I have been a coach for a transformational leadership program these last two weeks and the immediacy of how the lessons come is something I have experienced rarely in life.
The truth is that most people have NO IDEA how powerful they are. We literally source everything we need: resources, relationships, teachers, lessons, experiences for our entire lives. And even though the “law of attraction” has garnered so much attention and we have quantum physics proving that energy begets energy and that indeed this is REAL, it remains a concept in most people’s heads.
When we leave it as a concept, it remains in a space of DOing, and given our culture is so steeped in doing more, proving who we are by our accomplishments and being able to “have something to show for it” we get stuck in the actions of thinking if we just perform a little better, everything will change.
Yet it never does in those quantum leaps unless the quantum leap is inside us.
DOing, or taking action, is important, but the real engine is in BEing. When we don’t like what is happening in our lives and relationships we get to ask how we are BEing.
What in my BEing is generating this experience, this feedback or this person?
BEing is harder to see, so we don’t tend to focus on it. Our BEing doesn’t land us a certificate to hang on our wall or the accolades that our DOing often does.
The greatest gifts transformational leadership has given me have been feedback on the ways of BEing that are working for me and the ones that are not. With that awareness I get to shift my BEing to be in total alignment with my true authentic spirit. With that, everything else flows.
It’s an ongoing game. It doesn’t end because I got my graduation gift. That was actually the beginning for me.
As an experiential teacher I value this work tremendously. I believe that we need experiences to have the real learning, and that we learn IN relationship.
Sure you can learn things from books. I value books. I know many people have learned a lot from my books and I am so grateful to be able to share in that way. Yet nothing compares to having a lived experience in order to learn. The problem is that most of us miss the teachings in a lot of our everyday learned experiences. We can’t see them.
Experiential learning environments where you are immersed in a real experience that allows you to stretch yourself into a greater awareness and way of BEing as you reflect on your learning is priceless.
I can’t think of anything more valuable.
There is a theory called the Experiential Learning Cycle, which I teach anytime I am training facilitators and teachers. What many programs lack is an understanding of how the learning truly lands inside of us when we have an experience. Processing through that is where the gold is.
What I have learned during COVID in a way I never fully realized before is that we can create the same depth and power in virtual experiences as we can in person. It’s different, yes, and still deep, if we stop complaining about what is not there and see the opportunity that is there.
When we hosted Fire Woman Retreat in May for the first time virtually, even I was a little skeptical, but I knew we could create a powerful experience. The immensity of the power of it was an absolute joy and delighted me beyond any expectations I might have had.
Then I thought, what was I waiting for? I could have been doing this all along. Even though I have taught programs online for ten years, I had not seen the possibility for full deep dive retreats—the experiential events I love to create more than anything else I do.
We created absolute magic and transformation.
That’s what I’ve been doing these last two weeks as I expand my own ideas for what is possible in my work with women and non-binary folks.
Our next Fire Woman Retreat will reflect all of that learning. Already women who came in May have signed up again to join us this October because it was that spectacular.
We are ready and excited to welcome everyone one of them. I hope you will be one.
Whether or not you attend, (or send the women and non-binary folks in your life to join us), know that your own ability to source exactly what you need is in you every single moment.
If you don’t like something that is happening in your life, you have all the power in the world to make it different.
Own your own power. It’s all true. You really are that powerful.
