Practice vs. Theory for your peaceful being.
Recently I have been having some insights into this ‘profession’ we all call coaching. Actually, I started to have some idea about what I’m about to write about a few years ago. What I have noticed – starting with the founder of Coachville, is that many coaches seem preoccupied with not only helping their clients become who they are, but also helping them become them selves in such a way that they become driven to live their lives their way. It’s true that I honestly don’t know a whole lot about the founder of Coachville but I do know he had a heart attack at 46. With all due respect, I really don’t know if he drove him self to have a heart attack because of all that he was trying to accomplish with his life, but accomplishment does seem to be a big factor in coaching: getting ‘things’ done.
What ‘things’? And how much do those things really contribute to your ‘life’? If you are so driven that you find your self eating out time and time again because you have no time to eat well then in what way are you contributing to your ‘life’?
I have a friend who is exactly 20 years older than I am. She will be 66 this June and I will be 46. Ten years ago she had breast cancer. She doesn’t share her health status with me so I don’t really know but when I see her she looks well and she is ‘living’ a full life of travel and creativity and joy and friends and family. Recently at the dinner table together she said to me: “I don’t understand why people don’t get that it’s important to eat ‘live’ food. People are eating dead things all the time – no nutrients. Don’t they understand that their bodies are alive and that they need to eat ‘living’ things in order to support them?” I have to admit, I have done a lot of reading and gathering of information over the years as an athlete, a fitness instructor, a , a yoga teacher, a coach and a mother and I have had a lot of insights into the need to feed our bodies well so that they can reproduce themselves as they must on a daily/hourly basis but I had never quite thought about it in this way: dead food. We need fruits and vegetables and minimally processed food to nourish our bodies.
So when it comes to our minds and our souls, it makes sense that we need to be as diligent about nourishing our selves. And when I think about ‘life’ and breath and spirit and what it takes for these to flourish and be nourished, I just don’t think “accomplishment”. In fact, I think exactly the opposite. I think stillness, ‘being’, breathing, connecting. And yet what I see more of is ‘doing’, running, talking, phoning, emailing, dropping off, picking up, organizing, marketting, networking… people ‘working’ them selves into a frenzy.
Now I am not saying that there isn’t a lot to do. I have three children and pets and part-time work and other components of my life that I want to continue to sustain for my own personal satisfaction and quality of life. And the difference may only be in the semantics. I want to ‘sustain’ while I feel others want to ‘drive’. I believe the ‘driving’ is what got us all into this mess of overworked and undervalued; out of balance and deep in debt and now for many, homeless and unemployed.
I understand the “abundance” thing. I’ve read the current spiritual psychology from Wayne Dyer, Sarah Brach?? and a plethora of others. And I espouse the ideas that we are all worthy and capable of partaking of this abundance. And yet I sense this ‘instant gratification’ component of our most recent past that we cling to while we reach for our chance at abundance and I wonder if people understand the fine balance between ‘connecting to abundance’ and ‘driving excess’. In the former, no frenzy is required; in the latter, there is so much doing that the ‘being’ gets lost – both the person and the nature of being. And that to me just doesn’t seem sustainable for long just as we’ve come to understand that our environments cannot be sustained when we ‘do’ life at this pace; it would seem more likely that we are killing our selves faster at this pace.
There are plenty of people out there espousing the theory of coaching and helping people become their best selves, live their lives their way, find success, create a business etc. etc. and yet I can’t help but think they’re all too busy to really enjoy ‘being’ who they are. Surely, I am not the only one who is content to work less so I can have more time with my family? There are others who eat dinner with their husband and children at least 5 nights/week. I know others who don’t like the feeling of spinning their wheels just too often and too much that they’d rather live a sustainable life at a sustainable pace with less money and less things. I feel peace, joy, love and contentment in abundance, despite our old cars and mismatched dishes. I love the serendipity of thrift stores and drinking coffee at home out of real cups instead of cardboard or styrofoam. I love the quality of my life. I love eating a relaxed meal at home with ingredients I prepared. And I am grateful for the confidence to live my life this way without worrying whether or not I ‘measure up’ to any standard set by others.
I’ve had the experience of being caught up in the theory and forgetting to practice and quickly I forget what the practice feels like; I forget how to feel peaceful and connected and kind and loving and then I cannot be the person I want to be. I get lost in the world of ‘things’ and illusion and my insecurities rise up to distract me.
We can’t ‘drive’ our natures, our beings; we have to sustain them through practice. We have to trust that abundance is there for all of us without having to stay busy doing things all the time. Take time to be. The world, the collective conscience, your spirit, your community – they all need stillness in order to know peace. Practice finding peace with simple practice.
Suzanne Ballantyne – zannie@nc.rr.com – wellness coach and yoga teacher
