It’s perfect that I am writing about this stage in my life right now.  Because I am in the incubation stage of an idea that ready to be birthed.   The idea isn’t fully formed.  As a matter of fact, I have no idea what it truly wants to be yet.  But it’s there.  I can “feel” it in me.   It reminds me of the song in the musical “Westside Story” that Tony sings before he meets Maria.   “Something’s coming…I don’t’ know what it is but it is gonna be great!”  Have you ever been in this space?  

This stage can be tricky though.  Because it takes a certain kind of honoring that allows manifestation to spring.  Honoring the process.  Honoring that you are right where you need to be.  For those of you who are crystal clear on exactly what you want to create in your lives, this “Getting Clear” stage and the process below just might be fruitful exercise to help your idea or dream ripen more fully.  If you are in the stage I am right now, let’s play.

Step One

The first and probably most crucial step in getting clear is what I call, “Slowing the Spin.”  The spin I am talking about is the spin of the mind.   It has been said that the average person has about 50,000 thoughts a day.  That’s 50,000 bleeps of energy rolling around in your head.  With all of that activity, it’s a wonder we can get clear about anything.  Slowing the spin is not about getting rid of these thoughts, it’s about tapping into the quietness that’s already there buried deep beneath the activity of your mind.  When that happens, to whatever degree, you naturally begin to “hear” or “feel” or “see” more clearly.  

I recently reignited my meditation practice to do just that.  If meditation is new to you or you’ve tried it and “just can’t do it”, let me assure you that you and a million other people have said the same.  So let’s not call it meditation.  Let’s just say we’re taking time to slow the spin.

Here we go.  Close your eyes and on your in-breath silently say to yourself, “I breathe in peace”.  On the out-breath, “I breathe out peace.”  Breath by breath.  Moment by moment.  “I breathe in peace.  I breathe out peace.”  Slowly you’ll begin to feel your energy settle, like a clear mountain lake.  “I breathe in peace.  I breathe out peace.”   

Now every so often during your “Slowing the Spin” practice a thought might ripple up.     One simple technique is to imagine wrapping the thought in a bubble of light and watch it float away.  Remember, the idea is not to push thoughts out of your mind.  If you do, then you’ll get caught in the proverbial game of tug of war.  And guess what, you’ll lose, get frustrated and forget the whole thing. 

The entire practice is about coming back to your breath over and over again.  The only way to fail is to not practice.  The rest is grist for the mill.   I promise you, if you dedicate 15 minutes to a half an hour a day of “Slowing the Spin,” you’ll start to feel calmer, more peaceful, more spacious.  Anxiety begins to melt away and a new clarity unfolds.

Step Two

Let’s say you been practicing this for a week and have felt some degree of slowing down your mind, the next step is to introduce your idea or dream, whatever stage it’s at, into the space you’ve created.  Allow it roam around there.  Feel into it.  Give it some time here to really “be” without trying to change anything.  Notice as you do this what is happening in your body.  Your very own body tells you the “True North” of your idea or dream.  Listen to it.  Do you feel expansive?  Light?  Excited? Anxious?  Heavy?  These are great indicators of where you are in the manifestation process

If you are aware of something, you feel it in your body, not in your mind. You can act on that feeling. It is your awareness that dictates what you are capable of at any given moment. You can’t act on something that you don’t feel. Do you see? You are aware and you feel it. You hook yourself to that feeling and act. Suddenly, you are a different person.

(Source:  The Face of Power)

Step Three

When I take my life coaching clients through this process I always ask this question here:  On a scale of one to ten - one being really low energy, ten being “Yahoo!” — Where are you now?    If you are in the eight to ten zone, that’s a good indicator of true purpose and right action.  Five or below is a great indicator too.  Either it is not ready for action or a Saboteur may be lurking in the background.  More on that in my next post.   You can repeat steps one through three over and over.  I promise you, more and more clarity arises with practice.

Step Four

This stage is about living into your idea or dream.  When I say “living into” it, I mean allowing it to be with you, top of consciousness, but not “working it”.  It’s the just being stage.  Albert Einstein received the Theory of Relativity in a dream (after many many hours in the lab).  Mozart received many of his sonnets while rowing a boat.  What’s your favorite thing to do when you’re “off duty”?  I like to hike.  Nature always opens me up.   Another fertile space for me is right after a massage between the time the therapist leaves the room and I get my clothes on.  I lie there and ask my higher knowing for clarity.   I most always get “True North” answers.  Journaling also is perfect at this stage to receive even more clarity.  As long as it’s “just being” with it and not “doing” anything.

Try these simple steps anytime you desire more clarity around your idea or dream.  The more you do it, the quicker clarity comes.   I invite you to write me with your experience.  I promise you, it will help us all by hearing your journey.  We’re all in this together.

– Carolyn 

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For the past twenty years I have been an entrepreneur.  I thrive on starting something from nothing and watching it grow.   I started my very first business at the age of 28 and four years later sold it to the second largest food company in the world.  Through the years and as a Life Coach for women, I have closely witnessed within myself and many others how we can take a great idea, infuse it with good intentions and then just watch it sit there and do nothing.   Or worse, deflate miserably like a child’s cherished balloon. 

Just this week the three of us, a dear friend of mine, a professional woman and I were playing marimbas together when a wonderfully juicy idea arose.   What would happen if marimbas where brought into the boardroom?  What if the “village music of Zimbabwe” infiltrated the minds of executives for one day?   “Marimba and Thinking Out of the Box,” we serendipitously named it.  If you’ve never had the joy of being around the music of marimbas, they have an uncanny way of getting you out of your linear mind, forcing you to think, be and move in ways that the western mind can’t really wrap their brains around.  Yet the music is naturally vibrant and joyful and relatively easy for beginners to pick up in 2-hour class. 

I’m giving you this back story to illustrate how great ideas can die on the vine very simply.  I’ll show you how this one did in one comment.  After attempting several times to get together to explore the possibilities of this idea, one of the women said, “If it’s meant to be, it’ll happen.” 

I am sure you’ve heard this before.  I’m sure you’ve even said it.  I have.  This statement is one of those phrases we like to hide behind.  It allows us to shrink.   To be stuck.   To not take responsibility.  It takes us off the hook.  “Oh, I guess it wasn’t meant to be.”  Great idea dead in the water.     

For the next few weeks, I will be exploring with you the Art of Manifesting.  What stands in the way.   What keeps us stuck.   We’ll meet the Saboteur and her sneaky ways.   We’ll also meet the Big you.   The one that Knows.  We’ll learn how to keep her alive and well and living her dreams. 

And all the while, I want to hear from you..  Your thoughts.  Your questions.  Your realizations.  We’re co-creating here at Women With Wings.  Join in on the ride.   It’s sure to be bumpy - and beautiful.       

– Carolyn

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For centuries and across cultures, women have been known as Creation-makers. Our very bodies bore children and created the food to feed them. Our hands gathered and prepared food for our tribe. Our heart and minds fed our village with spiritual and emotional sustenance. We were honored and revered as Creation-makers.It wasn’t until recent history that the word “revered” and “women” got blurred with the dominance of man as the Creator. If you take a snapshot of where we are right now in on our planet, having all been raised in a culture created almost exclusively by men, no wonder we have lost (or hid) our wings.

Something has got to change.

One of my passions is raising environmental and social awareness on our planet. The way I do this is through an eco-podcast I host and produce with my partners, Irv and John, called “America the Green” (http://www.americathegreen.com/). Recently we interviewed Thom Hartmann on our show. If you don’t know him, he’s a New York Times bestselling author and radio talk host. When I asked him our closing question (the same question I ask all our guests) - “What one thing do we as a species need to do to create permanent, positive change in our world?” - Thom quickly retorted that women need to realize their power to equalize the imbalance we now have on our planet. This really struck me, hearing a man of his stature echoing a deep and long held belief of mine.

Why I am writing this now is that so often in my life and practice I see women who are hiding. Hiding behind their men, their boyfriends or authority figures of some sort. Hiding behind their fears. This saddens me and empowers me at the same time. At times, I have been such a woman. Clipped of wing and grounded. Then a big and painful wake-up call happened in my life and like a ferocious wave, it swept me into awakening the Woman Within. No longer hiding behind my power or “Bigness”, my motto became “Life without apology.” As Gandhi said, “Be the change you want to see in the world.” And that’s what I set out to do.

Choosing to work with women in this way is a spiritual choice for me. The very name of my business came to me when I was on a wilderness retreat years ago. During this solo adventure in the wilds of New Mexico, after fasting for four days, I couldn’t get these words out of my head. Women with Wings. … So? … What?

Not until I met our group back in basecamp did these words begin to synthesize. Women with Wings is far beyond coaching for me. It’s a life purpose. To help women realize their magnificence - and live from that place. Day by day. Breath by breath.

It gives me great joy to see the clients I work begin stretch their wings and fly. To co-create their lives and dreams with them. There’s nothing better and more rewarding for me. If you are reading this and are moved to move your life in the direction of your dreams, I invite you for a free coaching session to help you realize your magnificence like never before. We owe it to ourselves, our children, our planet.

- Carolyn

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Even though the holiday season has come and gone, I’d like to share with you a practice of mine.  Instead of sending a store-bought card, I scour through my library of inspirational books to find a poem or verse that seems to encapsulate a deeper learning or awareness that “landed” for me in the past year.  Then I send it off to like-minded friends, family and clients. 

I’d like to share with you the verse I picked.  It speaks so clearly, so eloquently of how coaching can touch your life by giving “your heart back to itself.”

The verse is by Derek Walcott.  Below it, is the sequel.  This one I wrote.  I hope Derek doesn’t mind.    

Love After Love

The time will come

when, with elation,

you will greet yourself arriving

at your own door, in your own mirror,

and each will smile at the other’s welcome,

and say, sit here.  Eat.

You will love again the stranger who was your self.

Give wine.  Give bread.  Give back your heart

to itself, to the stranger who has loved you

all your life, whom you ignored

for another, who knows you by heart.

Take down the love letters from the bookshelf,

the photographs, the desperate notes,

peel your own image from the mirror.

Sit.  Feast on your life.

The Sequel

Are you ready? 

To make love to the stranger who was your self? 

Are you ready?

To make her yours now?

Never again the abandoned one

when he arrives.

Or back-burnered

when her vocal cords

out-distance yours.

Always there

the porcelin egg

telling the truth.

Make the promise. 

Make it.

Yes.

yes.

yes

Now feast.