Tag: career-change

Shiny Objects and Gut Checks

Posted on by Cylvia Hayes
At Unity Village and worldwide headquarters with my friend and minister Jane.

I just completed the final paper for the final prerequisite class to start full-blown ministerial school. What?!  Even two years ago I couldn’t have seen this one coming. I was taking classes through Unity Worldwide Ministries for my own personal growth. I wasn’t planning to become a minister at a congregation but I was taking a bunch of the classes so I figured I might as well be doing it for credit. Next thing I know I’ve just completed the 18th and final course.

Looking back on the massive transition process I went through when life blew to pieces several years ago I can now see that I did some things that helped and other things that definitely didn’t. One of the things that slowed my reinvention was jumping at too many shiny objects, chasing at every opportunity that seemed to appear. I see this so often now with the clients I am working with who are in the process of reinventing careers or trying to find purpose and clarity around the next chapter of life. Because it is so hard to sit in the uncertainty of not having a concrete goal or a clearly defined career position, we often try to force things into place and convince ourselves to take on certain things even when our inner compass is warning us it isn’t a good fit. Once I cured myself of Shiny Object Syndrome my coaching business took off and I finally completed the book I’d been working on for four years!

I offer this as a friendly warning to all of you who find yourself facing transition and the need, or desire, to reinvent your career, life situation or identity. Focus will be key. However, I’d warn against hyper-focus. There is a fine line between being too scattered and staying open to possibilities you might not have noticed before. This is where self-honesty and intuition are essential. In my case, even as I started to reign in the shiny object pursuits, I kept doing the ministerial classes simply because it felt right. I was enjoying the personal learning and the courses were giving me tools and insights that were directly useful to my coaching clients. When I checked in deeply with myself, even though I didn’t have a fully baked intended outcome, it felt right to stay the course and keep taking the courses.

Over the summer as I was nearing completion of the prereqs I learned that there is a pathway through the Unity ministerial program that enables you to focus on the specific audiences you most want to serve. For me that includes environmental and social change advocates (the folks who choose to deal with big gnarly issues all day every day) and people transitioning out of incarceration. So, lo and behold, I will begin the Unity Urban Ministerial School main program this Winter term. Again, What?!!  It feels right and I am really looking forward to it.

Overlooking the beautiful Unity Village main campus

One of the things that let me know I wanted to keep pursuing the ministerial path was how much I enjoy becoming a more engaged part of the Unity worldwide movement.  If you are moving through a time of transition, as you stretch out into new directions, new networks and audiences, pay attention to the particular groups, organizations or communities that you enjoy spending time with. This can be an important guidepost during times of reinvention.

The path to empowered reinvention lies between wide-open vistas of options you haven’t considered before and disciplined gut checks to determine if those options really are a fit for you. It’s the balance point between having the courage to try on new possibilities and the courage to sit with the uncertainty long enough to allow it to gel into the perfect next chapter.

Love,

Cylvia

If you’d like to explore Empowerment Coaching to help you gain clarity and direction and put together a plan for effective reinvention I’d be happy to provide a complimentary 30 minute Launch Your Next Chapter breakthrough session. Just click here and schedule a time that works for you.

Flowing through Times of Turbulence

Posted on by Cylvia Hayes

I am headed off for our annual rafting trip on the wild and scenic Rogue River. I am so excited that, for the first time, I’ll be able to provide this incredible experience to my nephew (son really) who is finally here with me after a lengthy prison sentence. This will be his very first experience of the freedom and majesty of wild nature.

John and I do this trip every summer. He rows a raft and I row a raft and we take a few family members and dear friends on a magical journey.

Rowing a raft reminds me so much of the work I do coaching people who are navigating major life transition and reinvention.

If you wind up in turbulent water you are most likely to get hurt or even drown if you fight it, try to get to shore too soon or try to cling to some solid object. That is how you are most likely to get battered and tossed around. The key is to keep your feet in front of you, eyes open and let the current carry you through the rapids and into calmer water.

The tough times in our lives are like that too. Resisting the change and clinging to old, familiar ways just increases the turbulence. The key to finding peace and power in the midst of life-altering periods of change is to open our hearts, let the emotions wash through us and allow ourselves to flow with the uncertainty. There will be rapids, and eddies that feel as though we are stuck in place, and even some calm still pools that allow us to float gently for a time. Every piece of the transition process has a purpose as we move through the space between our old life and our new one. As we open our hearts and our minds we allow the ever-present current of change that is life to flow us into the new, expanded versions of our work, our lives and our Selves.

If you are in the midst of transition and reinvention I would be so happy to speak with you. I currently have openings for 6 complimentary Reinvention Breakthrough coaching session. Just click the link here and pick a time that works for you.

There is a river of opportunity, peace and life flowing to and through you right this moment.

Love,

Cylvia

 

 

Focus on the What, Allow the How

Posted on by Cylvia Hayes
Not the most flattering picture, but (sadly!) the best I got of me presenting our Sacred Activism workshop.

Four and a half years ago the career I had put my entire adult life into blew apart. At first, I fought and railed and hustled trying to keep it afloat. After the first few months I got a client here and there but the truth was, I was so broken by everything that was happening in my life I didn’t do my best work. In desperation, I took on a client that I knew looked like trouble, and sure enough, a few months in, I got stiffed for several thousand dollars, something that had never before happened in my professional career.

Finally, I just had to surrender to the fact that I needed time to heal and it was going to take months, maybe even years to get through all the legal challenges and get my beloved career as a social enterprise and New Economy consultant and speaker up and running again.

I knew I still wanted what I had wanted before, which was to make a difference in bringing humanity into a saner, healthier relationship with our planet. But now I didn’t know how to go about it. On top of that, because of all the huge challenges and upheaval, I wanted something in addition. I wanted to be able to harness the mess I was dealing with in a way that would help others. But again I didn’t know how to go about it and those two things, the old career and the new insights, seemed to be in pretty different worlds.

So, I took a leap of faith and surrendered to the possibility that my old career might be over. I knew I had done a lot of good work through that vehicle and if it was necessary for me to leave it behind, though it hurt, I was willing. I stopped fighting so hard to keep the work going, and allowed myself to be worked on.

As part of my healing, reflection and personal development process I began taking spiritual education classes through Unity, the spiritual community that I had been part of for many, many years. After a few classes the minister suggested maybe I ought to think about ministerial school. It seemed a little crazy at the time but I was already taking accredited classes so I figured I might as well enroll and be getting credit for the classes I was taking.

During that same time I was also training to get certified as a strategic empowerment coach and pretty soon the ministerial classes were proving hugely useful to the coaching work I was doing. I began to think maybe there really was something to the whole “becoming a minister” thing. Staying on that path felt right even though I didn’t have any clear idea what I’d do with a ministerial credential and I didn’t really have a desire to be a lead minister heading a congregation.

This is me and my dear friend Reverend Jane Hiatt in the water tower building at Unity Village.

I just kept taking classes as I built my coaching business and even began building up some clients in my original New Economy field as well.

And then this week happened. I attended my first Unity Worldwide annual convention. I was there mostly just to take it in and learn and to visit Unity Village for the first time (which was awesome!). However, for the past couple of years I’d also been serving on the Unity Worldwide EarthCare team: EarthCare is the program that helps Unity congregations adopt more sustainable and environmentally friendly practices. It had just been a way for me to make a contribution in my field even though my professional work in that field had been blown off the rails. The EarthCare team was asked to present a workshop on Sacred Activism and I was to be one of the presenters.

These events came together like tumblers clicking into place.

  • Tumbler One: First, I learned there is a pathway to Unity ministry that enables you to establish alternative ministries that focus on serving certain populations in many regions rather than just a single congregation. The program is wide open to my desire to serve three main groups: people at mid-life facing major reinvention, environmental and social change advocates, and people transitioning out of prison.

 

  • Tumbler Two: The EarthCare team delivered our sacred activism workshop and in it I talked about the need to shift to a saner, sustainable New Economy. I didn’t know how a New Thought spiritual crowd would respond to that message but they were totally into it! They were at that particular workshop out of a desire to be more effective environmental activists but the whole New Economy side of the issue was new to them.

 

  • Tumbler Three: I went to a session showing a short film on Conscious Capitalism. I was electrified. I had no idea New Thought spiritual institutions like Unity were bringing in New Economy concepts like Conscious Capitalism. Turns out, this was the very first time.

That night, though totally exhausted, I couldn’t sleep. I lay there in the dark and realized that just like that, I finally knew the direction my ministry needed to go, how it would support my empowerment coaching services and even pull in and build upon my previous career. In a flash my life and work reintegrated like Humpty Dumpty coming back together but differently configured.

On top of all of that, and to my amazement, I am just completing the 18th and final required prerequisite course necessary to begin the actual official Unity Worldwide Ministerial program. It sort of seems like it just happened! Even though looking back it has been a ton of work and a lot of study, I have loved it and am super excited about the next phase.

I finally have found my calling for this new phase of career and it doesn’t mean completely abandoning my old career, as I’d feared but been willing to face, but is actually an expansion. After nearly five years I now really know the what and even the next few pieces of the how. I am so excited!

For those of you who are dealing with transition and reinvention I encourage you to get very clear on the values, the things you really care about, the people and causes you truly want to contribute to and the key ways you want your life to make a difference in our world. And then stop pushing so hard, open up to the truth that there are pathways to those goals you haven’t even dreamed of yet. Focus on your what and allow the how to show up for you.

And never forget, you may not have what you had before – the titles, the positions, the roles, the money – but you still are all that you have worked to become. You still are all the experiences, the talents, the skills and accomplishments that were yours before the transition. You still are all of that and now you can become even more.

Love,

Cylvia

P.S. If you’d like to schedule a complimentary Empowerment Breakthrough Session, just pick a good time at this link.  https://calendly.com/cylvia/30min