So, as I re-create my coaching practice, I have a new website. And a new opportunity to learn about my "issues" as it were.

I tell myself and other people that I am a pretty laid back person. I must be such a liar! The website is up, at least in its baby form. And there are a few glitches. This link doesn't work properly, those colors don't read well on all monitors, that kind of thing. And it is making me nuts. All of a sudden, I am this crazy, nit-picking person who has to sit on her hands so she doesn't email the amazingly kind person helping me with it and demand to know when it will be all better. This isn't me, this isn't even someone I want to be. What's going on?

More telling, I don't want to promote the site until it is "perfect." Until everything works just the way I want it to, looks just so, has all the information I want on it. When do you think that is going  to happen? I asked myself if this was simply about stalling and not wanting to put myself forward - and it is - but I can refine that answer. It is about wanting to only put forward not just my best self but my perfect self. The one who knows everything and is on top of it.

I am this person. I have done this before. My inner control freak doesn't care if she is right, she just wants to be prepared, For everything. Ready. In coaching, we might call this a gremlin or a saboteur. What I know about the inner creatures like this is that they are never entirely wrong. Being ready and prepared are generally good things. Ensuring I am as prepared as possible for every contingency has served me really well over the years, both as an activist and as a person. It also keeps me somewhat defended from criticism or looking silly (or so I believe).

But this is a new day and I need to ask myself, how is this serving me right now? One test for a gremlin is if you are able to set it down and, if you do, does it climb back on top of you? So here is to me taking a deep breath. Go ahead, check out the site. I'm calm, really. I'm doing fine.

You've lived!

Well, I hope you have. Really, it is the deepening of who you are. This is based heavily on whether you have lived and how intensely, or not. Our choices now make us who we are tomorrow. So if we zone out and escape into [insert favorite activity here, drugs, television, celebrity gossip, etc] this is also a choice and will shape who we are as easily and readily as whether we are fully present with the people we love (or the people we don't love!), whether we were active in building our community, whether we let people really see us for who we are, etc.

The best part of getting older is noticing how interesting you've gotten.

Hmm. I suppose I must, right? Whether I want to consciously or not.

I use astrology much the same way I use Tarot or many coaching techniques. What does this mean to me? Like so many, I really appreciate Rob Brezny and his Free Will missives. He will never say, " A dark stranger will offer you money this week." but he will challenge you and ask open questions about how you think about the world based on the astral influences he sees in your general sun sign. Good Stuff.

Lately, I have also been following the moon' s path through the zodiac with the help of my We'Moon calendar. It's another way to stay connected to the motion of the universe. Anything that encourages me to listen to the hum and flow of things, I support.

Joy.

Which is different from happiness. I had to think about it a minute.

Joy for me is the great spreading sense of wonder at the beauty of the world. In the obvious places like walks in the woods or the sight of a heron. And also in the faces of people at various protests for and against  various things. And in watching the homeless guy on the way to my favorite coffeshop tie intricate knots of hemp twine into beautiful jewelry. The Palestinian woman who serves tea while she and my friends wait to learn if her husband is dead. The spider web that took up the whole sidewalk and the one that wove cigarette butts into its bottom anchors. My partner singing in the kitchen. And always my son, as amazing in his 6 year old rages as in his sleep.

My son has a favorite story that he asks me to retell from time to time. I came across this posting by the Integral Hacker and was reminded again.

I actually learned this story from the Coaches Training Institute where I took my training as a life coach. The story itself speaks to some of the larger themes of my life and was one of the reasons I chose CTI as a program. Enough, on with the story.

A man was walking along the beach. The tide had gone out and left hundreds of starfish washed upon the shore. As the man stepped around the starfish, he spotted a child in the distance. As he came closer, he watched the child pick up starfish and toss them back into the sea. "Child," he called out, "There are too many. You can't make a difference here."

The child thought for a moment and bent to pick up another starfish. He swung his arm and the creature splashed into the tide. He turned to the man, "Made a difference for that one!"

...introducing myself. I've always preferred to a background person. I have loved the work I have done and the communities I have been a part of. I love contributing in the quiet ways that get things done and/or moving. In this new chapter, I get to keep all that. AND I need to lean out a little so that the people that could love my help can find me. That's new.

The best way I have found to think of this is to take each individual (and potential client) as a cause. Previously, there have been organizations or movements who held a mission or vision that resonated with me and I would show up and say, "Hey, I could help.  May I try this? Have you thought of ..." and soon I was hip deep in work and happy. And the cause benefitted too.

So now I meet folks hip deep in their own passions to create a world that works and I approach them as a cause I could get behind. Hey! I could help. May I suggest something? Have you thought about...

So I have been going along for a while now saying that I want to coach college students and teachers and such. Very respectable, admirable, SAFE stuff.

Except I don't.

I mean, if the people I coach are students or teachers or whathaveyou - great! But who I really want to coach are people who are changing the world. Or creating the world - however you like to look at it.

See, for the last 20 or so years of my life (I'm 35), that's what I have been putting energy into. I was that kid who founded an Amnesty International chapter in her high school, who went vegetarian early, who wanted to know how everything worked, so she could mess with it. And I went to college and then found some paid work doing just that. Human rights, peace, nonviolence, feminism - I did my thing and made the world better.

But I got tired. And I got hurt emotionally. And I needed to take a break and heal a bit and find more tools to sustain me on the road.

But I didn't know that. I kinda freaked. I would find safe, respectable work where all this drama didn't happen, where life was not so stressful and intense - I would fit into society and not take so much responsibility for the world.

Yeah, that didn't work.

Everything I love about life is the intensity, the bright colors, the subtle movements. I need to engage the world and to do that, I need to take responsibility for it.

I recently read Matt Ruff's latest book, Bad Monkeys. In the book there is a secret organization out to save the world. There motto is "OMNES MUNDUM FACIMUS" or "We All Make the World." It's a great book overall, but that is what struck me the most. We all make the world. Simple. And I knew that. But it became more real again. Hiding out protecting myself from the unknown, what kind of world am I making? And hiding? So not me.

So don't call it a comeback. I was just resting. :)