The Summer Day
by: Mary Oliver
Who made the world?
Who made the swan, and the black bear?
Who made the grasshopper?
This grasshopper, I mean-
the one who has flung herself out of the grass,
the one who is eating sugar out of my hand,
who is moving her jaws back and forth instead of up and down-
who is gazing around with her enormous and complicated eyes.
Now she lifts her pale forearms and thoroughly washes her face.
Now she snaps her wings open, and floats away.
I don’t know exactly what a prayer is.
I do know how to pay attention, how to fall down
into the grass, how to kneel down in the grass,
how to be idle and blessed, how to stroll through the fields,
which is what I have been doing all day.
Tell me, what else should I have done?
Doesn’t everything die at last, and too soon?
Tell me, what is it you plan to do
with your one wild and precious life?
How great is that last question? “Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?” Do you see your life as wild and precious at all? How would you live differently if you did? It’s amazing how much life there is all around us; magical and sacred, and so often unnoticed.
I’m creating an intention to be more present. To notice more, and to hurry less. Are you in?
Coach Charrise
“Every child born into the world is a new thought of God, an ever fresh and radiant possibility” Kate Douglas Wiggin
Yesterday, our family organized our annual Easter egg hunt. We have a large and happily connected extended family – beginning with my mother, who raised 4 children. We all married and had children, and some of our children have married and had children of their own. This creates family gatherings of about 35 people getting together for every holiday.
Our Easter eggs are the plastic sort – filled with money and chocolate. The children look forward to this hunt every year – marveling at the idea of finding hidden treasure. The adults watch as the children are released on their quest – each of us grinning ear to ear at the excitement in their eyes.
The Easter egg hunt is a tradition passed along from when we were children. I remember my grandma and grandpa hiding eggs, while 8 grandchildren ravaged the surrounding area, seeking the one big prize – the golden egg!
Watching the children yesterday, I could so easily go back to the days when I was the child, full of wonder. There were no worries, no limits, and no end to the possibilities. I was going to find the golden egg! I didn’t always find it, but sometimes I did. That was enough for me.
Children inspire such wonder in all of us. One of my great-nephews yesterday gripped his egg bucket and followed his dad around until it was time to begin – through prayer and dinner and preparations for the hunt – ever vigilant to be one of the first to enter the field. His joy was fresh and raw; eyes sparkling at the possibilities.
Our little girls scavenged like the best of them; adorning their Sunday best – knee length dresses in bright Spring colors with white tights stained of grass and mud. And the boys, aggressively ripping and tearing the tundra until all the eggs are conquered.
It’s helpful as an adult to recall that feeling of wonder and possibility. I was born with it, and created for it. Sometimes life brings disappointments that cause me to become less inspired. And still, at my core, I know that anything is possible.
Coach Charrise
Today I want to share a poem with you. Mary Oliver is a Pulitzer Prize winning poet, whose work is known to conjure beautiful images of nature.
Wild Geese
by Mary OliverYou do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees
for a hundred miles through the desert repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of your body
love what it loves.
Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.
Meanwhile the world goes on.
Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain
are moving across the landscapes,
over the prairies and the deep trees,
the mountains and the rivers.
Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,
are heading home again.
Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,
the world offers itself to your imagination,
calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting —
over and over announcing your place
in the family of things.from Dream Work by Mary Oliver
published by Atlantic Monthly Press
We are a very small part of the perfectly planned whole. Our problems diminish when we consider the majesty of the natural world around us. The world goes on.
Coach Charrise
What emotion does the word “discipline” evoke in you? Does it feel rigid? Painful? Do you think that practicing discipline is a sustainable option for you?
I used to think I didn’t have it, like it was some elusive quality that was not available to me. Seriously, I viewed it as a personality trait – and something that I wasn’t wired for. I’m so glad I was wrong about that. Because now I know that discipline is a choice. It’s created, just like everything else. Where my life lacks discipline, I now know that what is really lacking is commitment. When I use discipline to get something done, it’s really getting done because my commitment to do it was greater than my commitment not to do it.
How can it be that simple? My former perception that the discipline distinction was missing for me allowed me to make beautiful excuses for what I was saying I wanted, yet not creating. Easy excuses are good to have when you’re committed to have a life full of leaks. When you’re committed to living the low life – the life that doesn’t inspire.
Turns out I AM DISCIPLINE when it really counts. It’s my choice. Because I’m living the high life – the life of pure creation.
Coach Charrise
People are looking for the magic bullet. The sure shot. The secret weapon to build a wealthy empire the easy and fast and efficient way.
It happens sometimes. Someone will stumble over something that there is a market for. It’s very rare that a person finds wealth and success without one magic ingredient.
Practice.
As children, we were taught to practice. Practice our multiplication tables. Practice our clarinet. Practice our baseball pitch.
As adults, we forget the value of practice. In the world of fast and easy, and the path of least resistance, we take on an attitude of entitlement. We undervalue the simple act of practicing our skill, our trade, our passion.
Great creative work gets even greater through repetitively creating and re-creating. When we do what we love, why wouldn’t we choose to do more of it?
When I am practicing coaching, or practicing asking for my fee, or practicing serving – I am at my very best. Through the very nature of being in action, I create perfect systems; gaining confidence about what works and what doesn’t. I stay open to my passion evolving yet stay focused and in a state of action.
Practice is the secret weapon. It makes everything possible. The raw talent is inside you – the practice makes it real. The amount of time a person spends practicing their art, or their game, or their life – significantly improves it.
It’s simple. What do you practice?
Coach Charrise
“Charrise outstretched her hand and yanked me out of the chasm of despair. She had my creativity flying again within an hour of our first session and has me back in line on my path. I’m eternally grateful and look forward to my future mountains we’ll run up together. What a coach, what a person. She’s intuitive, generous and her compassion and enthusiasm for me to succeed is just edible. She’s achieved what no other coach has achieved for me in the past: instant, amazing results.”
This, from an amazing author, singer, and artist, after our first session together. What is waiting to be unleashed in YOU?
In gratitude,
Charrise
Have you ever considered what would be possible for you - if you were truly free to think, create, and reconnect with yourself and your spirit – now, and for the rest of your time here?
This notion may seem like a pipe dream. Truthfully, we don’t have time for such frivolous pursuits. After all, there are staff meetings to lead and products to sell and people to manage and fires to extinguish. We are caught in the web of what we’ve created: actions that are truly RE-actions. We go to bed each night, wondering if the torture will someday end; enduring sleepless nights and sleepwalking days, perpetuating the cycle of a life at the mercy of circumstances. What can all this really mean in the end?
And yet, if we’re honest with ourselves, we sense that there is a better way. We get glimmers of our innate well-being – flashes of enthusiasm and joy, sometimes at inexplicable times under ordinary circumstances. This is the space from which we recreate our ordinary life into something nothing short of extraordinary.
I spent a full day this week in Hilton Head with a client who was among the first few to experience Liberation Day, a one-day intense session designed to go deep and wide to create something new. Since I’m personally quite familiar with embodying struggle as a way of being, having done so myself for years – I am uniquely qualified to teach and guide people to reach a different place, where full expression lives. In this place, we remember who we are at our core, before we’ve piled on all the limiting thoughts, destructive beliefs, and unfounded fears that seem to suck the life out of us. We speak in terms of possibility, rather than the typical, tired, reasonable mindset we’ve grown accustomed to. We create space where anything we can imagine becomes possible, including specific action steps to get the momentum started.
During this intimate, fierce, loving day of walking the beach, swinging on porch swings, feeling the connection to the earth and spirit, my client and I gave life to something new and fresh. Like turning over every rock in a field of rocks, we explored every crevice, finding the new life that’s been starved of the light necessary to make it grow. We acknowledged the emotions, the feelings in the body, the joy and the inspiration.
The immediate tangible results of spending this precious time together are significant, though the dividends will occur for the rest of her life. She is now clear that she has been seeking something outside of herself to create the life she wants. She now knows that she is fully equipped with everything she needs, inside of her – and when she reaches into that place, and only when she does – she will create the life she truly wants. The roots are there, and now that the light is shining on them, there’s nothing but growth and harvest ahead.
I’m honored to create this space of possibility and wonder with such a magnificent human being. It’s life liberating, earth shaking, love explosion in pure form.
And for this, I’m grateful.
Coach Charrise
“…there was a new voice
which you slowly
recognized as your own,
that kept you company
as you strode deeper and deeper
into the world,
determined to do
the only thing you could do –
determined to save
the only life you could save.”
— Mary Oliver
I’ve been listening to an audio from Steve Chandler as part of my membership to Club Fearless. In it, he describes the distinction between “how to” and “want to”. It’s something that comes up often during conversations with my clients. Steve’s point is that when we understand the connection between the intensity of our intention and our ability to get it done, the way to get it done becomes completely clear.
I’ve spent a lot of time thinking I wanted something and that if only I knew HOW to do it, it would be done. It’s liberating to know that the real solution appears when my intention becomes intense enough, and that the juice is in the desire to do something.
What have you been wanting to do, and yet not doing? Can you see the connection to desire? If the desire isn’t intense enough to get it done, why not let it go and replace that energy with something you would truly love to do? Are you willing to want something badly enough to find the “how to”?
As a participant in the business world for just over 28 years (I started YOUNG), and especially as a reflection of my years spent working in the advertising industry — I’ve always had an appreciation for the way a company brands themselves. Now that I work in my own company, I felt it was time to actually put my big girl pants on and focus on the brand I want to create. So, I did what any smart business person would do – I hired an expert. My friend and colleague, Vincent Hunt, took me through an intricate and thorough process to get clear on who I am and how I want to present my service to the world.
That experience was enlightening, and Vincent pulled some great insight from our conversations. He then worked his magic and created a wonderful brand identity, which I really loved. He then designed the logo and service marks, including everything I would ever need to use the brand for marketing and advertising and web development. It is really cool and very “corporate”. Since most of my work is in the world of business, I wanted my brand to speak to those that would actually hire me. This felt like the right direction.
Once the identity was created, we got to work on the language used to describe my work – mostly for web content. The wonderful Vincent took my thoughts and crafted beautiful, soulful language that described the impact I have with leaders. It is really quite lovely. He and a colleague then designed a new website to host the brand. As we tweaked and modified and adjusted, the site was coming to life.
There was only one problem. I was quietly having my own deep, dark anxiety attack. Something wasn’t right and I couldn’t name what it was.
On the heels of my awareness that something was up with my shiny new brand, I traveled to Santa Monica to spend the weekend with Michael Neill (Supercoach Academy) and my SCA peeps. Sherri, a coach with a designer’s eye, asked my company name, and I told her. As soon as the words were out of my mouth, I knew what was wrong. EVERYTHING WAS WRONG. And Sherri confirmed it for me.
The company brand didn’t feel like mine. It felt like Vincent’s. I just wasn’t feeling it. It was in that defining moment that, despite the fact that everything surrounding the brand was about 95% complete, I made the decision to scrap it. Yep. (Vincent later declared it a “classic move”.) Good thing I spend much of my life teaching people to say what’s true…I got to practice what I preach with Vincent.
So now that I knew what was wrong, I had some soul searching to do to discover what was “right”. After deep thinking and discussion with my Business Manager, Megan McCrorey (yes, she is my daughter), it became quite clear to me that my brand should be ME. I am the product. My social media interactions dating more than 4 years back used the name Coach Charrise. Hmmm. What a perfect name for a business!
Coach Charrise was born (again).
Are you ready for the moral of the story? I did learn a few things. Let me list them for you:
1. The entire process facilitated a very clear awareness of who I am and what I’m up to.
2. I don’t have to be anything I’m not. I am the same coach with corporate clients that I am with individuals.
3. Even though I had already spent good money on a perfectly fine brand, I didn’t have to settle for it. My new brand is me – and that is priceless. I won’t ever let money dictate an important decision like this one.
4. Vincent Hunt and Josh Boutwell are angels, and they each handled my identity crisis with grace and kindness.
5. Sometimes it takes more time than you’d like to figure out who you want to be in the world. It’s worth the wait.
So, please take the opportunity to travel around this site. Come back often. We’re still in the process of migrating blog history, and if you sign up for the RSS feeds, they will come directly to you. I’d love to hear from you if you have suggestions or feedback or questions about something on the site or about something that I do.
It’s a celebration of my coming of age (49 still)…a rebirth…and a miracle.
It feels just right.
Love,
Coach Charrise
