Moxie Living: Courage and Confidence

All blog post Moxie Living

Stop Weighing So Much

September 19 Dawn

“These mountains you are carrying, you were only supposed to climb” – Najwa Zebian

Some thoughts weigh so heavy on our minds the deplete us of all energy, others fuel us.

Which are you choosing?

Some people weigh their emotional well-being in pounds, not in how they feel moment to moment.

What scales are you using?

Some set unrealistic goals, the weight of the disappointment at not meeting them may mean it becomes a ‘failed attempt’ and not ‘lessons for the next time’.

For some, it’s the weight in their hearts of past judgments, belittling, put-me-downs, invalidated criticism that have scarred so deeply and weighted on their mind for years.

Enough.

The journey to setting and achieving your goals is basically like a great big Cook Off: peeling, shredding, layering, chopping, mixing, whisking, tasting, stirring, simmering … and other cooking it up words.

All the ingredients are here. You may not know the recipe or steps ahead. That’s okay. That’s the creative part, shoving it all together.

Most of the learning will come in the form of asking yourself questions.

Most of the doing will come in the form of putting down what is weighing you down so you can move lightly.

What story is weighing you down?

What story do you hear others tell about you and your life that is weighed you down so much, you may have started to believe it? What stories are such a weight but you actually have no idea who’s the story is, you’ve no idea how it got there or if it’s actually real?

In order to stop ‘weighing’ so much, we have to learn how to put some of what we are carrying down.

PS: This post was originally one of the daily emails to participants of 100 Days to Done, you can find out more here.

The Thing That Lights You Up, And All Creative Ways You’re Avoiding It (& An Invitation)

August 11 Dawn

Recently I’ve been speaking to a few people about their calling (which may sound cheesy to some, but it’s a great way to express what’s your thing that only you can do in the world, you know that thing that lights you up and you stay lit) the conversations have been about all the millions of highly unique and awesomely creative ways they are superbly avoiding it.

I see a pattern, we are obsessed with living an authentic, just be who you are, passionate about some darned thing and meaningful life but when we start the process of making it happen we realise there is a monumental gap from where we stand to where we want to be, on closer inspection of said great big walloping vacuum and acknowledging what is required of us, our anxiety rises, big time.

Which is really nothing for you to worry about, it’s natural, your brain needs to make connections first. It’s going to go into meltdown when it doesn’t have the information it needs to create what you’re asking it to. If I can give you any advice here, it would be, please try not to worry and throw it everything you’ve got because you (your brain) can handle it. And probably a little bit more.

That aside, let’s be truthful, it’s not the greatest feeling in the world to actually notice that your life doesn’t look like anything you want it to look like. There’s not much pleasure in admitting to yourself all the stuff that isn’t working and having no clarity about what you’re going to do about. Enter from stage left your anxiety.

So, it’s probably not news to you, because you’re in fear setting, to get exceptionally creative at finding other ways where you can express yourself fully. And these ways are not usually the healthiest and do nothing for lighting you up except postpone the ignition a little more, thus creating more anxiety.

Now then, these other creative expressions of who we are can manifest itself themselves so many ways including spending endless hours on Facebook and Twitter, pouring a glass (2 bottles) of the red, having a smoke, watching cat videos, setting unobtainable goals, cleaning things that don’t require cleaning, making up stories about what we need to do (but never do them), blaming the dog for your lack of time, watching box sets on Netflix, starting arguments just to feel something, nipping to the shops for purchases we don’t know how to even cook, volunteering for other people and projects to keep busy so we don’t have to think about our own work, gossiping about or comparing our unique selfs to others, taking a trip, lying around in our PJ’s waiting for the world to come to us or organising pens. Take your pick or insert your own!

Any distraction will do as long as you don’t feel anxiety, uncertainty, loneliness, fear and self-doubt of answering the call that is only meant for you.

You know something? It takes more energy to creatively avoid doing the work. Your work. Your gifts. Your talents. Your art. Your expression. Your soul work. Your meaning. Your difference.

You know that already if you’re doing the side step. Exhausting, huh?

What’s your avoidance strategies? What patterns have you created for yourself that elegantly distract you from becoming and being more of who you really are? In what ways are you creatively stopping yourself from getting started? In what ways have you allowed things into your life that are not aligned to your core?

For me in the past, in Living Moxie work, I’d tweak stuff. I tell myself I was doing important and needed work. But it was all smoke and mirrors. If I was tweaking guaranteed I was avoiding. Thankfully, I noticed this and I’ve others to call me on it if the habit arises again. Today, I get these really exciting ideas and instead just throwing myself at them, I stop, and ask myself ‘Does this align with my core?’ or ‘Is this my work?’ Now, I would like to write I do that all the time, but I don’t. I’m human. And, to be truthful, what I really ask is, ‘Do I want to do this?’ I’m getting better at saying no because it doesn’t feel right.

Today, I’m going to look at my notebook (that I bought on a shopping trip when I was avoiding doing the work), and really ask myself is this work (when created) a full expression of me, or is it an unhealthy creative avoidance tactic.?Recently I had an idea of starting a vegan blog, I even have the domain and installed everything I need to start. I want to get going on it. I’m worried about the time it will take. The world doesn’t actually need another vegan blog, and it certainly could do without my culinary skills but I do know it’s part of my true work too, and my core values, the compassion one.

What about you?

How are you creatively avoiding doing your work? What is really going on?
What would it take for you to sit down and get all your work and ideas out on paper and go through them one by one and ask yourself, ‘Is this my work or me avoiding doing my work?’ And scoring out what is avoidance to the true work.
How can you show up (for yourself, nobody else) and do the darned work?
What can you use on yourself when you feel the anxiety rise? What can you do to remind yourself that it’s a natural response as you step into the unknown?

Your Invitation

NB: Registration is now closed for the following event.

A couple of years ago I had an idea which I called 100 Days to Done. In short, I invited people to participate in an online community where they declared a doable goal to get done in 100 days or a topic they wanted to work on. Did it work? Mostly. Yes, it did.

What happened?

The people: it was a lovely gathering of folks: funny, witty, supportive, creative, from all walks of life, courageous, open and giving.

The creations: people answered their call (got to work on their stuff), in the time we were together businesses were launched, careers were changed, blogs were started, peeps got healthier, university courses were signed up for, relationships improved, confidence increased. For me, Moxie Campfires was born.

It’s happening again. You’re invited.

Why? Because I firmly believe that joining with others can spark creativity, ignite ideas, empower you take ownership and help with the questions that come with transforming your life, career or business. And

If you would like to take part. ~~Click here to read about a little more and please come and join in. It’s free to join~~. Registration is now closed.

You’re Not Alone (But I’ll Understand If You Don’t Believe Me)

August 3 Dawn

It’s possible that I could be alone in this.

However working alongside people for years, I’ve learned that when it comes to our suffering and struggles it’s never been just about you, just about me, just about them, it’s about all of us.

I have no idea what your story is or the chapters that have gone before. I don’t know what you’re going through today, what keeps you up at night, with what and where you suffer in life, the trials you walk through, or your fears, unless, of course, you’ve shared them with me.

I haven’t a clue what guilt you carry from the past, or what you have lost, and what is hard for you to let go. But, if my learning and experience are accurate then I would take bets you may believe you’re alone in your struggles, that it’s ‘just you’. It’s not. I can only ever speak for myself, even then, that still means you’re still not alone.

It’s always fear in opening up to one another that holds us back and stops us from getting the support, help, love, encouragement and understanding we need in life.

Let’s face it, if we open ourselves up and feel more vulnerable in the act of trying, why would we even go there? I’m not going to say ‘just reach out’, ‘ask for help’, or ‘let people in’, because it is hard. I know that. Everyone’s content is different, complex and unique. And, sometimes, well, sometimes the shame we feel about our own story is such a heavy weight, we think we have to hold it alone because we feel ‘it’s all our fault’.

We’re afraid that by standing emotionally naked before others dressed in our struggles and fears they will judge us, misunderstand us, or push us away. That if we expose our words and feelings we will be shown up as the ones who aren’t coping, or aren’t enough, never mind good enough.

We don’t want to be vulnerable.

We don’t want others to see how much we are hurting. We don’t want to be the ones who are less than (what?), we don’t others to see that we haven’t got it all figured out and are the ones who lose control at times.

We’re so scared that if we remove the mask, release the guard and let the brave face fall others will notice that we haven’t got our life neatly packaged up, that we’ve failed or falling. Heck, we don’t want to be the one who risks standing alone and appears to have lost our way and may not make it.

It does take courage to be the one who stands, shares and exposes themselves to others. It’s risky, make no doubt.

It may not be well received, or our words may be used against us or thrown back down at our feet at a later date when the meaning of what we said today has changed, may have expired or no longer holds true for us.

Yes, we may expose our private world to another and – through no blame – we assume they have understood our workings when they have merely run it through their own experience and filtered into a box called ‘What I think you mean’.

With all that above, why would we share? Why would we risk it? Even if we know and understand that we all carry our own struggles and suffering – that we aren’t alone – why allow others in our world if we run the risk of leaving ourselves wide open?

You can choose to run the risk, or not. Fear will always hold you hostage to the belief that nobody else is suffering the way you are. Fear won’t let you hear the words, ‘You’re not alone’, no, it would prefer you didn’t notice them. Fear will always ask you to pop on your bravery mask and your suit of armour and ‘deal with it’, it will keep hidden from you the others wearing theirs. You get to choose, but fear doesn’t always have your best interests in mind.

If a friend were struggling right now, what would you encourage them to do? How hard would it be for you to do if the shoe was on your foot? How can you help another see that whatever they are going through right now they are valuable, they are needed, and they deserve compassion and care that will see them through until the day arrives when they see and hold it, once more, for themselves?

PS: this article was originally sent in the Living Moxie newsletter. You can sign up to get that here if you would like to. If you have any questions about coaching or workshops, feel free to drop me an email at dawn@dawnbarclay.com

Till next time
Love, Dawn xxx

Feelings, But No Words

July 23 Dawn

I’m sure you have strong thoughts and powerful feelings about the current events in the world right now. I do. I have the thoughts, the feelings, but the words to express them, those I’ve been struggling with.

I’m grateful for those who have managed to sort out their own house enough to help me work on mine: how is this world is so apparently divided and going through the worst of conflicts and yet how can it still be wonderful at the same time. My inability to express how I feel is no longer an excuse for my inaction and paralysis.

Shakespeare wrote, ‘All the world’s a stage. And all the men and women merely players’. One day you and I will have to leave this stage. At our last bow and final curtain call, we both will be able to look back and say, ‘We were a part of that. We were there. We were in it. Right in the middle as it all happened’.

We can’t change the world until we are prepared to change ourselves. We can’t change ourselves unless we are prepared to look through new eyes. We are not invisible to each other unless we are choosing not to see.

Just because we don’t understand, have time, the words or we would rather look away. We cannot say that we are achieving, successful, compassionate, and loving if there are other people in the world who are living in a neverending nightmare.

We have to look.

People like you and I do make a difference. We’ve probably never heard of them but we have heard and know our own name. We may be unable to express how we feel. But feelings are enough.

We may not change the world, but we can change the world under our feet.

We may not feel right now that we have the power to change policies, laws, guidelines but we always have the power to change minds, that is where the power really lies.

I read the other day, ‘The world has always been like this, it was worse when … get used to it!’ No, I won’t. I am alive now. That counts. So are you. We are the cavalry. Us.

We can do better than this. More even. What we don’t understand, we educate ourselves on. Where we have stopped listening, we can open ourselves again. Where we think we can’t make a road inward or a difference, we can do what we can. We can look up. We can look at each other, remind ourselves that the person looking back at us, is us.

We can challenge. We can take action. We can ask others what they would like us to do if we don’t know ourselves. We can choose to leave the path of me, and join the one of we. We can come off the sidelines and join the match, pick up the ball and run. We don’t have to offer opinions and solutions – we might not have them – but we can give people space to simply be heard.

I can’t expect things to be different purely by my good intentions. I may never have the ‘right’ words, but I do know my feelings and my intuition, these will help me see completely. Knowing them is all the power I need to act. So, what about you …?

Authenticity. Really, Why Does It Matter? Why Now?

July 23 Dawn

You can’t buy authenticity.

You don’t learn it from a book. You don’t pick it up at a workshop.

Billions are spent every year on products, courses, consultants, training, coaching, facilitation on big questions such as who am I/we, what do I/we stand for, how can I/we show up as the most genuine, real, congruent, honest version of myself/ourselves at work, and in life.

I’ve worked for the past 20 years in the space of helping individuals live an authentic life, they come with those questions above. I always ask them: why is it important to you and why now?

People are waking up, and they are also very tired, and they also have a craving and hunger for something that’s real. Honest. Not surrounded or driven by fear. They are fed up being lied to: by the media, politicians, corporations, and many others. They may not be able to express why it’s actually important to them, or why now, but they have an knowing, they are trusting their intuition and gut that authenticity has to be the foundation for how they live their life.

But they can’t learn authenticity.

Sure, they can pick up a really good understanding of what it means. But authenticity is not a classroom exercise, a policy, a guideline, a law, framework or model.

It’s a practice.

An ongoing, lifelong, never ending practice.

It takes work. It takes time, persistence, honesty, courage and the ability to keep on when everything around you is telling you to stop.

You can’t be half real. You can’t be a quarter genuine. You can’t be one-third honest.

What does being fully authentic bring us? What does it end? What is let go? What is brought forth?

I’m asking: why does it really matter? Why now? Join me

You Aren’t Hiking Up the ‘Be True to Yourself’ Path Alone. Really.

June 27 Dawn

The path to remaining true to yourself is like a life-long trek up the side of a treacherous mountain. If the exposure doesn’t get to you first there are always the tough scrambles, steep ledges, crumbling rocks, plenty of opportunities to get sidetracked and lost, wrong signposts, misinformation, and almost certainly no shortcuts or hacks.

Once on the path. You keep moving.

And you hope that the guidebooks are right, ‘by the time you get to the top you realise the walk was worth it, the view will take your breath away, unlike no other, unique and incomparable’.

While walking your path it’s a single track, with only room for you. You may be utterly surprised that when you do reach a rest point you meet plenty of others who have walked before you and more are behind.

Where you thought you were walking alone, you realise that others have been making the ascent. Not with you. But just over there, nearby.

You only understand what your journey has/is taking out of you, but slowly you begin to learn that others have struggled walking their path too. That they have found the walk to be utterly exhausting and emotionally draining at times. That at times, just like you, they have also wanted to turn back around and walk back down. Why walk the be true to yourself path when easier walks which have been carved and trailed by many are available?

If we only noticed and understood that everyone is walking up the side of a mountain day in and day out.

That we are all weighed down by something as we step. If we recognised rest points in our day-to-day living, moments when we catch someone eyes, when we accidentally bump into someone, when we brush past another and looked closely and deeply they too have had their own pain, loaded with suffering and struggling, lost and in fear, overwhelmed and bruised by the journey, If only we could see that.

If we simply and lovingly realised that we are not alone but it’s a solitary journey.

There will be people you meet along the way who will see all the effort you are making, and they will be able to share their experiences with you. Ultimately you to have to walk on your own. You have to stick to your own trail. But take a look up every now and again, look deeply, notice the loads we are all carrying. The very moment we cannot see that load in others is when we stop feeling compassion, and when we stop feeling that what is the point of walking?