<![CDATA[Open Heart Coaching - Blog]]>Thu, 03 Nov 2011 13:10:11 -0800Weebly<![CDATA[Platform Tilt]]>Wed, 15 Sep 2010 18:45:48 -0800http://www.openheartcoaching.com/2/post/2010/09/platform-tilt.htmlI watched my 80 year old grandma say goodbye to her husband of fifty years a few weeks ago. My family stood on the Tahoe house pier and watched my dad and uncle wade out to my grandpa's favorite swimming hole. Conversations came to a stop, wine glasses placed to the side, we watched. My dad opened the plastic bag of ashes and poured them into the lake. My grandma stood up and started sprinkling red rose petals off the side of the pier and then she started to cry. Tears welled up in my eyes as I watched her. What do you do when you lose your person? The moment faded into the next as the petals, probably fifty of them now, floated toward the swimming hole, slowly joining the now water-soaked ashes. It was creepy and beautiful.

Death gives us a "platform tilt" as my favorite improv teacher Ann would say, a moment in a scene where the focus can completely change, a ripe opportunity for the whole scene to change course. My grandpa's death was tragic and sad and yet, a perfect platform tilt - it caused my parents to leave the Bay Area after twenty five years for job security and a fresh start, it brought me closer to my family, even the Republican ones, and it gave me a new glimpse at my grandma and her marriage.

On the night before the service, I heard my grandma fumbling in the wine cooler saying, "I don't know the darndest thing about which bottle to open honey, I don't know anything!" She finally brought a bottle to the counter and opened it and sipped it and said, "tastes fine to me" and I said, "well, that's all that matters Gamma." She didn't hear me. We drank wine and watched A River Runs Through It, after a lengthy rant about how she hated sports and she finally didn't have to watch them! She took another sip and told me a story about how my grandpa once burnt all the duck for their big party and was so mad he said he would never barbecue again. So she told him she was never going to cook again. He didn’t exactly love her response. We laughed and she grew serious and said, “He really never did barbecue again honey.” I looked at her wide-eyed. I can’t imagine holding onto something for so long. 

Resentment is an intimacy killer. We learned all about it in our coaching intensive last weekend and now I see it everywhere. I saw it this morning while I was washing the dishes, about to start up with my story that I always do the dishes until I realized that I was the one who wanted clean dishes in that moment and I could easily choose to not do them. If I hadn't let go, tonight I would have seen my partner as the one who didn't do dishes instead of as Eli. It's harder to let it go with the old crusty resentments or the ones where you still really think you are RIGHT but when we don’t clear them, we create residue on our relationship and the more residue, the harder it is to see the relationship at it’s base level: attraction, love, a desire for intimate connection. So, if you had a platform tilt in your own life - What are you holding onto that doesn’t serve you? What do you still have the other person as absolutely wrong for? Where can you get more vulnerable and express what you need? 

I (and now you're invited too) am taking a look at where I can clean up the residue and create more space for a fun and pleasurable platform tilt. 

With love,
LC]]><![CDATA[What's a Soul Mate?]]>Wed, 01 Sep 2010 14:56:08 -0800http://www.openheartcoaching.com/2/post/2010/09/whats-a-soul-mate.htmlI think of Elizabeth Gilbert, author of Eat, Pray, Love, as one of my soul mates. Her hilarious heart and tales of discovering herself resonated with me so much so, that I thought she wrote the book just for me. Apparently, a couple other people felt that way. The book came into my life and sparked the woman in me that could be independent and soft, smart and charming, wise and unpretentious. You can consider me one of the “lizbians.” In Gilbert’s world, yes, that would make her a soul mate. She writes, “People think a soul mate is your perfect fit, and that's what everyone wants. But a true soul mate is a mirror, the person who shows you everything that is holding you back, the person who brings you to your own attention so you can change your life.” 

Gilbert makes an interesting case. When did I start defining my soul mate as the end all one-stop shop for all my power and discovery and happiness and when did my soul mate start looking like one man? I’ve told a couple girlfriends they were my soul mate at one point or another in my life but not lately. When did that stop? Perhaps, when I got into my relationship. Where did I get the idea that I could only have one soul mate? Perhaps, in fifth grade when you had to have one “best friend” with all the charm bracelets and notes to prove it or from all the movies that show there is one prince charming who makes your dreams come true. I’m letting go of my old definition and taking on Gilbert’s moving forward. 

In Brida, Paulo Coelho writes that to know who your soul mate is, you have to take risks. I agree. Being a mirror and looking into another mirror is intimate. You face someone seeing a side of you that you usually hide or rejection of your vulnerability or intense love that is difficult to take all the way in. We have opportunities to take a risk every day but I wonder how often we take them. Sometimes, that risk is stepping up to hear some honest feedback from your boss, or telling your girlfriends you don’t want to talk about calories anymore, or voicing to your partner precisely how you want to be touched when you’re having a horrible day. 

A couple months ago, I got a phone call from one of my best childhood friends and she was pissed off and deeply hurt with the way that our relationship had felt lately. The phone call felt awful but I didn’t hang up the phone. We walked in the woods a week later and agreed on how we wanted to relate. Afterward, I cleaned up several other friendships. Her calling it like she saw it started a domino effect of me becoming more and more connected to the people that I love which created more soul mate potential!

Often times, we wouldn’t choose the people who show up to be our best friends, our partners in crime, our soul mates. Some of mine are a little too brash, buddhist, sexual, fearless, weird, nerdy, and egotistical for my usual liking but I continue to invite them in because they see me, they accept me, and they encourage me to keep going and plus you can’t have too many people around that will hold you to a higher standard than the rest of the world that might settle for the mediocre version of you. 

Thank you for the odd experiences, the new faces, the deep friendships, the willing clients, and for vulnerability of all shapes and sizes.

With love,
LC]]><![CDATA[Rewrite the Rules]]>Tue, 06 Jul 2010 15:48:17 -0800http://www.openheartcoaching.com/2/post/2010/07/rewrite-the-rules.htmlEli and I moved into an adorable apartment in Berkeley a few weeks ago. As we moved our boxes, we made comments about how excited we were and how shocked that this was really happening. As we unpacked, we went back and forth between exclaiming how wonderful our place was and acknowledging our growing anxiety about sharing a space and being more committed to each other. We woke up on July 4th, made a beautiful breakfast, cleaned the apartment top to down, and got into our bed to write about our desires for our coaching program homework. We finally felt settled and sure enough, it was time to have another completely honest and terrifying conversation about the state of our relationship.

I don’t know what he asked me but it was as if a huge weight was lifted from my body and I could finally cry, and crumble, and openly question everything we were doing. It was something like, is this what we want? It was painful to admit that I wanted more than banana buckwheat pancakes on Sunday mornings and a cozy home. How could I be so ungrateful and selfish? How could I feel stuck with this amazing person in this incredible relationship? I voiced all the places I had held back and the places I wanted to go. With all the tears, my body became more relaxed and I saw him again, my partner in crime, my best friend just listening to me and watching me grow. I wanted him to say “it’s going to be okay” or “I don’t want to be with anyone else baby” but he didn’t. He was still. 

When I was in Oregon a few weeks ago, I listened to Ram Dass talks on relationship. He spoke about the way we easily go unconscious in our roles. I remember texting Eli an idea I had for us to try a week of not being in the roles of girlfriend and boyfriend. He texted me that he didn’t really understand my idea and I quickly let it go, knowing it was too much for texting. Now, the idea sprung up naturally and it was time. We decided to try a week of being roommates, nothing more. We would live together, touch and talk and hang out when we wanted to, but we weren’t obligated to check in, to come home, to be a “good” girlfriend or boyfriend. A simple plan but not an easy one for my brain to totally understand. We were looking at each other from opposite corners of our new king-sized bed. He knew and I knew that we were jumping into the unknown. There was sadness about leaving behind our comfortable roles and fear about not making it out to the other side but both emotions didn’t overpower me to the point of needing to run, like in the past. We had been here before, on the verge of breaking up or growing up, and today we were making a new choice and writing new rules and it actually felt good.

Suddenly, the bed seemed enormous. I crawled over to his side and put my head on his chest. He looked at me and said you’re still my girlfriend and then he played that cheesy song “Forever” by Chris Brown and he started to cry. We knew we were being ridiculous and we let ourselves feel it anyway. He cried until he didn’t have anymore to cry about and then he grew quiet. I felt that moment when I had to go the rest of the way by myself so I went for a walk. I passed by a block party with kids splashing in the kiddie pool and couples laughing around a grill. Here I was, in my pajamas still, mascara dripping down my face, hair all over the place, having just moved into an apartment that we might not want because we might want to break up because we might want to have sex with other people and we might not be able to do it while together. Awesome! Happy 4th of July new neighbors! I walked another block hating those people and hating the universe for making my life so unfair and so HARD. I cried a bit more and then realized that I chose this path of being in an honest relationship and I knew it was going to be hard. I turned back, excited to shower and move into the next moment. 

I got out of the shower and started getting ready for the party we were going to. I noticed me trying to look cute for him again. The Joni Mitchell line “you don’t know what you’ve got till it’s gone” played through my brain. Before we went to the party, we decided to have an orgasmic meditation, a practice where you agree to feel the sensation in your body for fifteen minutes. After ten minutes of meditation, there was a point where I felt my whole body relax and I heard that internal voice that said, oh, we’re okay and just as I was about to speak it, Eli exhaled and relaxed and at the same time, we said in our own language, oh, we’ve got this. 

I am two days into my roommate research and it has become clear that this is not about moving apart but it is about moving closer together, out of desires not shoulds, out of friendship not romance. It is about changing the rules of our relationship as we go so that we can keep to our agreement that we want a relationship based on waking up, not on being nice. I want to go on joint Target shopping trips and make him breakfast in bed because I WANT to, because there is pleasure in it, not because I am trying to prove to him or anyone else that I have a great relationship and that I love him. As I put the final touches on my homework, I see one desire clearly, one that I have felt for so long and never knew I could have. I want to be in a relationship with a man who settles for nothing less than the turned on woman that I know I am. That’s Eli. That’s our relationship below the research projects, the drama, the labels, the expectations, the goals, the fears, the sex, the coaching exercises, the outings, the meals, the words. It’s not perfect, it’s sometimes exhausting and uncomfortable, and it isn’t always easy but we stay connected and from there we end up finding our way.


With love,
LC]]><![CDATA[Growing Pains]]>Tue, 18 May 2010 11:33:04 -0800http://www.openheartcoaching.com/2/post/2010/05/post-title-click-and-type-to-edit.htmlI’m listening to Ryan Adam’s album “Love is Hell” and I can relate. I get it, with love, comes pain. What? My brain still gets pissed about this one. I’ve seen so many movies and listened to the catchy songs and read gorgeous stories about blissful love forever. (New idea: The Romantic Comedy/Fairytale Disclaimer Movement, gathering enough signatures to enforce a disclaimer: “What you are about to see/read is a fantasy. True love involves moments of wanting to die, sobbing on the floor of a slightly dirty bathroom, and fantasizing about gauging people’s eyes out with rusty forks, and then when you get through it, you choose to do it over and over again because ironically, it actually feels kind of good. These moments are not shown in the following piece of work you are about to experience.”) 

I think I’ve said this before but I’ve grown up thinking once you’ve found love, you have it, you get to keep it, it belongs to you and your life. Now that I’ve found Eli, I’m done, that’s it, my happiness and future family is guaranteed and what more could you want. I have been wanting to live with him for months and he brought it up as a desire of his the other day and I thought, oh my god, I’m getting what I want. Well, what do you know, I want more. I want to be in my life as its happening (meaning letting go of how I think it should be, and embracing how it is), and if I want that, then I have to make room for the moments that I’m not expecting, that I’m afraid to experience, that historically, I haven’t been comfortable around. I have to make room and expand. That’s what is painful. I’ve heard that if I jump off this cliff I’ll be okay, and I won’t truly know how deep the water goes until I jump myself. So, I’m going to continue to jump because I’d rather find out what I’m made of now than speculate on some woman I should be in the far unknown future.

A friend reminded me that the pain isn’t about anyone else. Eli isn’t doing anything to me when he flirts with another woman or expresses his desire. Other women aren’t damaging my relationship by expressing their attraction to my boyfriend. It’s easy to trick myself into playing the victim, how dare he hurt me, he’s supposed to only love ME. Blaming him or her, comparing myself to her, pulling on him with passive aggression and validating-seeking questions - none of it gets me closer to what I want. I want to be powerful and vulnerable no matter what anyone else is doing. I want to be myself and love everything about me in the face of fear and loss. I want to expand my heart a millimeter wider to love my desperation, my dependency, my naivety about love, my little girl who still wants to believe in fairytales, my inner lioness who wants a pack of cubs to guard with her life, my ruthless bitch who will tell you exactly what she’s thinking, my sex diva, my powerhouse business woman, my scared soft animal who is still figuring all this stuff out as she goes along. 

And, yes I want Eli to be right there beside me on this roller coaster ride because I prefer him and because I trust him and because I looooooooooove him. I have faith that he will and I am also aware that life doesn’t guarantee you anything but the moment right in front of your face. I learned that again this weekend and I’m in awe of the ongoing experience and the reminder to not take anything or anyone for granted. So, I’m going to feel my life, all its ups and downs, no matter what, because that was my agreement before I decided to jump off these crazy cliffs. 

With love,
LC]]><![CDATA[Spring Cleaning]]>Sat, 24 Apr 2010 23:17:30 -0800http://www.openheartcoaching.com/2/post/2010/04/spring-cleaning.htmlMy relationship with Eli is shifting again. We are walking out of a warm and cozy winter into an alive and breathing spring and our relationship is shedding layers to adjust. We are leaving behind fears in pursuit of what we want. We are letting go of our tight grasp on a future forever together in the hope to more deeply feel the present moment between us. I still want to marry him. I still want to have kids with him. I still want to be business partners. I still want to live with him. I’m allowing those wishes to be there for as long as they want and by allowing it all to be there, the deepest desires are emerging. The desire to be myself and express myself has come to the foreground again and thus, our relating is shifting. 

One of my mentors, Nicole Daedone, wrote a beautiful insight into true love. “A love that never changes is no love at all, for love is the life force, and whatever lives is also constantly in the process of dying. If we refuse to surrender to the fall of death, nothing new can be born. This falling in and out of love, in and out of turn on is the whole of the experience, all of it.” I love these words and I know they are true after months of falling in and out of love with my relationship to Eli. My love for Eli touches the bottom layers of my heart. The way he fearlessly speaks his mind, the way he spoons me with every muscle in his body, the way he listens with his attentive clear blue eyes - all of that and all of him is not what I am losing. The relationship with its roles, its forms, its rules, is what I fall in and out of love with and is that which is gently dying.

In the recent months, Eli and I have spent more time together: in coach training, coaching couples together, having business meetings, going to yoga, cuddling after discussions of our breakthrough moments. We’ve opened up our sexuality by becoming intimate with other people when it feels right, dating new faces, and talking about what turns us on. We’ve stayed connected throughout it all and become closer as a result. I find myself depending on him less and knowing him more. Even with the almost constant communication, a deeper shift occurred this past week that surprised us, then scared us, and now it’s what is carrying us towards the next phase of our relationship, a phase that is still unknown to me but already feels more intimate than anything I’ve experienced with another human being. 

This last weekend, I started to admit my desires to myself more freely. One big one on Saturday and then another on Sunday and then another on Monday. With each acknowledgement of what I wanted to create and who I wanted to be, I became more turned on. I won’t water it down for the blog. I want to change the way the world talks about sex. I want to be a leader in relationship coaching. I want to fully explore my sexuality. All of these are under the large umbrella desire of wanting to be myself, no matter what it looks like. Several times, Eli was scared he didn’t know me as well as he thought he did because the words I stated were new to him and each time he got scared, I got scared that maybe I had gone too far and I had said too much. That is the issue with hiding your desire, because when it comes out (and it always does) the desire isn’t as bad as the fact that you kept it from the people closest to you and then their fear around change triggers your fear that you’ll lose them and so you leave your poor desire behind to return to the way it was and then the desire comes back bigger and with some kick to it because you left it behind once or twice already and nothing likes to be left behind and so the cycle continues. Whoa. The potential for this pattern to unfold surfaced repeatedly over the past week but the aliveness I felt in my body couldn’t be stopped. Fear didn’t have enough power to take over this time. I kept thinking this is me and people will come around. Eli came around and wholeheartedly expressed his support of me, and then got ignited himself, dreaming up his own goals and stating his own desires (which means you can look forward to a future blog about the utter hell you go through when your partner goes towards their desire). There was a moment when it was just the two of us and we looked at each other wide-eyed and smiling. Eli said, “it looks like we are agreeing not to keep each other small anymore.” I moved closer to him and embraced him with all of my body.

It is alarming to say “something isn’t working” or “can we please talk?” because we fear the worst, but the more we avoid looking in the ambiguous corners of our relationships, the fears and the potential of the worst happening grow. Instead, we can pause to communicate what’s true for us and shine light upon these weird uncertain places and then the relationship has a chance to find its right size. This latest shift with Eli doesn’t feel so big and scary because unlike the past, we’re not giving up or settling for smaller. There is a tinge of sadness in saying goodbye to the old form because it was so good, truly sweet and comfortable, but we have a bigger more spacious relationship to step into and so the sadness is quickly overshadowed by the excitement of what we are creating. We get to dream wider and be more powerful as individuals and as a result, a stronger force when we are together. We get to have more experiences, more stories to tell, more sensations as we venture out farther into the world and deeper into witnessing each other. I promise to write about the times when it gets hard and this doesn’t sound so simple and easy but for now, I have faith in us, in me, in my unfolding desire and its power to effortlessly ignite my path.

With love,
LC

]]><![CDATA[A New Kind of Game]]>Thu, 15 Apr 2010 10:16:23 -0800http://www.openheartcoaching.com/2/post/2010/04/a-new-kind-of-game.htmlA few weeks ago, I was invited to participate in an evening of the Mindful Man series (http://www.onetaste.us/classes_evening.php). I was in the back room waiting for the course to start. One of the facilitators told us that tonight, us ladies would have an opportunity to reveal one of our games to the participants. I started to sweat. The voices started to go off in my head. Games? I don’t really do that. Isn’t that manipulative? My feet were getting hot.

The course began. I strutted out in my cowboy boots and jeans and looked at the eight or so men, equally nervous but not hiding it nearly as well as we women were. As soon as I sat in the chair, one of my “games” reluctantly came to mind. I told them about how I pretend I am interested in them for much longer than I am actually interested. I’ll let them talk with the expectation that they will ask me about my life and then sometimes when they do, I avoid their question. (This is the part in the story where I want to reassure you that I am a wonderful person but instead, I’ll continue.) The men looked at me with both loathsome and fascinated eyes as I spoke. I thought it would feel horrible to admit I played games but instead, I felt seen by the others in the room. I felt free. The other women shared their games and I couldn’t help but nod and mmm hmm to each game revealed. Not only do we all play games, but we play the same games. An unexpected camaraderie between the men and women formed over the course of the evening. As I left, I noticed how bright one man’s eyes were. They were watery blue and wider than before.

A week later, I was at the beach with Eli and my parents. We were eating breakfast and I told them about my experience in this course. My parents said that they never played games. They knew from the moment they met that they were meant to be together. My mom said it was an instant easy connection. My dad said he never really understood women but that he loved my mom. One source of my deeply rooted faith in fairytale romance became more clear. Eli shot me a knowing look and we decided to inquire further. I asked my mom about earlier that day when she had told my dad it would be fine if he played golf and then later gave him a hard time for playing golf all day. She quickly saw where this discussion was going. I have a deep admiration for my parent’s marriage and I didn’t want that sentiment to be lost as this conversation was starting to heat up. I said “Mom, we all play games. It is not a bad thing, it is a human nature thing and it can even be fun.” She relaxed a bit. My dad still seemed a bit confused.

We think our secrets, our feelings, our desires are all so unique. We think they are weird and they will most definitely be misunderstood so we hide them, often with well-crafted games. As I grew up, I learned the game of lying to make people happy. I also learned how to ask questions to avoid talking about myself. Both games allowed me time to become comfortable with people (and to ensure they liked me enough) before being honest and vulnerable. This can be great sometimes. It keeps me safe. I don’t need to tell each person at the dinner party that I am feeling really emotional, or that I would rather be having sex with my boyfriend or painting my toes than at this party, or that I spaced out while they were talking about their trip. So, I play games here and there and and people work their games on me and everyone is happy. There is nothing wrong with that AND what would happen if once or even twice in our lifetime we dropped the games and said what was there? What if we learned new games that revealed ourselves more and hid ourselves less? 

I went on an okcupid (.com type deal) date last week and decided on the drive over that I was going to be completely honest. He answered the door. I noticed he cut his hair and I told him that I liked it. I didn’t like it. I liked it the week before when it was longer. Strike one. Good thing I had an entire night to practice my new game. We went to a bar for a glass of wine. He asked me a couple questions about my boyfriend. I answered honestly and directly. I told him that I loved my boyfriend and that I might marry him one day and that my boyfriend knew I was on this date. My date’s face flushed. I felt hot. On the walk home, I asked him about STDs because I figured there is never a better time than now to have that talk. We spoke honestly and acknowledged how refreshing it was to talk about STDs fully clothed. With this new awareness on my games and our mutual willingness to be honest, the date that was destined to be boring (that is my judgement of online dating websites) was fun. I could feel when it was time to risk revealing myself - usually because I was starting to space out or feel irritated. In those moments, I remembered that I had nothing of importance to lose and intimacy with myself and the moment to gain. Sometimes the words came out beautifully, sometimes clunky but each time, I felt like he was actually on a date with me, not the Lindsay that I sometimes try to be with new people. 

There are times to play bigger and times to play smaller and I’m not saying that one is better than the other. I’m saying, why not try playing differently? Try giving the guy you don’t really think is cute enough a chance to know you for five minutes, try expressing a desire instead of silencing it, try telling your spouse how you feel in the moment -experiment, play, notice. This is my continual work, knowing all sides of myself and bringing them out to catch the fresh daylight, and the more players the more fun. Game on.

******

Experiences you want to share? Feedback on this blog post? Grammatical errors?  Open up this conversation. Email me anytime with feelings, notes, thoughts: lindsay@openheartcoaching.com]]><![CDATA[How Open Heart Coaching Came To Be]]>Tue, 09 Mar 2010 16:13:19 -0800http://www.openheartcoaching.com/2/post/2010/03/1.htmlOn January 23, 2009, I emailed my close friend an update on my relationship which I had just ended after 9 months of being together. I wrote: I’m sick of open relationship drama (open heart surgery or maybe it’s open ego surgery...hmmm maybe I’ll use that in my next blog). After I wrote that email, I spent two weeks by myself licking my wounds and doing quite a bit of...yoga. On New Year’s Eve I let go of the drama and got in touch with what my heart truly wanted. It wanted to go back on the operating table one more time. Yes, I was sick of feeling jealous. Yes, I was tired of comparing myself to other women and yes, I was exhausted of feeling uncertain but all of those thoughts were my mind’s way of fighting what my heart already knew: I wanted to be connected to this person and I didn’t want either of us to completely lose ourselves and our dreams in the process. Those two weeks were not about eating ice cream and feeling sorry for myself (although I did indulge in that break up fantasy for a day or two). They were about connecting to me again - my fears, my ideas, my deep appreciation for myself and the people around me. 

3 months later, we are still in relationship to one another. With a few tools and resources, we have become better surgeons, both in opening our hearts and sewing them back up when it is time for rest and recovery. When we cannot feel the pulse of our relationship, we know we need to find our own pulses. So, we take the time to do that and then come back together to uncover the next layer of our relationship. Sometimes, we move effortlessly. Sometimes, we do not. Sometimes, it looks good. Sometimes, it definitely does not. Nevertheless, I always come back to placing one hand on my heart and one hand on my belly and I listen and I feel for what’s now and what’s next. The rest follows from there. (Just to clarify, that’s how we do it because that’s what we do and there are many other ways to be in and define your relationship, many of which I will explore in this blog.)

Last week was a period of needing space to find our individual heartbeats again. As usual, the uncertainty of when we would come back together was uncomfortable. Instead of grasping for reassurance from him (well, I did grasp out of old habits but I did it less so and realized quickly it wouldn’t give me what I actually wanted), I reached out to a few friends. I went to see a beautifully open-hearted friend and we talked about our prospective coaching businesses and I said to him, I was thinking about calling it “Open Heart Coaching.” His eyes lit up and he said he loved it. I was surprised. I thought he would make fun of it. I thought everyone would make fun of it but he knew and I knew that I wasn’t talking about some mushy lovey surface stuff. I was talking about the real and raw spectrum of our heart’s desires from the “good” to the “bad,” from the cute hearts you doodle on your books to the bloody human heart that keeps beating no matter what. 

On Saturday morning, I felt the last puzzle piece to this story fall into place. I went on a day-long meditation retreat with Ed Brown at Green Gulch Farm. There was a long list of things I should have been doing but the Lindsay that knew better drove my busy ass to that farm. I took my seat on the meditation cushion and Ed spoke about not abandoning yourself. He said it wasn’t so useful, just like using rules to boss yourself around, and letting fears stop you from expressing your heart. I smiled at hearing something so true and then thought easier said than done. An hour later, while I was sitting and staring at the blank wall, it was easy and it had already been done. The logo, the dreams, and the path for my coaching practice had appeared.

So, this is the story of the birth of Open Heart Coaching. There will be many more stories to follow, as I continue on this path of relationships, coaching, LIFE. Questions? Comments? I’m all ears. As I venture out in finding freedom in being myself and guiding others to do the same, I will blog to you, out there, wherever you are so stay tuned and stay connected.

With lots of love,
LC]]>