Good News on the Green Front

The Green School

Just a few weeks ago I was able to get a tour of the internationally famous Green School in Bali by its Director, Ronald Stones. The Visionary Advisory Board of the Bali Institute for Global Renewal got a special tour plus a great meal and a talk from The Green School's founder.

Want some good news? Check out their website and read about how they are training the Green Leaders of the future by immersing them deeply in a green, sustainable environment. Everything, and I mean everything, in the school is made of bamboo.

Check it out and Happy Holidays!

Vicki

Play with Possibility Date

Would you like to play with possibility for fifteen minutes with me? I will make you laugh!

Click here to view movie on You Tube.

Blessings,

Vicki

The Dangerous Business of Joy

How Can Joy be Dangerous?

The most trouble I have ever gotten into at work was for being happy. Actually, I probably could have gotten away with being happy, but when I combined being happy with being effective and not being a workaholic, I broke too many rules.

Taking a stand for living joyfully in your business and your life will simply be the most courageous act you have ever taken. When you make a decision to infuse everything you do with joy, to define your journey as the goal, you will join the likes of Gandhi, Desmond Tutu, and Tina Fey.

You will cause trouble wherever you go. By refusing to buy into the beliefs that you must be a workaholic to succeed and that fun is frivolous, you will disturb anyone who has chosen a heavy-handed, heavy-footed manner of walking on this planet.

Fun is NOT a Four Letter Word

Your own health and well-being will soar. You will be able to laugh sooner at life’s foibles rather than later. Your brain will work quickly and effectively. Your creativity will explode and your ability to love, forgive and feel gratitude will expand exponentially.

People will start to say things such as, “Must you be so relentlessly uplifting?” They will doubt your sincerity, your sanity, your intelligence, and yet you will skip along transforming hostility into kindness, increasing your abundance in every way, and serving the world. Your purpose will become even more clear and happiness will be The Way You Live instead of a destination you will get around to when you have more time.

You will be your own authority because you will not give your power away to others. Let them think you are making a fool out of yourself. So what? Let them abandon you, despise or defame you - it won’t matter. Of course, we would all prefer constant love and approval. But when we commit to living joyfully every day, we will get to experience the pleasure of sipping approval at dinner instead of the frenzy of guzzling it from a paper sack under a bridge. (Okay, I got a bit carried away there.)

When you find your authentic voice, and you practice the courage to speak your truth into the world, when you are fierce in the kindest way, and you simply never give up, when you find the joke first and are able to fly because you take yourself so lightly, you will be hooked!

All your habits and relationships will transform through the healing power of joy. And you will be dangerous indeed!

Get a Coach!

Want help getting hooked on the power and clarity of committing to living a joyful life? Great coaching can make all the difference. Contact my business manager, Sandy Parker at sandy@myefficientassistant.com to set up a free fifteen minute appointment with me and we will have a Play Date with Possibility.

Blessings,

Vicki

What Gets in My Way and Yours

I’m in Bali right now to attend a planning session for the Bali Institute for Global Renewal. Hearts and minds from Indonesia, India, Pakistan, America, Japan, and probably some other places I don’t know yet have gathered here to create a learning center which celebrates indigenous wisdom, leadership, and activism. Thirty of us are going to hang out, ask wonderful questions and make plans for an international conference in Bali in December of 2010.

When I was reading about the people who were attending and all their accomplishments, I kept chanting to myself, “I have something to contribute. I have something to contribute. I have something to contribute.” Even though I am very confident that I do have something to contribute, that part of me that worries whether I belong got triggered.

“Who do I think I am anyway?” is the question, the ghost, the spell, that keeps lurching through the room. It dives at my head. It whispers in my ear. It sits on my chest. It looms. It jeers. It invites me to crawl back into a small place, a cramped container that is very familiar to me.

So the question is: am I going to play small, or am I going to expand into my full capacity? Playing small is a non-option. But how do I support myself in this wrestling match with Incompetence?

I email my coach. I tell her what is happening and ask for her advice. She replies immediately and this is what she says: “Look around and see if there’s anyone else there who has accomplished as much as you have, who is blind, joyful, and as funny as you are. Pull your head out of your ass.”

Good advice. So good I pulled my head right out.

So what stops you? Want to learn to laugh about it? Contact my business manager Sandy Parker, at Sandy@myefficientassistant.com to set up an appointment for a free 15 minute Play Date. What’s stopping you?

Blessings,

Vicki

The Two Secrets of Happiness

Here’s the good news: there are two secrets to being happy in this world.

Here’s the bad news: they are simple but not easy to do.

Secret Number One: Learn How to Not Be Ashamed of Your Shame

We all feel shame, and it is decidedly unpleasant. In the book Healing the Shame that Binds You, John Bradshaw defines shame as the feeling not that you have made a mistake but the feeling that you ARE a mistake.

We are invited to feel shame when someone corrects our grammar in public. Or when we confess that we don’t know something and someone says, “You are kidding! You don’t know that???”

Any statement that contains a subtext of “you are an idiot!” is a shaming statement. We all have been shamed, and we all have shamed. It is how people control one another. People laugh at us for the way we laugh, so unselfconsciously, we stop laughing. People tell us we can’t carry a tune in a bucket, and we give up singing, sometimes for the rest of our lives.

Shame Isn’t the Problem

But shame isn’t the problem. Our shame about feeling shame is the problem. We feel shame, we feel enormously vulnerable and exposed, and we decide to keep it Secret. If no one knows we are feeling shame, then maybe we can get away with it. Maybe our brokenness, our unlovability, will be known only by us and not the rest of the world.

When we learn not to be ashamed of our shame, when we learn we can say, “I’m feeling shame right now,” then we are free. Our shame will become just another feeling, albeit an unpleasant one, but just a feeling. We confess that, and it will pass. If we try to keep it a secret, then we are marrying it for ever. We are branding it into our souls. It becomes another shameful, ugly scar that keeps us separate from other people.

If you are going to be able to see who you are meant to be clearly, then you’re going to have to be able to feel shame and admit it. If you are afraid of your shame, you will spend your life avoiding any situations that might trigger your shame. Instead of leaning in to who you are meant to become, you will spend your life trying to play it safe. You will never get to know who you really are, and no one else will ever get to know who you really are either.

I told you it was simple but not easy. The next secret is just as challenging.

Secret Number Two: You Can’t Make Anyone Love You or Themselves

Bonnie Raitt, in her song "I Can’t Make You Love Me" says it all. Is there anything more excruciating than loving someone and having them not love you back? Yes, there is something more excruciating than that. Loving someone and watching them destroy themselves through addiction, self loathing, or recklessness.

When you love someone and they are killing themselves with an addiction, it’s like watching a grizzly bear grab them and haul them off to their cave, eating them as they go. There’s nothing you can do but watch. You are there if they decide they want help, but you can’t make them want help.

Loving yourself well and feeling compassion for people who are hurting themselves is as good as it gets. It’s called Detaching With Compassion. It is not easy to do.

But if you spend your life trying to wrestle people’s problems away from them, you will be very frustrated. It’s like trying to teach a pig to sing. It just makes you crazy, and makes the pig mad.

The Truth About Happiness

The happy conclusion: there is no Magic Bullet, as I wrote about yesterday. There is only having the courage to face each day with humility, willingness, compassion, gratitude, and a healthy sense of humor. You will be able to see yourself clearly and those around you clearly. Who you are meant to be will emerge whole and intact, and it will not surprise you. Who You are Meant to Be you will know as an Old Friend, an Old Friend who has been waiting around patiently, perhaps for years, for you to show up.

You Have to Do It By Yourself, But You Can’t Do It Alone.

I love helping people in this process. I love finding a way to shift the “boogga-boogga” that has been stalking you, and getting you to laugh about it. If you can laugh, you can live.

If you’re interested in finding out about my coaching programs, contact me at the vicki@outrageousvisions.com

Blessings,

Vicki

There is No Magic Bullet

My background is in drug and alcohol recovery, so the model I use is: Get up, take stock, be grateful, be honest, take responsibility, let go, forgive, and as soon as you can, find the joke.

When you’re in Recovery, there is no box to check. You are never Recovered; you are always In Recovery. It’s a process. You have to do it every day, and it never ends.

It’s kind of like brushing your teeth. If you want to have your teeth in old age, you have to brush your teeth two or three times a day All your life. There is no Magic Bullet to save your teeth. You have to do the work. You have to do it every day. And if you’re really smart, you will floss. It’s not inherently sexy to floss, but that’s how you keep your gums healthy and, even more wonderful, that’s how you help keep your heart healthy.

But That Sounds Too Hard!

Some people, many people, want a Magic Bullet. They want to find that One Program, that One Workshop, that One Guru, that One Ecstatic Experience that puts everything in its place and make sense of life forever.

But there is no One Final Answer. This is good news. I tell one of my clients -- and this is why the word Outrageous fits me so well -- that if she wants a Quick, Final Fix for her life, so that she does not have to get up every day, roll up her sleeves, and do the work that is in front of her to do, that she should start taking methamphetamines. Methamphetamines work really, really well the first time. All of your problems are taken away. Unfortunately, that’s the last time you’ll have that feeling, according to the meth addicts I have worked with. The rest of your life is, quite simply put, hell.

Our Addictive Society

Our society is an addict. We love addicts and we love creating more addictions. People addicted to fear are much more easily manipulated. People addicted to the belief of a Magic Bullet, are much more easily lead to another workshop, another program, another Transformational Once and For All Program that answers all questions forever.

This is why cults are so attractive. This is why gangs are so attractive. This is why fundamentalist religious dogmas that answer all questions for all people for all time are so attractive. There is something in us that wants to abdicate responsibility for our lives.

The Good News: There is No Magic Bullet

When we grow up, when we get that every day we have to wake up and figure out what to do, just as everybody else in the world has to do -- the Julia Roberts's, the Barack Obama’s, the Jane Goodall’s, the John Bon Jovi’s. We all have to wake up and figure it out every single day.

Knowing this truth is why I call myself a Life Coach and a Coach for Life. As Joseph Campbell once said, “Life is not a problem to be solved; it is a mystery to be lived.” And the Mystery is so Mysterious! It will not be tamed. When we accept this fact, we can enjoy every challenge that comes our way. We know where the rubber chicken meets the road, and we can find humor fairly quickly in just about any of life’s challenges.

The skill I’m working on right now is asking. So here goes: Do you need a coach? Are you resonating with what I’m writing? Is there a part of you saying, “Yes!” If so, contact me and we’ll set up a time to talk. You can e-mail me at Vicki@outrageousvisions.com.

It’s Time to Step Up

I believe it is selfish of us to hide our gifts under a bushel. I am very good at helping people discover the obstacles, the beliefs or habits, that need shifting, and finding a funny often musical way to do it. It’s a sin for you to hide your gifts under a bushel as well. The world needs the best from us now more than ever, don’t you think?

Blessings,

Vicki

To Those Holders of the Vision

If you are to be able to see clearly who you are meant to be and what you’re meant to do in this world, then you need to learn how to hold your vision in spite of the obstacles, doubts, and pitfalls on your path.

Where We Go Wrong

We have this idea that once we have a vision of what we are meant to do, we should be able to take one step, then the next, then proceed directly to the Land of Manifestation. Maybe this is because getting a college degree is fairly clear-cut. You pick a major, you take your courses, you pass your courses, and you get your degree. Period.

Just as I think many of us still think technology should work like a light switch, that is, you turn the switch up, the light goes on; you turn it down the light goes off. It works 99.9% of the time just like that. When our other technology doesn’t work like that, we feel cheated, frustrated, and like gravity is picking on us.

Technology does not work like a light switch. If you’re going to solve a problem on your computer, for example, you have to stay in the game, keep your sense of humor, and be looking for an alternative solution. You need to Take It On!

If you approach technological problems this way, you will be strengthening your brain, protecting yourself from Alzheimer’s, and increasing your immune system. Getting mad every time it doesn’t work out the way you think it should, just keeps you spinning in stuck.

See the Light!

I hope you see what I’m getting at here. We see who we are meant to be in a flash of inspiration, a moment of Deep Truth, a synchronicity -- something that compels us to step out of the Known and be willing to see what happens when we jump off the cliff into the Unknown.

For some of us, this is the easiest part of the journey. For others of us, we teeter on the edge of the cliff our entire lives. We want Guarantees. We want To Know. We don’t know anyone else who’s done it this way, and we don’t want to be the Trail Blazers of our lives.

But if you have leapt off that cliff, you may have already learned that there are no parachutes, there is no trail, there are rocks, bird poop, snakes, and beautiful vistas, and surprises, Delights, and the richness of just being alive that makes you grateful every morning to just wake up.

I celebrated Thanksgiving day yesterday with the President of the Bali Institute for Global Renewal at her villa here in Ubud, Bali. At our tables sat people from Sumatra, Bali, the Netherlands, England, Canada, Japan, California, Philadelphia, and three people from Corvallis, Oregon.

The Bali Institute is a dream that is coming alive this week as 30 people from all over the world gather to cross-pollinate and plan an international conference in December of 2010. Save that date.

What Seeing Who You Are Meant to Be Looks Like

Seeing who you are meant to be means letting yourself be led. It means doing things you don’t understand and that sometimes your friends and family don’t understand either. Committing to your authentic expression of your deepest self will enrich you, terrify you, confuse you -- but even in your darkest moments, there will be a little glimmer of Something, Something that links you to every other person in the world who has made this journey. You may feel alone sometimes, but you are never alone.

It’s Thanksgiving Day back home for me in the United States, and I guess I’m feeling warm and fuzzy.

Are You Hearing the Call?

If you are resonating with what I’m saying, I’d like you to think about allowing me to support your journey. Contact me at Vicki@outrageousvisions.com and we can set up a time to talk.

May you always be filled with gratitude,

Vicki