Jaclyn Beckerman Coaching

So I’ve realized (with the help of some coaching) that I’ve got a serious layer of protection called “I don’t care/it doesn’t really matter/whatever”.  I use this to numb out to the consequences of not taking the actions I say I’m going to take or to not have to really be committed (with both feet in) to what I claim I’m committed to.

What this covers up is that I really deeply DO care (if I didn’t, I would have stopped talking about it ages ago).  AND I’m convinced that I’ll be devastated and get my heart broken because it inevitably won’t work out.  The ‘it’ could be anywhere from making a difference with people and getting people to stand for world peace to building my coaching practice to creating the relationships I want in all capacities such as romantic, friendships and with family.

The ironic thing is that the impact of this on me is that I end up feeling frustrated irritated, and really disappointed in both myself and others.  There’s also impacts on specific areas of my life like friendships, romantic life, my coaching practice, my family, etc.  And with me being that way I imagine it leaves others feeling left in the dark, disconnected, hurt and confused or even oblivious.

This isn’t how I want to live my life.  And I’m really well practiced at it.

So what I’m up to is thawing this ice that is covering the oasis below.  What I’m committed to is being a contribution everywhere.

Being a contribution doesn’t have to take a lot of effort and isn’t thwarted by not wanting to or feeling like it because it’s a way of being.  And it’s a choice to create or generate that way of being moment-by-moment.

What’s an act or shtick you can see you’re putting on in your own life?  What’s the thing you do to avoid getting hurt? What is that a facade for or what are you hiding from people (and maybe even yourself) that it covers up?  What’s the impact of that on yourself and others?  Actually let yourself really get present to and experience the impact.  Then decide if that’s what you’re committed to or if you want to create something else.

Every moment of every day you have to opportunity to create something different for yourself.  Is today going to be just one more iteration of how it always goes or will you have today be the day that you bring it to a full stop and create something else?  Invent a new perspective on life. Take a new action in line with it.  Tell people you’re giving up the crappy way you were being before and tell them what you’re creating instead.

Watch your life transform.

I notice that when I don’t relate to someone as their greatness or their highest self, when I instead see their faults or see them as their fear-based self, that it causes them to relate to me the same way. That is, they then see me as MY fear-based self instead of as the powerful and loving person I know myself capable of being.

This is because the reason I’m relating to them as their fear-based self is because I’m BEING my own fear-based self. I’m getting caught up in my own insecurities about not being good enough or needing their approval or to be liked and am then relating to them from that place.

Now, I know what I just said may have been somewhat wordy and possibly a bit confusing. The core of what I’m saying is that when you are coming from your fears or insecurities, you bring that out in others. And they then relate to you from and as those fears and insecurities.

When you are authentically coming from love and compassion, they will often come from that place as well and will relate to you that way.

Seems pretty simple right? If you always related to everyone from a place of love, you would bring that out in them as well and they would then relate to you as that. Which I’ll assert is the way you want them to relate to you anyway.

You can’t expect someone to relate to you with loving kindness if you don’t relate to them that way. (And ‘acting’ loving and compassionate as a strategy to get them to do the same, on top of your fears and insecurities, doesn’t count. It doesn’t count because it’s not an authentic expression of love if it’s still based out of fear.)

The beauty in this is that it is true not just for your partner or your friends, but for everyone. For that boss you just can’t seem to get along with, for you mother (who you love but likely don’t always relate to from love), to your neighbor who drives you nuts, whoever.

And yes, YOU are the one who has to ‘do all the work’, who has to take responsibility for your relationships. It is never another persons job to change. You lose all of the power you have to transform your relationships and your life by putting it on someone else and saying they should do it for you (or instead of you, or even that they should do it too). Love begets love. You bring it, they’ll produce it too. And even if they don’t, it won’t really matter, because who you’ll be being is love. Your experience of them will still be completely transformed.

Consider also that in relationships that have been heavily fear-based or where coming from love has been weak or absent, you will likely not get instant gratification. It may take some practice and some time. This isn’t a 100% game. You will always have fears show up here and there. But start noticing where you’re coming from with people and how it directly correlates to how they are with you.

When you start to BE the person you want to be with, whatever relationship that is for, they will start to relate to you differently, and your relationship will transform.

What I’ve found is that the moment I acknowledge that I’m in the midst of a breakdown, or said differently – some sort of roadblock (whether internal or external) on the path to my commitment, it starts to dissipate.  I fairly recently was in one of these for a good week and a half before actually recognizing it and owning that that was where I was.  The moment I did, I was able to see that I’d just been hanging out there and not being responsible for having it be that way.  It gave me the space to start moving through it.  It wasn’t instantaneous, and I was still in process around it for a bit (in fact there’s parts of it that I am still in process around), but it did immediately start to shift my energy and provide access to a gigantic breakthrough on the other side, bigger than I’d been aware of there being.

Essentially the breakthrough available is in having things be about others.  In giving up living my life like it’s all about me, and being the contribution that I’m capable of being.  I’ve been told that 99% of people live their lives like it’s all about them.  Yet based on what I’ve chosen to do with my life as a coach, and the difference I want to make in the world, I can’t be one of those people.  I’ve hit my capacity for it.

I’ve had it that if I have it be all about others, I’ll lose myself and what I want to what they want.

Yet when my connection to others is out, and it’s all about me, I get caught up in my own nonsense and interpretations.

I already know how to connect with myself and my own needs.  What I recently realized is that if I have it be about others (and Spirit), then that actually builds my power and my identity.  Which will inevitably lead to my getting what I want in the end as well, in fact it’s the only way to truly get what I want.  I have to trust that I am receiving as I am giving, even though I likely don’t know what that receiving will be or become.

This requires me to commit to creating deep and authentic connections to others.  Through this, others get to be seen and heard, they get to know they are completely accepted exactly as they are.

When we’re not connected to self, Spirit and others, we go inside of our fears and fear is all there is. When we are fully connected in all areas, we can notice fear and still move forward.  Generally we create a lot of pain and suffering about the things we resist and have some fear around them.  Fear and pain or suffering do not need to go hand in hand. When you’re fully connected, you can have fear and simultaneously distinguish what the pain or suffering is really all about.  From here, you can move forward anyway.

There are of course variations of where you might be disconnected than from my personal example above.  For example, some people have it be completely about others and never about themselves at all.  There, they tend to be disconnected to getting their own needs met and often end up resenting others for their lack of well being or not being heard.  Or when someone is connected to spirit and not to themselves or others.  In this case one might connect with a higher purpose yet has no access to fulfill on it because life exists in relationships to others and oneself.

Take a look in your life at all three areas, self, Spirit and others.  Which one is currently the most out of sync? Consider that your suffering may be a direct result of one of these areas not being handled in your life. If you got completely connected in that area, what would that make available?

Take it a step further: Create at least 3 actions for the next 30 days that will move you towards getting connected and share them below!

So I apologize I didn’t post last week.  I got caught up in some busyness.

Ok, that’s a lie.  To be honest, my body was taken over by “I don’t feel like it”.

I notice that “I don’t feel like it” sometimes does a hostile takeover and runs the show.  I guess it’s to be expected since I’ve definitely stubbornly lived life from that place in the past.  So it can’t be very happy that I’ve started to disengage from it and pay it less attention.  Yet although I’ve had huge breakthroughs around it in the past year (in fact, especially in the past 6 or 7 months), that doesn’t mean it goes away.

That’s the thing with our “stuff” .  Even when you transform it in a huge way and completely alter your relationship to it, that doesn’t mean it’s forever gone.  It just means that you’re more adept at recognizing it and not allowing it to take the wheel and control you. (Even though that may still happen sometimes – it will happen less and less the more practiced you are at acknowledging it and not choosing it.)

It’s funny because there are definitely plenty of times when I feel like I don’t have anything particular, useful or inspiring to write about.  Which compels me to put it off.  Yet I notice that when I just sit down and start writing about whatever is actually going on, it often turns out to be some pretty insightful stuff.

You’re like this too.  If you actually jump into the thing you’re avoiding, often times, it winds up being incredibly easier than you expected.

We can’t help that resistance shows up, we’re human.  We resist the way things are, don’t want to admit to or share it, and then get caught up in the drama of it without a lifeline.  Yet all it really takes is authenticity, recognition of ‘what is’, and ownership of it being that way to completely change the experience.

The point is that we ARE human.  Things aren’t always going to be rainbows and butterflies.  There are ups and downs to life.  But if you’re willing to ‘be with’ whatever your experience is and take responsibility for it, you can choose or create something else that’s more empowering or powerful.  The ‘ups’ suddenly start being more of the norm and the length of time you hang out in ‘downs’ gets shorter and shorter.

So, start noticing where you’re resisting whatever is going on in your life.  You have no power around it until you can fully own that YOU see things the way you do and have things going the way they are.  No one else created your experience for you (no matter what they said or did to you), YOU created it.  If you truly take full responsibility for how you think, feel and respond, then you can choose to have it go differently.  You can choose to be more compassionate, more loving and more understanding with both yourself and with others (and also with Spirit!).  Imagine what would shift in your life living from there.

Piggybacking on last weeks post, I want to talk more about being with ‘what is’.

The phenomenal power of being in the moment and accepting things as they are.

Now I’m not saying I’m an expert at this.  I’m practicing and learning.  But man is it useful and empowering.

When you start to be with what is, you stop resisting how things aren’t.  And after all, what you resist, persists.

For example, you’re on the phone and a major client decides to stop working with you, in that moment that’s what is.  In the next moment, you are just sitting there working, and that’s what is.  Instead of reacting, throwing all your energy into the upset and losing the rest of your day or week, you can be proactive and productive to create new clients or plan for whatever is next. (This takes PRACTICE.  It may take you more than 10 minutes, 3 hours or a day to get back to the present moment at first.  But keep practicing and you’ll get back to it faster and faster.)

Or say you’re on a date and you really like the person, in that moment, you’re getting to know someone and having a good time.  If you’re measuring them up against some imaginary list you’ve concocted representing the ‘perfect partner’ or losing yourself in your thoughts about whether or not you’re going to marry this person, well then you’re NOT being in the moment with what is.  Every time you notice your mind wandering from the exact current situation you’re in, bring yourself back by reminding yourself that you’re here right now.

Or maybe you had a really awful day at work.  Everything went wrong and you felt like you just couldn’t catch a break.  But now you’re at home.  Well, ‘what is’ is that you’re at home, doing whatever you’re now doing (eating dinner, watching tv, reading a book, spending time with your kids, etc).  If you sit there and stress or complain about your day, you’re now living in the past (yes, even earlier today, in fact even 1 minute ago, is now the past).  Your energy is still at work in your crappy day.  On top of that, you’re now poisoning whatever is going on in this new experience with something that has nothing to do with the present moment.  Work will be there tomorrow and it will be a new day, where you can create a new experience.  Being present in the current moment will help you do that.

Or perhaps you just had an argument with your partner or spouse (or even a friend). But now it’s over.  Yet often you’ll spend hours (for some, days) in anger and resentment before deciding to let it go or make up even though you’re not actually arguing anymore.  It’s funny because often when we have these kinds of arguments, while we’re still arguing, we’ll see the other person’s point of view, and actually get that we’re not completely right (even if they’re not completely right either).  Yet we’re SO committed to being right, that we hold on to our anger, frustration and upset and pretend they’re 100% wrong anyway (another example of resisting being with ‘what is’ since you can in fact see their perspective).  What we could do is to actually share when we see the other person’s point of view (notice that that alone will ease the tension, not just for them but for you too).  This doesn’t have to invalidate your experience or deem your feelings to be inaccurate.  But when you can be understanding of where another person is coming from, you can have compassion for them.  From there, they’ll likely be more receptive to understanding you as well.

Practice actually telling yourself what’s going on in your current reality: “Right now, in this moment, I am ‘_________’.”  For example, ‘Right now, in this moment, I am at home writing a blog entry.’  Or, ‘Right now, in this moment, I am on a date.’  Or, ‘Right now, in this moment, I am playing with my kids.’ Or, ‘Right now, in this moment, I am working on my business plan.’

The more you can be present to what is actually currently happening, the more power and peace you can have.

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!