Tag: Coaching

Releasing Fear

Posted on by Cylvia Hayes

Nearly anytime we are facing major change, especially if it isn’t something we asked for or planned for, there is usually fear involved.  As we head into a weekend I wanted to share a couple of excerpts from my book that are useful for taking our minds back from fear and reclaiming peace even in swirling circumstances:

Fear is learned through the guidance of our parents and through our own falls and hurts and heartaches. Some of it we’re hard-wired for like the fear of abandonment and isolation. Another layer is piled on from the culture of fear we’re experiencing in our current media and political atmosphere. We’re literally saturated with fear which can compound the dread when something catastrophic happens in our personal lives, even to the point of become incapacitating.

Fear is programmed into us. With discipline we can train ourselves to determine which fears merit action and which are just a waste of time, mind, energy and peace. A thing learned can be unlearned. This particular unlearning is liberating beyond imagination. — from When Life Blows Up: A Guide to Peace, Power and Reinvention 

Here are a couple of strategies I outline in the book that have been tremendously helpful to me and to those I work with in releasing unnecessary, unproductive fear:

    • Learn the art of “Presencing”, of practicing being in the Present Moment.

The simple fact is that unless we train ourselves differently, most of us spend the bulk of our lives focused on the past or the future, often in fear. If you’re reading this book you’re likely dealing with some difficult, even traumatic situation right now. There are probably a lot of unknowns, worry, angst. But ask yourself this, right now in this very moment, are you basically OK? Are you right now, under direct attack? In this very moment are you warm? Do you have shelter and food? Are you breathing? If you have time to read this sentence your answer is almost certainly yes!

To become present, look around you right now wherever you are. Notice the sights. Take a deep breath through your nose and notice the scents. Listen to the many sounds and the little silences between them. Feel the chair beneath you, supporting you. Focus on the breath gently moving in and out of your body. Feel the rhythm of your beating heart. Run your right hand gently across the top of your left. Notice. Breathe. Say aloud, “I Am here. I Am here. I Am here.”

Let your body release its tensions – loosen the jaw, drop shoulders. Underneath all the noises and sounds feel the deep stillness of the earth and sea. Breathe. Deeply. Look around and feel this moment in time. Release and relax.

Developing a presencing practice takes exactly that — practice. The more times each and every day you bring your focus back to the present moment, even for just a second or two, the calmer and less stressed you will be. Not only will this help you navigate trauma more easily, it will add all sorts of additional beauty and richness to the good times.

Coming into the present moment gives you the space to clarify the fears that are about imagined future happenings, those that are about things you have no control over and those that might actually merit some action. I highly recommend reading The Power of Now, by Eckert Tolle. ….  

    • Do a Fear versus Reality exercise.

Take a sheet of paper and draw a line down the middle to make two columns. Recall a time in your recent past when you were really fearful or worried about some potential event or outcome. When you felt frantic over some crisis. Let yourself really feel how the fear was affecting you, your thoughts, your body, your sleep patterns. In the left hand column write down this feared thing and the terrible outcomes you imagined or expected.

Now remember what actually happened and in the right hand column write down what actually came to be. Did the feared event turn out as you imagined? Was it as bad as you feared? Where is that big challenge now? What was the damage done or the loss suffered? Did any positive growth or learning occur? Were there beautiful aspects of it that you didn’t see coming?

Sometimes feared things do come to pass. The loved ones we worried about meet tragedy. Our unwise or misguided decision costs us our home or freedom.   The person we want to be with leaves us. This human experience brings hardship and sometimes we can see the hardship coming. However, most of the time we don’t and most of our modern day fear is based on imagination and speculation about possible future events that may or may not shake out a certain way.  Mark Twain once noted, “I am an old man and have seen many troubles, but most of them never happened”!  Our unmerited fears do nothing except rob us of our power, peace, and wellbeing.  We have the power to release them.

Have a lovely, fear-free weekend.

Cover of Cylvia Hayes’ When Life Blows Up

Love,

Cylvia

To schedule a complimentary Transformation Breakthrough coaching session click here and pick a time that works for you.

Laying Hold of the Dream

Posted on by Cylvia Hayes

Today is the celebration of the birth of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., one of the most influential civil rights activists in history. He is known for his tremendous vision, unbelievable bravery and powerful speeches. He was, also, a man, who had challenges, heartbreak, and moments of doubt.

Did you know that his most famous speech, the “I have a dream” speech just about fell flat? In front of a crowd of a quarter million people at the March on Washington in 1963, Dr. King seemed to struggle a bit with his speech. It wasn’t flowing. At one point he looked up from his notes and said:

“Go back to Mississippi; go back to Alabama; go back to South Carolina; go back to Georgia; go back to Louisiana; go back to the slums and ghettos of our Northern cities, knowing that somehow this situation can and will be changed. Let us not wallow in the valley of despair.”

The people on the platform with him knew he had gone off his prepared remarks, and that’s when Mahalia Jackson, a renowned gospel singer, shouted to him: “Tell ’em about the dream, Martin!”

Dr. King pivoted, found the fire within, and proclaimed:

“I say to you today, my friends — and so even though we face the difficulties of today and tomorrow, I still have a dream. It is a dream deeply rooted in the American dream.

I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up, live out the true meaning of its creed: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal.”

I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia, the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave-owners will be able to sit down together at the table of brotherhood.

I have a dream that one day, even the state of Mississippi, a state sweltering with the heat of injustice, sweltering with the heat of oppression, will be transformed into an oasis of freedom and justice.

I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.

I have a dream today.

I have a dream that one day down in Alabama, with its vicious racists, with its governor having his lips dripping with the words of interposition and nullification, one day, right there in Alabama, little black boys and black girls will be able to join hands with little white boys and white girls as sisters and brothers.

I have a dream today.

I have a dream that one day every valley shall be exalted, every hill and mountain shall be made low, the rough places will be made plain, and the crooked places will be made straight, and the glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together.”

And with that, Dr. King delivered one of the most powerful and famous speeches in American history.  It would have been a whole different story had he stayed in the nightmare.

My prayer today is that this country will one day live up to Dr. King’s dream, that it will become not only our collective dream but also the reality on the ground.

And I also pray that each and every one of you reading this, no matter the struggle you may be facing, no matter the hardship, will find the courage to pivot from doubt and despair and take hold, once again, of your dreams. Powerful dreams are what change our lives and our world.

Love,

Cylvia

What a Week!

Posted on by Cylvia Hayes

This was a huge week! My book, finally, went live! I’d be so honored if you’d check out When Life Blows Up: A Guide to Peace, Power and Reinvention and let me know what you think.   And, after a year of working at it, I finally got the go ahead to teach a college course on Economic Illusions, Truths and Dangerous Assumptions. This course is a perfect way to offer the twenty-five years of expertise I have in making the shift toward a more sustainable, saner, equitable new economy.

I share this to offer encouragement if you are in a position of facing major and prolonged life transition. The two milestones I mention above were five years in the making! It took that long to move through the process of having everything fall apart, being willing (even when I didn’t want to) to sit with the uncertainty, doing the inner work of releasing my old identity (even when I didn’t want to) and opening up to allowing things to fall back into place looking very different than it did before the big crisis.

Back then, before it all blew up, if I had mapped out a pathway that I thought would bring my work and life to the next level it wouldn’t have been as good as what is taking place now.

Please know that even when it seems there is no possible way through the mess in front of you, there is. And, when it seems like the best of your life is behind you, it doesn’t have to be.

Here is an excerpt from my book, Chapter 12, titled On Purpose:

I don’t know if everything happens for a purpose but I do know we can find purpose in everything that happens. Pulling value out of agony helps us make sense of traumatic events and is a powerful survival skill; it’s also the thing that allows us to become more than we were before.

The greatest gift we can give ourselves and our world is to allow the trauma to break us open to the truth of who we really are, but be prepared, that opening process can send disruptive ripples throughout every aspect of your life. Once we’ve experienced the peace and power of the I Am consciousness, the connection to Source, once we’ve really laid hold of the fact that we’re more than just these human bodies, our purpose and priorities often shift. …..  

Our greatest challenges and deepest wounds are usually the best catalysts to propel us forward on a pathway of growth and expansion. Our times of deep loss and uncertainty are the times to go within, not to hole up and shrink but to whole up, expand and get very clear about what we really want to do with this precious human life we’ve taken on.

This human life we are experiencing is a series of classrooms and the more we make room for the inner lessons and our own growth, the more our mess can become our message, and our contribution.

And, just in case you think I’m putting forward a picture of my life being all perfection (something I really detest in many bloggers and coaches because none of our lives really are, at least not all the time) I want to share what happened this very morning.

I rolled out of bed and into my little hot tub with coffee and devotional book in hand, all ready to do my morning meditation. Unless I have a really early morning meeting I keep my first thing in the morning time sacred. However, this morning, just as I settled into the warm water, with magical snow flakes falling all around, my son, who is in the process of launching his own adult life, called to inform me of a number of calamities that had just hit him including a flat tire on the work truck he parks in my side lot. As much as I tried to ignore it I could hear him over there struggling with the jack and the whole situation, and life in general. My irritation melted into a heart swell of wanting to ease his frustration and struggle and so, I wound up spending the first part of the morning, in my bathrobe with a ski jacket over it (not a good look!), in a snowstorm, teaching him how to operate a big jack to get a big tire off a heavy truck. Meanwhile my hound dog got into the garbage can next door! It was a pretty darned redneck scene (said with love and homage to my roots!).   He made it to work and calmed down a lot and he learned how to operate a floor jack. I, once again, felt tremendous gratitude for being raised a rough little farm kid who knows how to do such things.

I didn’t get as much done today as I had on the “Do list”, but I did lay down a lovely, funny memory with my son and hound dog. Yep, quite a week!

Peace and happy weekend to you all.

Love,

Cylvia

P.S.  If you are interested in Launching Your Next Awesome Chapter of life, career or both, schedule a free coaching session here.

Leavin’ the Last Decade in the Rear View Mirror!

Posted on by Cylvia Hayes

Just before New Year’s I received from my publisher, the loose-leaf version of my book so that I could do one more round of edits and proofreading. I took the bundle of papers and a cup of coffee out to my little hot tub and starting reading it (again!) and making a few notes and edits, (again!).

Reviewing it brought home what a truly momentous New Year’s this is. It had all been so very different and so much harder a few years ago, as I noted in the chapter three titled, Redefining Surrender:

“Throughout the holidays the press pounded me and John and the governor’s office and campaign staff. Several of the Oregonian’s click-for-cash reporters were relentless. My attorneys recommended I sue the Oregonian to prevent them from getting my personal emails. That meant suddenly I had both an investigation by the Oregon Ethics Commission, and a lawsuit in the Marion County Circuit Court trying to keep a dishonest newspaper from getting my personal emails, as well as a looming federal investigation.   The mushroom cloud just seemed to keep getting bigger and thicker.

In addition to being weary from the constant bombardment and accusations, I was heartsick about what we were doing to the planet. …. My work seemed so small compared to the enormity of the issues and even that work was now under intense attack by relentless and vicious media.   I hit a deep depression. For two days I just lay in the recliner watching TV and drinking beer, numbing myself. Normally this was a time of the year when I reviewed the goals I’d had for the year just passing and set goals for the new year ahead. Not this time. I just didn’t have the heart for it. This would be the first time I could remember that I hadn’t set goals for the year to come.”

Well good-bye and good riddance to those times and trials and hello 2020! This is the first January in five years that I am not dealing with legal and financial challenges beyond my control that came with my life blowing all to pieces.

I have heard from so many of you that you are more than ready to put the last decade in the REAR VIEW MIRROR!  So many of us have struggled a lot, suffered a lot and grown a lot. And now it’s time to launch a whole new and awesome chapter.

Right now, in the heart of winter, at the very beginning of a new year and new decade is the perfect time to drop old patterns that no longer serve us. One of the most important aspects is letting go the old stories we tell ourselves about ourselves and about our lives. Here’s another piece from my book:

“Surrendering to the loss of our old identity, the story we told of ourselves and to ourselves makes room for possibilities that didn’t exist, or that we couldn’t see, in the old story. This is a point of massive evolutionary potential, in how we view our world, others and ourselves, in how we feel and think. The evolution happens in its own time, sometimes gradually, in small shifts, and sometimes in rapid and profound revelation.

Those times when the mirages of order in our old stories fall to pieces are times when we can choose to be diminished, reduced and limited or expanded and diversified. The power comes when we resist the fear and urge to contract and instead open to the possibility that the change, no matter how painful, may be the best gift we never imagined. By releasing our death grip on an old, familiar identity we make room for new amazing facets to surface and shine. The most courageous choice is to give time and room to the space between our old story and the new, to sit still in the liminal unknowing and allow the sacred to emerge.”

I am indescribably grateful for all the growth and change that has resulted from the indescribably painful set of circumstances that seized my life for a time. There is no doubt that all the things we view as problems, challenges and pain can actually be tremendous gifts; I call them gifts wrapped in barbed wire!

So here’s to 2020!   And her’s to each of us making this the best year of our lives so far.

And oh yeah, I’m setting goals again! Here are a few:

  • Being of top-notch service to my awesome coaching and consulting clients
  • Launching a college course about creating a saner, sustainable economy
  • Launching the book! And starting the next one.
  • And, some less grand things like getting my house painted ….

What are your 2020 goals?  I would love to hear.

And I would love to support you in clarifying and actualizing them. If you’d like to chat about it, just book a Discovery Session here. This is a free one-on-one empowerment coaching session with just you and me.

FYI, the first six new folks who sign up for my Launch Your Next Chapter empowerment program will receive complimentary copies of my book, When Life Blows Up: A Guide to Peace, Power and Reinvention.

Love,

Cylvia

 

Want to make 2020 a breakthrough year?

Posted on by Cylvia Hayes

Are you interested in making 2020 a breakthrough year?

Me too! That’s why I am offering a 20% discount to my Launch Your Next Chapter program to the first six people who sign up between now and January 15th.   20% in honor of 2020 – a new year and whole new decade!

Heading into a New Year is a perfect time to focus on creating a solid plan for putting more peace, power and purpose in your life.   This coaching program is specifically designed for people facing transition and reinvention and wanting to make 2020 a turning point year.

To see if this program might be a fit for you, I invite you to schedule a complimentary Discovery and Breakthrough coaching session. You can pick a time that works for you at this link.

As an added bonus, when you join the Launch Your Next Chapter program I will be happy to provide you with a copy of my brand new book, When Life Blows Up: A Guide to Peace, Power and Reinvention.

Cover of Cylvia Hayes’ When Life Blows Up

Love,

Cylvia

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

 

 

The Power of Rewriting Our Stories

Posted on by Cylvia Hayes

It can be damn unsettling to be at a point of major transition and life or career reinvention in our 40s, 50s and 60s. And yet, reinvention at this point in life is unbelievably common. Take heart, you are not alone!

There are more Americans between the ages of 45 and 65 than any other age block in our country AND a whole heck of a lot of us are in the midst of big life transitions and changes.

One of the best ways to harness change as a path to peace and empowerment is to take a deep and honest look at the stories we tell ourselves about ourselves and the world. We all consume stories by media and pop culture and our own families and  we wind up attaching to some of these stories and accepting them as truth even when that might not be the case.

For example, pop-culture media is filled with images and stories of celebrity success and accomplishment that are mostly airbrushed illusion.  Sensationalist news media pours heavy doses of fear into the mix, enticing us to compare ourselves to those airbrushed images in order to get our attention and willingness to spend money on their advertisers’ products. None of this has anything much to do with depth, substance or real life.

The stories we buy into about ourselves, life, limitations, are just that, stories. But they are immensely powerful: they literally shape our experience of life.

When I was forced out of a career I’d spent my whole life building, I felt utterly adrift, heartbroken, terrified and really pissed off. I was also unable to do anything to get back what I had lost. After raging around for a time in anger, resistance and despair, I finally made a decision to take control of what I could which was the way I chose to view the situation. Instead of sticking with the story (however justifiable it might have been) that I had been unfairly targeted and taken out, I chose to view it as an unasked for sabbatical to explore other areas of life and myself.

I wound up growing and expanding so much that when the dust settled and the reshaped landscape of my life came into view, I realized I didn’t even want to do what I’d been doing before! I had grown into new dimensions and directions. In fact, that’s what led to me developing the Launch Your Next Chapter and Jedi Activist programs and doing work that I LOVE.

In recent years I’ve worked with many, many people in the process of reinventing at mid-life. Like all of us they started out pretty afraid but as they began to let go of the old scripts and write new stories they have gone on to launch new businesses and non-profit organizations, find beautiful new loving relationships, sort out difficult financial situations and even boldly pick up and move to new countries they’d always wanted to experience.

One of the most disempowering stories we buy into is that we are supposed to be in a certain place at a certain stage in life. It’s the false story that we “should have done thus and so by now” and are too old to do (fill in the blank), now.   For the most part, that is garbage. Just consider:

  • Mother Teresa was forty years old when she founded the Missionaries of Charity.
  • Jack Nicklaus was forty-six years old when he shot 65 in the final round, and 30 on the back nine, to win the Masters.
  • Henry Ford was fifty years old when he started his first manufacturing assembly line.
  • Ray Kroc was a fifty-two-year-old milkshake machine salesman when he bought out Mac and Dick McDonald and officially started McDonald’s.
  • Pablo Picasso was fifty-five years old when he painted Guernica.
  • Dom Pérignon was fifty-six years old when he first produced champagne.
  • Oscar Hammerstein II was sixty-four years old when he wrote the lyrics for The Sound of Music.
  • Winston Churchill was sixty-five years old when he became Britain’s Prime Minister.
  • Nelson Mandela was seventy-one years old when he was released from a South African prison. Four years later he was elected president of South Africa.
  • Michelangelo was seventy-two years old when he designed the dome of St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome.
  • Auguste Rodin was seventy-six years old when he finally married Rose Beuret, whom he met when he was twenty-three.
  • Benjamin Franklin was seventy-nine years old when he invented bifocal eyeglasses.
  • Frank Lloyd Wright was ninety-one years old when he completed his work on the Guggenheim Museum.
  • Dimitrion Yordanidis was ninety-eight years old when he ran a marathon in seven hours and thirty three minutes, in Athens, Greece.
  • Ichijirou Araya was one hundred years old when he climbed Mount Fuji.

The truth is there are myriad possibilities in every situation and most of them we are unaware of, until … we aren’t! How many times has life delivered an opening you never saw coming? That doesn’t end as we progress through it. In fact, the experience and seasoning we gain along the way broadens the options for what’s possible.

What stories are you telling yourself about yourself and the options before you? Are you certain those stories are accurate? Are they serving you? Remember, you have the power and the right to write your own story.

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

Before You Launch!

Posted on by Cylvia Hayes

The last day of the year! I don’t know about you, but I am more than ready to see 2018 in the rearview window! However before just saying “Buh bye 2018!” it’s really useful to take a little time to reflect what the year delivered.

These past 12 months have likely produced some beautiful moments as well as same challenges and setbacks. Taking a step back and looking a bit more holistically can offer up some hidden pearls of wisdom and insight.

Before fully launching into the new year I encourage you to spend some time asking,

  • What was the accomplishment, event, undertaking you are most proud of?
  • What was a mistake that provided a powerful lesson-learned?
  • What are you willing to shed, let go of, get rid of, in order to accomplish what you want to do next?

It is really important to WRITE DOWN your answers. The act of writing, even just bullet points, empowers the insight and change you’re after.

My own answers to these questions surprised me. At first, I thought my biggest accomplishment was finishing the first full draft of my book, but going a little deeper I realized the real accomplishment was staying the course. What I mean is that I completed the big projects I had committed to – the book, developing the online infrastructure for my new business, rolling out my new trainings and growing the Empowerment Coaching services – and I did all of that while staying true to my inner growth, meditation and spiritual practices.

What are your accomplishments, creations, major undertakings of 2018? It might be on the professional or personal level. Write down every single one that comes to and take a moment to celebrate all you accomplished. Then see if one or two really jump out.

My lesson-learned mistake was painful. I got burned from a business associate I had considered a friend and lost several thousand dollars in the process. The lesson is I KNEW BETTER! My inner wisdom was shouting, “This person is unreliable – don’t do it!” I ignored that inner voice and my own depth of integrity and made a move I shouldn’t have. In my whole career I’ve only had a couple of times where a client or partner wound up being a problem and EVERY SINGLE TIME I ignored the inner warning flags that were trying to wave my off. No more, I vow to never again ignore that inner voice of wisdom – lesson learned!

What mistake did you make this past year that you can use to learn and grow?

And then we come to the part about releasing the stuff that’s no longer serving us. This can be old projects on your DO list that you really don’t care about anymore, or old habits that keep you from being your best or even old stories you tell yourself about yourself.

My commitment is to release my tendency to compare my life, my work, my self with anyone else so that I step even more fully into the unique niche I have to play in our beautiful world.

What are you willing to release to take your life and work to a whole new level?

Spending a little time with these three questions is so worth it, and so are you!

Here’s to a happy end of the year just passing and to a massively powerful launch into 2019!

Cylvia