Dawn Barclay

Helping you align all that you do with your core values

Moxie Living: Courage and Confidence

All blog post Moxie Living

You Can Always Trust Yourself (I Think, But You May Not, That’s Okay)

I wrote once in Facebook, ‘You can always trust yourself’.

Someone replied, ‘No, sorry, I disagree, the state of my life tells me that is simple not true’. 

I wrote once in a blog post,’Watch your words. They become your reality. 

Someone replied, ‘What a pile of old baloney watching my words will not help me change my life. My life sucks. F*cking self-help p*ss!’ 

I wrote in an email, ‘We can all do what we love to do.’

Someone once replied, ‘No, we certainly cannot, the entire world is in a terrible mess, and some of us have to work’.

My point is this, when you start to open your mouths and speak not everyone will want to hear what you have to say (this is a good thing), not everyone wants to listen to what you’re saying (this is a good thing), not everyone will side with your view and map of the world (this is a good thing).

You still must own your voice.

My next point is this, when you start to put the time into yourself, when you open your hearts and create not everyone will like, approve or acknowledge what you are up to. Not everyone will understand, everyone will not be waving sparkly pompoms and high five-ing you on. Not everyone will ‘witness’ you.

Some people will enjoy giving you unsolicited feedback at how well you are not doing in their eyes: why you stink, how they would do it better, tell you where (they think) you are flawed… according to their map of the world, their standards, their opinions, their views, their experiences.

Some of these will wash across you.

Some of them won’t.

But you knew that right?

Feelings will rise. Doubts will drive in. Fear will appear, Confidence will be wavered. Worth will be dwindled. Esteem dented. Maybe.

But.

Inside you. Inside me.

It’s the quiet place where others opinions can’t be heard, they are drowned out by your own truth and love for yourself to make your experience matter.

It’s where you trade getting sucked into others telling you who you are, what you are like, what you should be doing to the booming voice that whispers to you, ‘You can do this. You know you can. Now. Is. The. Time’. It’s where you are free, not imprisoned by steel walls of fear.

It’s a tranquil and calm place where no doubt exists, where you swap feeling scared, doubtful and vulnerable to declaring with your whole self, ‘This is my life, and I will live as the best version of me’.

It’s an oasis of peace. It’s where you trade in worry, what-if, I can’t, this is too hard, I’m letting myself down for, ‘Screw it, I’m here now’.

Go there.

Journal Prompts Week 1 2020

Still we must write. Nothing can help us get to know ourselves a little better than keeping a journal. We don’t have to go back over and read, we don’t have to judge what we write, it’s just words, thoughts, ideas. Hopefully we will come up with something that helps in the moment.

Let yourself write. Let yourself be open to whatever comes up. Be kind. Be gentle. Love the process of being alive to be able to have a say on your life.

Here we go, week 1 prompts of 2020:

  1. What new beginnings are taking place in your life right now? What has to end to allow them to come through?
  2. What are the questions you would love people to ask you?
  3. What tools do you have now to start something new that you didn’t have 1, 5, 10 years ago? What emotions come up for you when you start over or create a new beginning?
  4. What mistakes are you scared of making? If you don’t make them what will happen? If you do make them what won’t happen?
  5. What would you like to share with others as they start a new beginning? What is your wisdom? Advice? Guidance?
  6. You’ve got a new story to write, and it looks nothing like your past. What does that quote make you feel?
  7. Are you willing to be a complete beginner? Naïve. New. Clumsy. Excited. Eager. Or? If you are, why? If you aren’t, why?
  8. Goodbyes. No more. Endings. Where do you have to be brave to make an ending?
  9. Where in the past have you promised yourself that “things must change” but you haven’t kept your word? How can you recommit to yourself?
  10. The best time for new beginnings is now. Is that true for you? When will be your best time?

Lots of love,

Dawn

When I Find My Voice Again …

I’ve lost my voice. Apparently. According to me. I’ve been looking for it. Not for want of trying to ‘find it’. When I temporarily ‘shut the window’ to Living Moxie, I didn’t think what once (this site, my business, courses, people, clients) I poured my heart and soul into for (gasp 10 years) would take me 3 years to return. I really didn’t. I feel I should have written you a letter ‘it’s not you, it’s me’ type thing. But I didn’t. And I am so sorry for that, I had my own shit happening, and it became priority.

Here we are. 2017 – has become 2020 (and this has been a really good year if you’re a virus, the rest of us are pretty screwed up!). 3 years! Fuck! 3 years. Wow. And the thing is, those 3 years have felt like 3 months, 3 weeks!

On Voice Losing

It all started with me knowing I needed to make massive changes in my life, and the first goal (read: emotional and physical necessity) to achieving this was getting a J.O.A.B – shock horror – yes I know, a proper, grown up, regular money in your bank account each month job type thing. No more hustling, marketing, networking, selling, worrying if the money would be there each month. It. Had. To. Be There. Otherwise I would be stuck in the situation I had created for myself. And, I don’t know how long I could’ve lived that life.

So, I took up the position of Manager at a Social Enterprise that was going down the tubes financially. If you ever have walked into a role with the gut feeling it’s going to go ‘tits up’ you are probably right. Loved it. Sadly, it had always lost (wasted) money and was reliant on funding for y-e-a-r-s. Loads of stories from that experience, but that’s for another time, in short, social enterprise is business just a different bottom line.

From there I became (and still am) the Trust Manager for a development trust. I love it. Oh, does that mean Living Moxie is now my ‘side hustle’? How exciting, I have never had a side hustle! Maybe, perhaps. The current gig has been um, well, eventful, never a dull moment and it continues. Whoever thinks charity work is all fairy and lights with hugs a plenty is seriously out of touch. It’s been a ‘friggin nightmare from start to now. But still. The team. The cause. The community. They made it/make it all worth it.

I would be mega disappointed if after 3 years I haven’t learnt a darned thing. The past three years have been Planet Shit Storm professional and personally. I talk values all the time. It’s been like someone has been saying, ‘Come on the Barclay, how much do you believe in what you say you do, wanna test it, have this … storm-o-shit, and another, and another, and another!’

When I do find my voice again, I think I will have a few lessons to share, so here we go, it might help you, it might not:

When I Find My Voice Again Lesson 1:

I will open the chest – and encourage you to also – as if it’s been a lost treasure: valuable, full of nuggets, shiny, been kept safe in a locked box. Who knows what I placed there, what you’ve placed in yours. Who cares what I take out to keep, and leave in for another few years? It has to be full of new ideas and missing pieces. Surely?

When I Find My Voice Again Lesson 2:

I accept the fact (and you may want to also) that I may say ‘oh, that’s where you’ve been, I’ve been looking for you’ and you/me have to make a choice. A decision. You/me have to choose if what you/me find is actually what you/me want to say now. Is this ‘voice’ you thought you had lost actually the one you want find and keep, now? Maybe it’s not that voice you have been looking for, maybe your voice has changed and you are ready to tell a different tale. I am. I so am. No idea how, but that doesn’t matter. I will find a way, so will you.

When I Find My Voice Again Lesson 3:

Voice (to me) is about authenticity. It’s all about saying what you feel and owning what you say. It’s not a shoddy attempt at copying ‘their voice’, it doesn’t choke, hold back, stutter, take time for a throat clearing. It’s unique. It will piss some off, others will love it. It’s shaking at the part ‘speak you truth, even if your voice shakes’, maybe crying, perhaps a shivering bottom lip.

Now I Have Found My Voice Again

I won’t stop what wants to come out to help you because I fear there may be repercussions, judgement, raised eyebrows or tut-tutting, neither should you when you find yours. It’s your voice. You can only say what you want to say. Assuming you aren’t out to hurt or damage anyone and stuff needs to be said, I want to help you say it. Values. Your core. I know I harp on about them so much, But you know when you aren’t living yours. You know it. So did I. And that, dear friend, will, if you are steering away from them hurt you so badly over everything else. No job, relationships, other human has the right to trample all over your core and gag you to shut up.

I want you to know. Really know. Really really know. That it doesn’t matter how shit life may be right now: that you could be in the worst living environment, relationship, job, no control over experience – life can (and does, it really fucking does) change in a moment. You have to decide on what you want, picture and feel that shit (as if your life depended on it, and it does depend on it).

You have to speak up, even when you feel you aren’t being heard. You may be shouting at mountains, and words echoing back to you. Fuck it. Say them anyway. Never ever stay silent when you are required to speak up: on behalf of yourself and of others who aren’t even invited at the table to contribute. Speak for them (with their permission of course).

I want to help you to not sit down, hold back, or play it safe for the fear of upsetting anyone who is using fear, bullying, gaslighting, abuse, status or words to confuse you out of what is your truth.  All these are unacceptable. End of. No debate. End.

I want to help you to use the word sorry for when it is meant not at the start and end a sentence.

There’s more, but for now, I am getting my voice back. In the meantime, as I spring clean around here and get my shit together download this, it’s not the definitive guide to getting your shit together, but it’s a good start.

Lots of love,

Dawn

P.S. I promised myself that Unfolding would be updated from 2020 into 2021. It is. I wanted to updated the words but ‘work’ meant I couldn’t/didn’t have the time. But. Here we go. If you want to unfold any year, (pandemic or not, this will help). Lots of love. Dawn xxx

On Being ‘All’ to ‘All’

Mostly I am surrounded by people who are givers.

People who would bend over backward, and then a little more, to help others out, sometimes to the detriment of their own health and well-being.

They say yes to every request them, they don’t want to see others suffer, they rush in to rescue and save the day, and they are first to soothe and last to step back.

I’ve worked with coaches (and been one myself) who want to be the ‘all and everything to everyone’, they want to help people, even if the most loving thing they could do is say, ‘No, I can’t’. Not just for them, but also for the person they are working with. Simply because they don’t all the answers.

Givers are a valuable commodity.

And they are prone to burning themselves out. Givers can have a hard time learning that when a problem is presented in front of them it’s okay to take a step back, get a little perspective and recognise their own limitations.

They may get upset when they give a huge part of themselves, their time, their resources and the receiver isn’t happy with what they’ve got, or they haven’t listened or acted on their solution.

Sometimes we have to accept that some people are not ready to receive alternatives (even when asked for), it doesn’t matter what is presented to them, in what way, in what format, even with love. And we have to accept that we may not be the right person to deliver a message.

They are where they are, and that’s okay.

We all have the right to be somewhere.

We are all standing in our own power, what that power looks and feels like is only known to the person.

As much as a giver wants to empower another, occasionally stepping back is the only way it can be done.

Consider this:

Do you need to step back in order for another person to step into their own power? 

 

Living Life Unfiltered (& June 2017 Journal Prompts)

As I type there is a little button called distraction free writing mode when I click it all the clutter that is normally on the screen disappears. Boosh. Gone.

That button offers me a blank space to type. The theory is it’s supposed to help me pay attention and focus on the writing and nothing else. It’s filtering out for me the clutter.

Impressively, your brain does a superb job of filtering: leaving out and letting in information that is hitting all your senses from the external world. If it didn’t you would become overwhelmed at all the stimuli out there.

Your brain selects and filters what does and doesn’t need your attention. 

That 3lb muscle has a better spam filter than any email programme: not important- straight to trash – bypassing the inbox.

It’s a v-e-r-y good thing that you can selective filter. Heck, it’s critical.  You can’t attend to everything.

But.

I’ve been thinking.

  • What are you/I leaving out? 
  • What are you/I missing? 

The theory behind selective filtering is we generally pay attention to people, information, ideas, beliefs, attitudes, perceptions that already match our own world views.

Living Life Unfiltered isn’t about having no filters.

It’s a simple knowledge that we do actually filter.

The awareness that we do not have all the information: what we are paying attention to already ‘fits’ with what we currently believe.

You know, it took me 2 years to notice that distraction free writing button.

It had always been there, I simply didn’t see it.

I try to remember now that everything I am seeing (perceiving and filtering) others are looking at the world entirely differently using their own little filtration system they have going on.

I can help my own learning by trying to see things that I have never seen before, I can help myself by trying to understand and not judge. That when something gets through a filter, when I do notice that it’s against my current beliefs, values and perceptions I can look at it. To question my own.

In truth, it doesn’t always work that way. I miss. I leave out. My beliefs are deep. We can be so afraid to admit we are wrong. Maybe we need to start by asking, ”Is there another way I can look at this?’

The answer is always yes. But do we really want to know?

For you (download):

June 2017 Journal Prompts

and here’s May ’17 Journal Prompts

Correct Practice

“It is only when the correct practice is followed for a long time, without interruptions and with a quality of positive attitude and eagerness, that it can succeed” – Patanjali

We tend to beat ourselves into a squidgy mental pulp when we judge where we are at now with a place that doesn’t exist yet, known as the future.

Too harsh. Too harsh.

We tend to think we aren’t growing and developing unless we are in permanent doing mode.

We tend to think that the correct practice is the ticking off to-do lists. That if we aren’t achieving the scoring we mustn’t be unfolding in any shape or form.

The ticks are our assessment of how we are ‘measuring up’: no ticks = not so hot.

It takes a human being an entire lifetime to unfold everything that is within them.

The correct practice is always allowing yourself to open naturally.

To not force it. To look at – from the inside out – everything that is slap bang in the middle of your path at this moment and to accept that it too is contributing to your own unfolding.

The correct practice of planting seeds is nurturing and providing all the conditions that are needed for it to grow.

It’s the same with us.

The nurturing comes first in the form of the correct practice of thought: the belief in your innate ability to grow.

It’s a simple practice, you don’t have to do a darned thing.

You simply have to be it.

Lots of love & moxie,

Dawn xxx