want and what I don’t want. During F* You Week I often realize that what I have is not what I want to settle for. I want more. I choose more. I decide that I’m going in another direction. I decide that I’m calling forth something different. F* You Week is often the week when I take action on what I really want instead of just contemplating it. I get so fed up with the way things have been that I change.

Cycle of Femininity

This is the Cycle of Femininity. Christiane Northrup, OB/GYN and author of Women’s Bodies/Women’s Wisdom, says that perimenopause is the natural stage when a woman completes unfinished business, abandons old baggage, resets boundaries, walks away from relationships and careers that no longer serve her highest good, launches new endeavors, and literally changes her mind and the world right along with it. It can be rough waters and it can be liberating.

The Universe has been showering me with gift cards!

However, Northrup also promises that when we finally reach full menopause we are blessed with a continuous life of Abundance Week. It becomes us surrendering to Abundance Life.

If we do the work, that is. There is a caveat, she warns. If we refuse to clean up past shit, let go of people who are bad for us, set new healthy boundaries and follow our Soul’s Path then we’re screwed. We’ll suffer, we’ll be ill, we’ll be harried, we’ll be heavy with resentments, hurt and anger. We will not have done the spiritual and emotional work of the midlife change to become the outward manifestation of our Inner Wise Woman. In the end, we don’t have an Inner Wise Woman, we are the Inner Wise Woman.

The Year of Yes!

I’m knee-deep in perimenopause and I’m turning 40 this year.  I did a lot of the hard work of cleaning up my life in 2012. I’m taking the kind, gentle path through 2013 with my new spiritual travel column, Soul Trek. It’s allowing me to go on spiritual and personal growth retreats so I can delve deeply into the inner work of my Soul. I leave on Saturday for Sedona! I am commited to healing work this year: emotional, physical and spiritual healing. I’m doing it so that I may be of use to God in the second half of my life. If my soul and body are weary, I won’t be able to do the big work I’m being called to. As a life coach I’m answering the call of women: help me change my life.

Tracee Sioux is an Authentic Power Coach, author of Love Distortion: Belle, Battered Codependent and Other Love Stories. 

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Power is the ability to Manifest.

In 2009 I sat in a Toastmaster’s meeting in which we shared what we really, really wanted to do for a living. One woman said she dreamed of working with geriatrics, but felt that was impractical so she was struggling through to retirement from the postal service.

Isn’t that funny? I know many people who work in nursing homes because they feel they “have to,” but this woman felt it was out of her reach, likely because it was her dream. Her soul called her to it, but she ignored the call in favor of what she assumed was more security.

In 2008, when the economy took a nosedive, I felt that the Universe was attempting to reorganize herself. Millions of people lost their jobs, in part, because they were in the wrong jobs. They were doing the jobs because of the money, not because it was their path. Many of them actively hated their jobs, as sorry as they were to lose the illusion of the security of these same jobs. Their soul called for something else. The Universe was closing a door, so that they would find a more Soul Nurturing door.

Some people answered the call, others still cling to the closed door demanding that it reopen.

It’s 2013 and the dust has settled. The economy is stabilizing. What I find interesting is that there are still unemployed people who are struggling with their job loss of five years ago today. Others, however, realized that their jobs may never come back so they became entrepreneurs or switched professions. I know people who were in construction who now sell commercial trucks or design new plastics. I know others who went back to school to follow their dreams. Others who kept doing what they were doing for other people, whether writing or designing software, but now they do it as freelancers and contractors.

At some point we have to stop glamorizing the George W. Bush era as the set point for our economy. It was a false economy built on a house made of sand and a mortgage scheme. The pre-2008 economy is not something we should aim to “get back up to.” We have to build a new economy now. We must create a new, more stable “normal.”

Some keep looking for the same job they had in the same profession, at the same salary, pre-recession. While another group looked for opportunities where they could earn money and perhaps build something new as the dust settled. What they have built  is gaining steam and they feel powerful, while the unemployed group is still powerless in the face of a depressing unemployment rate.

I am one of former. I started my own business, in the meantime I applied for jobs. Every attempt I have made to reenter the traditional, patriarchal workforce has met with a closed door. I can get the interview, I can even get to the final candidate list, but the door doesn’t open. This is mostly, I believe, because I do not really want a job. I like the idea of a regular paycheck, but when I see the cubes and the time clock in real life my Soul revolts. The fact is I love being an entrepreneur. I am on my Soul’s path and she’s not giving it up for nothing.

I met a man the other day who become unemployed when the economy crashed.

“I lost my job and I just couldn’t find another one,” he said. “So I started my own business.”

His windshield chip repair business isn’t what he was doing before; he was in marketing. He doesn’t bring in the same kind of income, but his business is growing and he has employees now. He has exerted power over his fate and walked forward.

My business, likewise, is not what it will be, but it is growing. Also, I am more prone to follow my Soul than I would be if I were working in a patriarchal environment that was in control of my hours and my creative energy. I am exerting power over my own fate and manifesting something that is authentically mine.

I think my friend the windshield repairman and I have more job security now than our unemployed friends who continue to apply for jobs, desperately seeking security. If I lose a client, I lose A client. I go out and get another one. He needs more cars to drive through, so he uses his marketing background to generate more business. The unemployed are at the mercy of external conditions.

If you’re still calling yourself “unemployed” and you haven’t asked your Soul what different path it would like to take, it’s time.

It’s 2013, it’s time to let 2008 go. It’s time to look for open doors. It’s time to open yourself up to different and new possibilities. Scary? Perhaps. Powerful? Most definitely.

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Baths.

Naps.

Massage.

Energy Work.

Meditation.

Sleep.

Novels.

Rest.

Play.

Healing.

Fun.

Joy.

Travel.

Dating.

Contentment.

Yes, these are my resolutions for 2013. I have professional goals and ambitions. I do. I have no doubt I’ll accomplish them. I will. I’ll expand on them and think them bigger. In 2013, I’ll even take steps toward them and work on building a foundation. I’ll reassess priorities, do different things with my money, and move deeper on my spiritual path.

But only after I’ve had a massage and a nap.

This year is all about Marriage Rehab (stay tuned for my upcoming Marriage Rehab class). This year I check into my senses and do things that make me feel luxuriously good. This year I focus on releasing the stress of a 12 year marriage. I’m committed to living by intuition and navigating my choices by joy.

I’m going to become a very good lover. To myself. Then I will have a bar. From which to gauge any man who wants to get involved with me. If I am a better date than he, later Mr.

I’m calling forth a year of contentment, rest and joy for 2013.

Wanna come?

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