Jaclyn Beckerman Coaching

What’s not happening can never be what’s actually happening.

I’ve noticed recently how much energy I spend on what’s not happening.

For example, I had some friends meeting me at Sacred Center a couple weeks ago and they were 45 minutes late.  That’s halfway through the service.  And for the first half of the service, I was watching the door for them and thinking about where they were, annoyed that they weren’t there.  It was then that I first realized that I spend so much time focused on what’s isn’t happening (here it’s that they weren’t there yet) that I don’t get to enjoy whatever is going on.  The kicker is, the idea that ‘they weren’t there’, wasn’t actually happening.  In that moment, all that was happening was that I was there, listening to people sign and talk at Sacred Center.  I was completely lacking any presence whatsoever with where I currently was and wasn’t enjoying this thing that I was there for.

I’ve since started really practicing noticing when I’m stressing out about something that’s not happening.  One of the most obvious places this shows up for me is when someone is late to meet me.  I notice all my focus goes towards them being late and where they are instead of just focusing on where I am and being in the moment.  It’s true they might be late, but where they are really doesn’t have to affect me and take over my consciousness.  I can instead choose to be with what is.

I know I’ve focused on lateness here but consider this same idea is applicable in any area of life where you’re focusing on what’s not so instead of what is.

This could be when you’re sitting at home thinking about work and dreading a certain project or boss or going in general (you’re not currently at work though!).  Or when you’re on vacation thinking about all you’re going to have to deal with when you get home and making lists of what to do (not much of a vacation).  Or when you’re on a date and thinking about if this is going to go anywhere and measuring  your date up against some imaginary guidelines (you’re with someone now! Be with them).  I’m sure you can think of many more examples.

Start noticing where your energy is.  Is it in any other moment than the current one?  What would be different or available to you if you got present to where you are right now, all the time?  What if you stopped stressing out about the things that you’re assuming (or making up) are happening and just started living in the present moment?

I notice that people always seem to have some serious crazy resistance to normal well being practices related to their businesses – consistently taking vacation time off, working regular business hours (it doesn’t really matter whether they’re 9-5 or 1-9 – but regular), not working on weekends and so on and so forth.

I’ve always thought I’ve been really good about this myself.  I don’t take clients or prospects on weekends, I don’t schedule calls outside of 9:30a-6:30p and I will definitely take a few vacations a year (even if that means a staycation like it is this week).  Yet I really was just choosing not to count the email I answered here, the appointment I took the time to schedule there, the phone call I answered or returned outside my regular hours.  Even worse, I’ve known it’s important for me to take a day off for well being after using all my energy coaching for an entire weekend (leading the coach training program) and have still kept a regularly scheduled client on my Monday roster, or allowed myself to do *just one* consultation and answer emails.  I am committing to give that up and honor my time off as what it is, time to re-fuel and take care of myself.

The fact is, not holding your time off as sacred impedes on you building a strong and powerful foundation for which to operate on top of.

Most people cannot bring themselves to give their body, mind and spirit time to rest, play and rejuvenate for fear of losing business or upsetting a client or some other plausible excuse.

Yet then you’re really just trying to support your clients or business from a place of depletion.  Where your needs are not met, you’re not taken care of and you’re operating on top of a foundation filled with gaping holes and perhaps some duct tape trying to hold it all together.  Taking care of your well being builds a strong foundation for which to go generate possibility and success.  Without it, you’re trying to make a cross country journey running on fumes.

So stop lying to yourself saying you have to work more in order to build your business.  If your business is suffering it’s because you’re suffering.  And if it’s doing alright with with you overworking and overexerting yourself, consider it could be doing fantastic if you were operating as the powerhouse you could be during the specific times you designate to be working.

Start with taking back your weekends.  Then regular working hours. You’re like a rechargeable battery that you’ve currently only been giving a few minutes to recharge every times it dies, you’re then never operating at full power.  Start committing to recharging fully and just watch the difference it makes in your business.

This might speak more to those who have their own businesses than it will to those who work 9-5 in an office or at least don’t work on commissions but consider that no matter what your working situation is, there’s still a desperate need for you to be taking care of your well being consistently and reliably.  What difference do you see it could make in your life?

It’s funny – we always want our lives to be better yet we don’t want to have to be the ones to create it.

I can certainly be guilty of this myself too.  I want to be a leader yet I don’t want to have to be fully responsible for something when there’s a breakdown or something changes.  I’m happy to take something on with the expectation of it going smoothly yet don’t want to deal with the possibility of obstacles or unexpected roadblocks.

Sound familiar?

Yea, that’s pretty much normal life for most folks.

You have a goal you want, but, nevermind just the possibility of failure, you don’t want to deal with the hassle of the potential things that can and will get in your way.

The problem with this is, you never get the results you want if you don’t take the goal on in the face of your fears and the obstacles that will inevitably come up.

My most recent experience of this really has nothing to do with my personal goals but rather something I took on to support one of my communities.  I took it on, a breakdown ensued, and while I knew I had to be the one to handle it, my automatic instinct was to be irritated, frustrated and maybe even a bit insolent about it.

All of my reaction and ‘victimization’ by the situation does very little to support my community and create the result we need.  I get that the gap here this is really about full and complete ownership.  When you take something on, whether it’s your own goal or something that you took on to support another person or group, it is then yours to see through, regardless of what comes up or gets in the way.

There is always an ebb and flow in life.  Things go smoothly and then there are waves.  The distinction here, different than the ocean, is that you actually have a choice in whether you let the wave pull you under or if you choose to just ‘be with’ it and move forward and beyond it.  There’s really no use in getting dragged under by the waves because then you suffocate and cease to really live.  In the case of life, this looks like being ‘at the effect’ of what happens to you instead of ‘causing’ the life (and results) that you want.

What I got from this experience is to really just handle my reactions quicker and get back into empowered action so as to create power in the face of anything.  From this place, there will never be an obstacle that could truly hold you back.  There is abundance in the world and we inherently have the ability (and creativity) to tap into all sorts of resources and support when we choose to take ownership of everything that comes our way in life.

Chew on that for awhile and leave your thoughts below.  Where have you abdicated your commitments in the past or present?  How has that served you and what has it cost you?  How would your life be different if you chose to be ‘the one’ who can make it happen (whatever it is) all the time?

In this moment, right now, I am the possibility of love and abundance.

I generated and created this on Sunday in the Landmark Advanced course.

Following that, this week I’ve created 3 new clients, 5 requests for sample sessions, 1 promise to hire me mid-April, and a request for me to speak at a networking event.

Wow!  Talk about an amazing week!

I’ve also had 2 dates, spent time with amazing friends, took a salsa class and learned some tango.

If you’re looking for love and abundance, I am SO the coach for you!

What I really intended to share in this post is a new project I’m creating.  I’ll be participating in the Landmark Self Expression and Leadership seminar in May and was thinking about what project I could work on for it.  You create a community project where you generate the idea and lead it but actually give the project to the community to create.

One of the leaders of the seminar came in to tell us a bit about it and mentioned that she tells people to just think about what they’re passionate about – most folks create projects that have some bigger impact on the world or their community. One person arranged for two panda’s to be flown in from China (this costs millions of dollars), another created wind chimes they’re looking to sell a million of with all the proceeds going to Haiti.  So you get the idea.  Big impact stuff.

The idea I generated is to create a worldwide travel network/group for Landmark graduates.  It will be a website something akin to couchsurfers.com yet maybe more like a social networking site.  Thus far, my idea is to keep it within the Landmark community because it’s a trusted community that lives in integrity so it takes out the sketchy or potentially unsafe aspects that might stem from a network of just anyone.

The idea will be for people who participate to offer their homes (couches/extra bed) to travelers within the Landmark community from all over the world.  They could also offer to be a tour guide, provide ground transportation, offer frequent flier miles, etc.  Someone could post that they need to get a flight from point A to point B and people could contribute/donate to that flight.  (There are a million and a half Landmark graduates worldwide – if it’s a $1000 flight for example, 1000 people could each donate just $1 and the flight would be covered).  My vision for this is that it creates traveling as accessible to everyone where it’s currently inaccessible AND encourages community, generosity and contribution all over the world.

As some of you know, I’m going to be traveling come December.  I’ll still be coaching while I’m gallivanting country to country but am planning to travel through Central and South America, then to Africa, then to Southeast Asia. I’ve now created the possibility of actually getting this trip sponsored and I plan to blog about it as I go.  Part of what I see within this is to bring the travel program to Landmark campuses wherever I travel to and enrolling them in participating. I also want anyone who has ever wanted to travel to join me for whatever part of it they’d like – ideally using this program if they need it.

I’ve also had the idea to possibly get the website itself sponsored by an airline or travel site.  Perhaps that website sponsorship money could go into a pot for people to draw from to put towards traveling AND perhaps the airline or travel site who sponsors it can offer a discount to group members who use their services.  Basically this creates a win-win for the sponsor to get advertising to potentially a million and a half people for nearly free (since people would feed money back into them) AND people get money to travel!

If you’re interested in sponsoring any part of this (or have some connections to enroll anyone in doing so) or would like to get involved, let me know!

Please leave any thoughts, comments or ideas below!

I just had my Landmark Advanced Course this weekend.  It was AMAZING.

For anyone who thinks Landmark is a cult or brainwashing or whatever you’ve made up about it – you have NO idea what you’re missing.

I’ve been doing transformational work for nearly two years now and in this weekend I finally got myself.  I got freedom, love and abundance.  I realized that my biggest shtick in life has been that ‘you don’t care about me’.  If you broke off plans with me at the last minute, you didn’t care about me.  If I was always the one reaching out to you to make plans and it was never or rarely reciprocal, you didn’t care about me.  If you didn’t support me when I asked for it, you didn’t care about me.  If you didn’t give me referrals when I requested them, you didn’t care about me.  This could go on forever.  And it did, really.  In all of my relationships.  Whatever you did that didn’t seem loving in my opinion, that’s what I made it mean.

One of the huge things I got this weekend, and I do mean one because there is SO much more that I got as well, was that ‘You don’t care about me’ is absolutely 100% NOT TRUE.  I MADE IT UP.  And I then related to people like it was the truth.  AND, if you didn’t care about me, then I didn’t have to care about you either.  I can see that what I unconsciously thought I was getting out of this cycle was protection from getting my heart broken.  Yet that was completely made up as well because from that place I never got to really be connected or related to anyone in a deep and meaningful way.  Which completely cost me having amazing relationships.

I certainly have more to share and will do so in other posts but for now I will leave you with this.  How would your life transform if you actually got that the automatic way you were relating to people was completely inauthentic and made up?  We’re all human so we all do it.  What if you had the freedom to create ANYTHING you wanted?

My final evening of the advanced course is tonight from 7:30p-10:45p.  It’s at 317 W. 33rd between 8th & 9th Ave.  We’re allowed to bring guests so consider yourself invited to transform your life and your relationship to yourself and others.

Or if that’s not for you, I’m more than happy to have a conversation with you about creating possibility and abundance in your life.  I am beyond lit up about the magic of life and am so excited about sharing it.  Come and get it!

I just started reading Being Peace by Thich Nhat Hanh.  Early on in the book it says the following.  “A human being is like a television set with millions of channels. If we turn the Buddha on, we are the Buddha.  If we turn the sorrow on, we are the sorrow.  If we turn a smile on, we really are the smile. We can’t let just one channel dominate us. We have the seeds of everything in us, and we have to take the situation in hand to recover our own sovereignty.”

I loved this piece.  It really illuminates in the plainest terms that we are what we believe and we can simply choose which experiences to ‘turn on’. Yet people so frequently get sucked in to crappy programming.

People are so persistently plagued by beliefs that disempower them.  They’re not good enough, they’ll never be able to do it, they can’t afford it, they don’t deserve it, people don’t like them and so on and so forth.  Yet they’re the one ‘turning on’ (and tuning in to) that channel.

It’s human nature.  I of course do it myself as well.  For example, for the longest time I turned on the “I can’t afford it” channel.  Living out the starring role of this show I freaked out about giving myself anything and had lots of reasons and excuses to justify not doing so.  And when I did spend money anyway, I had tremendous guilt or uneasiness about it.  For example, I would go to dinner with friends and be hyper-sensitive about only paying exactly what I owed.  Talk about anal (and unpleasant)!

Then I finally started to break down this ‘story’ of mine.  First it was little by little that I started to make changes.  I’d split bills evenly at dinner and not care if I owed less.  I’d buy little things for others or donate money here and there.  Then at some point my coach encouraged me to invest in things I really wanted for myself in service of my clients being able to invest in theirselves and what they want (coaching).  After all, how could I expect them to take on what I myself wouldn’t?  I still struggled with this for a month or two still unwilling to let go and trust the universe.  Until something switched.

I read Brian Weiss’ ‘Many Lives, Many Masters’ and was fascinated by the stories of past life regressions.  When I got home I googled past life regression therapy and found that Brian Weiss was doing a workshop in Philly for $139.  I was so excited to find it and knew I had to sign up so I put my money objections aside and registered.  I posted the workshop on my twitter and later that day Rethnea contacted me to share with me that she had studied with Dr. Weiss and does past life regressions and wanted to offer me a free 3 hour session which I gratefully accepted.  (Unbeknownst to me I was the last free session she was to offer anyone as she decided to start charging for her work). Then, after completing Dr. Weiss’ workshop, we did past life work in my intuitive tool classes with Deganit.  There’s another amazing example in my post, ‘What are you bringing into your life?‘  It’s amazing what the universe provides you with when you get over yourself and surrender your BS to it.  All you have to do is give a little bit of yourself and trust that the universe will take care of you and bring you more than you could have imagined.

Now I’m creating the story of, ‘I can create anything!’

What’s one ‘story’ or belief you’re holding on to for dear life that if you took action in the face of it, might create something phenomenal in your life?  What’s just one baby step action you could take within the next week?

On a related note, I heard an awesome statistic the other day that when people sign up for a coaching program, when they simply register, they are anywhere from 20%-200% more likely to get the results they want.  If you think about it, this makes perfect sense.  What we’re actually talking about is putting some skin in the game of life.  You can look at this in other areas of life just as easily.  For example, you’re unlikely to learn a new language until you sign up for a course, or to learn salsa until you register for a dance class. You have to say yes to life before anything new can happen.

What do you really want in your life that you’ve been a constant ‘no’ to based on some circumstance?  I invite you to go take any action towards being a yes to it and watch it snowball.

Just a quick post today.

I had a really great intuitive meditation class with Deganit today.

We did visual meditation where we went to the library that had a special room just to house all our unique soul’s memories.  Every single one.  The idea is that you’ve already experienced every life possible.  You’ve been rich, poor, in love, lonely, intelligent, simple, etc.  So your soul already holds all of this knowledge of how to do each thing effortlessly.  So in this meditation we were able to ask for any help we saw we needed in the present to move something forward in our lives. We could then ‘download’ (with the aid of our spirit guides) the information so that we ‘remember’ it.  I did this with money.  I said that I wanted know how to have money come to me easily and effortlessly. Based on ‘downloading’ (or soaking up) some past experiences of doing this I was then able to get this information imprinted upon me.

While I’m not yet sure of the difference this will make it was certainly a wondrous and   gratifying experience.

The other thing we learned to do today was to take on the ‘love’ energy that comes from the universe.  This involves using our spirit guides to be a conduit for that healing sensation.  It was amazing.  I really felt myself in an incredibly peaceful and serene state.  I’ve always had a lot of trouble meditating when it involved shutting your mind off completely and yet that was the experience I had when doing this exercise and it was completely effortless.  My mind stopped churning and I just felt great.  We also learned how to be a conduit for this to others myself so if you’re interested in trying it out let me know.  It reminded be a lot of Reiki.

Have any of you had experiences with energy healing?  What did you get out of it?  Or what do you see you could get out of doing some energy healing work?

Because you can’t.  You can only change yourself and your relationship to other people.  You can’t actually change them. There’s nothing wrong with them anyway.  They are however they are.  Where the power and magic to transform a relationship exists is completely within shifting your own interpretations and reactions to whatever it is they do and whoever they ‘be’.

Consider that YOU are the source of ALL of your grief, anxiety and frustration, yet you assume it is caused by another person (or circumstance, or event, etc).  All that angst is a derivative of your own beliefs and thought processes about how people or things should or shouldn’t be.  What would life be like for you if you could live outside of all the ‘should’ and ‘should nots’?  Outside of defending, justifying or blaming?  What possibility do you see that would create space for?  Who could you BE then?

I was journaling yesterday on how Spirit could guide me to focus more attentively on my relationship with myself and with others as well as various areas of life where I’m up to things (business, relationship, friendships, fitness, travel, writing).  I got two main things out of it.  One was to follow my intuition with conviction and do whatever feels right.  To move in the direction of my passions and let the universe work out the details.  The other, more relevant to this particular topic, was to accept people as they are.  I mean, REALLY accept people as they are.  To completely and totally love them for all they are and all they are not and to not wish, hope or try to change them.  After all, wishing they would change is just as destructive as trying to change them.

I also got that as a coach, bringing unconditional acceptance ‘as is’ to my stand for my clients doesn’t mean I don’t support and partner with them in creating their transformation.  After all, they’re hiring me to create the life of their dreams and get results.  It just means that they are perfectly fine wherever they are and there’s absolutely nothing wrong.  Ever.  There are just things that they want in their life that they currently don’t have, obstacles to remove from the path, and breakthroughs to create to get there.  I have always understood this, especially at the intellectual level, but this time seemed to have permeated me even more deeply than in the past, to a level that touched my soul and shifted my perspective.

Now back to you, I’m not saying that you must or should keep everyone in your life and just ‘rise above it’.  Use your own intuition.  You may find that there are some things you are unwilling to settle for which may be an indication that it is no longer serving you to keep someone in your life.  On the other hand, you may find that you’ve been being a jerk or have been instigating tension or disconnect and choose to change the way you relate to them.  Look at what is most in line with what you are committed to in your life.  Regardless of what you choose, and it is most definitely a choice, when you get present to accepting them as they are, you then are responsible for empowering your decision to continue the relationship or not and how it goes from that point on.

So look at the relationships in your life.  Really look on your side of the street at what has them going the way they are.  From a place of accepting those people completely, what is there to take on?  Apology? Forgiveness? Support? Completion? The ability to create relationships that nourish you exists within in your heart.  Let it speak to you.

“Success is moving from failure to failure without the loss of enthusiasm.” – Winston Churchill

I so frequently stop or get stagnant when the stench of failure wafts into my life so as to avoid being enmeshed by it at all costs.  In actuality, this is a surefire way to avoid ever being successful.

You HAVE to fail over and over again in order to learn how to create success for yourself.  Failures provide learning and growth.  They simply reflect something that did not work and point you in the direction of what will.

Yet most of us consider them to be these big, scary, horrible experiences.  We spend so much time and energy avoiding having to deal with failure that we never even get the chance to show how naturally creative and powerful we are.

The cosmic joke is that we’re meant to develop and evolve; to expand our capacity for love, compassion, patience and generosity.  But we want all that juicy end stuff without any of the work it takes to get there.  Yet it takes work.  And that work involves lots and lots of ‘failures’.

What I see for myself is that if I truly start welcoming failures, it would diffuse some of the anxiety and significance I’ve created around the expectation I currently have of what the experience has to be.  Places where I’ve feared hearing answers I don’t want to hear, or fear that I won’t actually make a difference, will no longer be so confronting because I wouldn’t be pre-planning the lashing I’d give myself if things don’t go smoothly.  Because as I’ve mentioned before, I’m highly skilled at beating myself up.  I think if I go from failure to failure enthusiastically, it will be life-giving.  I will be able to step into absolutely anything without judgment or predisposed conceptions of how it has to go.  From that place, success is inevitable.

What would be in it for you to take on failing masterfully?  What space do you see might open up for you if your view shifted from failure as disastrous to failure as delightful?

I saw this weekend that I have a lot of charge/energy around the concept of being a “shitty coach” and “not being as good as others”.  If something triggers me to feel like either of those, I immediately shut down and start beating myself up for it. It goes back to a very young conversation that I’m just not good enough and don’t fit in.

I realized it’s not that any of that is at all true, or that anyone else believes that it’s true, but rather that I spend so much time trying to be NOT that, that I can’t actually get outside of it.  There’s some part of me deep down that must believe it could be true because there’s significant fear of being just that.

What I saw, with the help of a couple friends/colleagues, is that if I create it as a neutral place, I can then build, grow and learn from there.  For example, “Ok, so I’m a shitty coach.  Now what?” or “Ok, others are better than me. Now what?”.  At first I couldn’t even be with that concept.  But the reason I couldn’t be with it is because I think I shouldn’t be a shitty coach or inferior, and I am masterful at beating myself up about things I think ‘shouldn’t be’.

However, I realized that if I stopped beating myself up all the time, I would have infinite more space to be with people and to make a difference with my clients.  To really open my heart to others and allow it all.

What do you see for yourselves?

What are some hot buttons that trigger you to get angry or upset with yourself, that you just have a really hard time being with?

Often it’s the things that are the most charged for us that cause us to do everything in our power to not be that thing we fear.  Yet then we’re imprisoned by the belief that at our core we are in fact that thing.

It’s often easier to see in other people.  You almost inevitably know lots of people who beat themselves up for everything and anything possible.  They believe they’re not a good enough leader, they’re not attractive enough, cool enough, smart enough, strong enough, funny enough, etc.  So they do everything they can to compensate for what they imagined is wrong with them rather than be with that fear and create an opportunity to grow.

Well, you too.

What consequences do you see of living your life based on some kind of imaginary fear?

From there, what new way of being would you like to create instead?  Because that is what’s possible from taking ownership of your interpretations and actions.  That is where you can make a difference.