Seeking out guidance to create a fulfilling life

I had the great honor and pleasure of being a presenter at the Evolve Expo this past weekend. I shared a booth with a good friend and met lots of wonderful people. My talk on Sunday was “Making It Out Alive,” which is primarily about my personal work and the insights and processes I bring to my coaching clients. I specialize in guidance to transcend all those self-destructive habits that prevent us from being all we came here to be in the world, including habits like addictions and alcoholism. It is always fascinating to me the people who appear before me whenever I attend an event like the Expo. 

There is always much to see, many new people to meet, friends to re-connect with and folks from the past who reappear. What I’m saying is that I’m not much for standing in the booth, being way more inclined to roam around the venue. There was one woman in particular who must have come to the booth and read some of my flyers while I was roaming around. When there was a bit of a lull in the crowd and I was actually in the booth alone, she approached. She had a question on her mind about how I could be so happy and what I did to help others be happy. In my best coaching demeanor, I explained some of the nuts and bolts pieces of who I am and what I coach, but she wanted me to be way more specific than that.

Here stood a woman in her mid-sixties explaining to me that she had exactly the life she envisioned. She had the entrepreneurial business she wanted, the house of her dreams and all the other pieces of the puzzle that she spent her life assembling. Only one problem, she explained, “I’m not happy.” I inquired about her daily practice and was told that she was a regular meditator and communicated in the silence with many great masters and angels. The conversation led me to invite her to observe that all those other voices were really not her higher self, but entities “external” to the still, small voice that is her own intuitive voice. Interestingly, she semi-dismissed my invitation because in her mind her existing practice was the work she needed to do. I invited her to try a more self-centric meditative approach, which was only slightly better received. I sensed a deep sadness in this woman’s eyes, her face, her soul.

In my talk on Sunday I spoke of the search for the “magic pill.” We attend $4000 a weekend workshops looking for the answers to simplify lives that feel like they are complicated beyond our ability to maneuver. I suggested to the crowd that they might be better served to seek a coach, even a very expensive coach. One that would charge them $1000 per month – and – then spend four months with that guidance, rather than look for the quick fix of 24 hours of “workshopping” ones short-comings. Each of us has spent our entire lives getting to where we are, yet we seek to transcend our blockages and bad habits overnight. It can’t be done. I always refer to “the work.” The work is constant and consistent; it does not end. Some of it can be done alone and sometimes we need assistance, guidance and even a little accountability.

I invite you, the reader, to sit for a few moments and contemplate how life might be better if humans were able to surrender those beliefs and habits that hold us back and seek out that person who might give us that one little push we need to move on with the journey of life beyond the hamster wheel we have been on. Even as we are clear that all the answers lie within, sometimes we need a guide to show us what that really means.