So, if you know me you’ll know that I quite like to do things well. I like to have a really good plan. So when I was giving a talk in front of an audience and cameras in Los Angeles in the autumn (Fall) of last year I was all ready to re-create my experience at TEDx of preparing something fabulous, insightful and very well prepped that the audience would find inspiring, uplifting and you never know, a little bit world-changing.

If you’ve seen that TEDx talk, you will know that I used to be very afraid of public speaking. I used to keep myself well away from being seen or heard and, as a result spent many years without making the positive impact on the world that I now see to be possible. This is one of the reasons that I am now a great coach and cognitive hypnotherapist: because I understand fear and limiting beliefs deeply, but I don’t let them stand in my way and I know that you don’t have to either. Instead, I’ve learnt to feel the power of who I truly am and to lean in towards the things that scare me in order to touch the magic of life.  I believe that what you can achieve in this world is incredible when you strip away the areas in which you are held back and become free to be YOU in all your glory.

The Trafic Light System for Growth
In our experience of life – what we do and how we relate – we have options of stretch. Green is easy-breezy and safe and a little boring; Amber is where the stretch lives, where we feel a little uncomfortable, where we learn and grow; Red is too much – it’s where we blow out, where everything needs to stop. No one likes red. It doesn’t feel good. I try to live in the amber zone as much as possible and I encourage my clients to as well. Sometimes my quest for growth inadvertently takes me into red and I have to pull back a bit, but amber is a great place to be. I seek amber out – and I encourage my clients to do the same. It is in moving through amber that we get to everything we could possibly want. Another way of saying it is that everything we want is on the other side of our fears.

The Challenge
So as I was planning this talk in LA I visited my coach and talked to him about what I would talk about. As I was speaking he got a cheeky little smile on his face and I started to hear his thoughts loudly. I knew a big amber and maybe a little bit of red was about to be thrown my way. In the way that often happens in a conversation with a coach, I could see that my world was about to be rocked  – and I knew for a while that I wasn’t going to like it. I’m quite used to this feeling. You see, I am only able to be the powerful coach and therapist I am because I continue to do my own work, all the time. Coaches like to keep you in stretch. If you want to be successful you should have a coach, or a cognitive hypnotherapist, or better: both. In the world of sports they know it and wouldn’t dream of doing their thing without a coach. Regular life is just the same if you’re interested in being the best version of you, you can be.

So, “Kirsty,” he said, “your stretch isn’t in giving a polished, rehearsed talk, with a powerpoint presentation. Your stretch is showing up with NOTHING.”

My body shook. I knew he was onto something. I was in amber, touching red. This did not sound like a good plan. At least it wasn’t the comfortable plan I had all worked out.

“Your stretch,” he continued “is in having nothing prepared, nothing rehearsed, no powerpoint. Not a thing.”

RED!!!!!!

Ouch!

I hate it when people challenge me like that because immediately I know that I’m going to do it. I used to think that ouch! was a reason to move away. Now I know that the other side of it is incredible. What we can achieve in our lives when we embrace the ouch! is wonderful. I am living proof, and so are my clients.

I moved into amber when I saw that the worst that would happen is that I would say nothing. I may be revealed as not being polished and perfect and totally in control of my experience, your experience and the whole world’s perception of me, but no-one died from saying nothing and it turns out that we don’t have control over anything at all, really, so that’s a good one to let go of too. So I reasoned that on some level, it would be ok.

So on the day, I stood up on the stage in front of the cameras and the audience with nothing, curious at what would appear. I also took it a step further and wore the clothes that I had just been on the beach in, no shoes, no makeup and hair unbrushed. I was undisguised and had no plan. I knew that the intense sensations (that could have been labeled as terror), that I was feeling in my body was to do with how I like to control your experience of me, and my experience of me, so perhaps that would be a good place to start, but aside from that I was going to just see where I went to in the time I had.

Here’s the result. Have a watch and let me know what you see, think, feel and hear.

I’m actually quite thrilled that I let myself go into that space because I really did touch a little bit of magic that day. I connected to my intuition, to my essence and I allowed myself to be carried and it was beautiful. It’s the space that I live in, but not one that I usually present on a stage. I believe we all have exactly what we need, all of the time, but crazily we forget – I work with people on this all of the time, but still I forget sometimes too. But the more I do things like this, the more I remember and the more deeply I can remind others of who they can be also. Because when we take our feet off the ocean floor we really are carried. The ocean stops battering and instead supports and lifts and carries towards what we need.

Take Your Feet Off the Ocean Floor and Be Held
I would really like to invite you to allow yourself to be supported a little more than you usually would by the power of the ocean. Find moments of amber stretch that shows you the power of who you are when you trust that you are carried – when you take your feet off the ocean floor and are held. Magic is available to us in every moment. What would be different in your life if you stepped into that far more than you do now?

And if you’d like to have a conversation about how I can support you on your journey into the power and possibility for your life just drop me a line here and we can talk.

As featured in Inspire by Psycle – 21 January 2016

Who do you need to be to live an inspired 2016?

The media is full of two things in January: the importance of setting new years resolutions and all of the ways that you apparently will fail in doing so. Evidence based research tells us that most people trying to stick to resolutions will last only 24 days. They even have an especially depressing media term. ‘Fail Friday’ is apparently when reality hits most people, alongside the stick that they start to use for self flagellation over the months to come.

So what’s the solution? First of all always, always start from a place of self-love rather than dissatisfaction.

I am here to tell you that you are already incredible and inspiring just by being yourself. The question is how can you let more of that shine? How can you move away from default switched off living, towards a path of created purpose-full living?

The second part of the solution is to set a theme, or intention for the year rather than rigid and ultimately, blame and shame filled resolutions. And it’s not too late in mid January, February or even in September, because every minute of every day is an opportunity to live into who you can truly be.

Last year my theme was ‘Connection’. I wanted to set myself the challenge of finding a deeper connection to myself and to others also see how much more richness I could find in life, as well as how much more I could create in my work from that place. It was quite a ride that lead to a huge amount of growth, an incredible increase in my income, far deeper relationships and touching a magic of life that I could only have imagined previously.

This year I’m making it less about the external and bringing the focus much more into myself and my body. My theme for the coming year is still around connection to self, but this time in the form of ‘Radical Self Care’. By that I mean how I can micro focus on my body, home, spiritual health and general internal wellbeing in order to create an even richer experience of life.

What is your theme?

Have a think about it. if you were to set a theme for this coming year what would it be?

These three questions could help:

1. What belief could I introduce this year that would make the biggest difference in my life?

2. How would I like to feel?

3. What is it that I could focus on now that would have REALLY created a difference in my quality of life by this time next year?

One of my coaching clients set their theme as ‘A Year of Abundant Living’, another was ‘Speaking My Truth’, another ‘Balance’. What would you like more of, what would create a stretch for you? What is it that by living intentionally into your theme will give you so much more of what you want in your world?

What does it mean to you and for you?

When you have set your theme spend time either in quiet contemplation with yourself, or with a coach and write down all the things that come to you around your theme. For me it is things like, creating a daily meditation practice, specifics to do with how I manage my time and run my business, books that I will read, a retreat that I will go on, how I will parent differently, a more nurturing focus on exercise and sleep…

What will yours be? It may be useful to keep a running list of ideas on your phone that you can add to when you feel inspired.

And remember, it is impossible to fail at this. Everything you do or don’t do is just useful information – be awake to what it means for you, think fluid rather than rigid, take the feedback, and most of all enjoy the exploration.

Ask yourself regularly “who do I need to be in this moment to live into my theme more fully?”And most of all have the most fun you can have by being you!