Jan16
Posted on Jan 16 by Ruth Davis
So often we hear people asking, What is my real purpose? What is my true work? Sometimes our most important work has nothing to do with a paycheck. Back in November, a client scheduled a four week Mac training series to begin in early January. She emailed me the day before our first session, saying that she was just so overwhelmed and felt terrible, but could we postpone until the following week. I could feel her anxiety and stress and so I wrote back: Breathe… And honor the fact that you are recognizing that adding one more thing to your life right now isn’t going to work. Breathe again. Let’s cancel tomorrow and hold off on next week too. I’m about to roll out a group training program that will address all of your needs. And breathe again. She wrote back that she was crying in gratitude, because I knew she just needed to breathe. Interactions like this remind me how much I love my work, especially when it has nothing to do with making money! Because often,...
Jan02
Posted on Jan 2 by Ruth Davis
“Broken hearted often leads to broken open. And broken open is the perfect environment for finding out who you are and why you’re here. Break and grow.”
- Michele Woodward The last time the moon was full, so was my heart. I had just met a new friend and the connection was electric. I hadn’t laughed so much or felt so alive in a really long time. And, as much as I tried to convince myself that it was just an exciting new friendship, my heart was beginning to tell me otherwise. And I thought hers was too. Turns out she was not being completely honest with me and, when I found out she was interested in dating someone else, well, I was too all-in to just be friends. And so I had to let it go. I felt betrayed. Taken advantage of. Even a little heart broken. I missed the hour-long phone conversations and the back and forth of daily emails. I missed laughing. I missed bouncing ideas off of each other and talking about painting and writing...
Dec19
Posted on Dec 19 by Ruth Davis
“One sees clearly only with the heart. What is essential is invisible to the eye.” – Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, The Little Prince We all have dreams. A picture perfect vision of what we want our life to look like. Maybe you envision a beautiful home and you have walked through the rooms a hundred times in your mind, running your hands across the furniture, choosing the colors of the walls, even imagining who is standing around in the kitchen, sharing a delicious meal with you. Maybe you have a vision of your ideal partner. You know what they look like, smell like, if they speak with an accent. You imagine how their skin feels and how you feel when you are with them. On one hand, it’s important to engage in these fantasies. They awaken the imagination which sparks an opening in our heart. The danger comes when we start looking for this exact manifestation of what we’ve envisioned and we close our heart to any other option. Our dreams are there to guide us in the direction...
Dec05
Posted on Dec 5 by Ruth Davis
Life continues to offer me opportunities to push against the uncomfortable and follow the energy that makes me feel alive. And each time I say yes, I find deeper joy, deeper meaning and deeper love. Each time I say yes, I find more of myself. I met Patty more than 25 years ago when she was a singer/songwriter in Phoenix. We had a few friends in common, but we never dated, though I do remember having a little crush. Then she moved to Texas, got married, had kids and we all lost touch. Her kids are now in their twenties, she’s no longer married and last year she sold her house and packed up her life in Texas to follow her creativity into the high desert of Arizona. A few weeks ago when I was in Arizona, she had come down to Phoenix to pick up a friend at the airport and she invited me to dinner so we could talk about our mutual experiences of following our passions. The funny part was, she contacted me because one of...
Nov28
Posted on Nov 28 by Ruth Davis
I got together with a friend a few weeks ago who is also a coach. She was in town for an intense training to get more clarity about her own coaching practice. On the drive from the airport to the waterfront restaurant where we were having dinner, I asked her who she wanted to work with in her practice. Her answer was clear and succinct, but it sounded rehearsed. And so I asked her WHY she wanted to work with these particular women. Again, her answer was clear, but I still didn’t feel any real passion. I asked her why SHE was the one to do this kind of work. And she shared how she had been one of those women who had tried to find joy and acceptance in things and experiences outside of herself, thinking that IF she had THIS degree or THAT house, then she would be happy. “But really,” she said, “it’s not the piece of paper we want, it’s the feeling we have when we get the piece of paper. We have to find...
Nov14
Posted on Nov 14 by Ruth Davis
When’s the last time you did something brave? Brave isn’t just for big things, like driving alone in Europe or going skydiving. Brave could be painting your nails a new color. Or driving a new way to work. Brave could be saying NO to a party you really don’t want to go to. Brave is doing anything that brings you to the edge of your comfort zone and you do it anyway. And doing it makes you feel on top of the world, so full of yourself, like a red caped super hero. And yet, too often, we don’t acknowledge the act, the risk, the courage we’ve had to muster to get there, to step up, to do it. I’m making a conscious choice these days to do at least one brave thing every few days. And I’m keeping a WOW! I REALLY DID THAT! list. Some are big things. Others might seem so easy for another person to do. But for me, they require a lot of brave. I’m using the list to acknowledge my courage and applaud myself...
