iCoach Issue 16: THOUGHT by iCoachNetwork

IN THIS ISSUE... COVER STORY: Would You Buy A Ticket To The Movie Of Your LIfe? ... Michael Neill Becoming a New Observer ... Karen Davis

The Nature of Thought ... Kimberley Kaase

Your Train of Thought ... Amir Karkouti

Three Thoughts That Will Change Your Life ... Donna Higton

Think. Then Be ... Stacy Nelson

It’s Just Your Thinking ... Phil Goddard

One Question That Can Stir Your Soul & Change Your Life ... Marilyn Rodriguez

The Power of Thought ... Randi Radul

A couple of FYI’s... Yes, it’s the small print! First off - none of the articles in this magazine, including the cover, were paid for. This is not and will never be a Pay-To-Pay because I am dedicated to supporting our membership first by promoting their awesomeness and to our readership second by delivering the best content we can. The advertisements on the other hand are either paid for by our sponsors or are affiliate links that will help offset the expense of publishing this monthly Magazine so we can keep it as free and easily distributable. If you have any comments or concerns, please contact our team at Info@iCoachNetwork.com

Thinking Together This is one of those issues that I personally as a publisher have dreamed of... having one of the premier faces of coaching Michael Neill, the Supercoach himself, on the cover. I couldn’t wait to dive in and see what we could create together. But before I get ahead of myself, I’d also like to extend a big thank you to my Coach (and past cover coach himself), Rich Litvin, for taking the time to make the introduction to Michael that paved the road for this issue to materialize - and to my dear friend Anita Manthey who stood in line to meet Michael and asked him if he’d be on this cover which was just bad-ass-awesome. Being surrounded by powerful generous people is the only way this magazine has evolved past my little daydream. Gratitude for you both. As a coach, we have a choice. We can coach from a place of goal or result. We can swim on the surface and help our client be accountable and give them easy buttons. In other words, we can concentrate on the outside world. But to really create change in the world we have to be willing to dive into the depths of the inner world. This quote from “Inside-Out Revolution” epitomizes the type of dive that is required of powerful coaches... “The less we have on our mind, the better life gets.” The timing couldn’t be better either, as Michael’s TedX Talk hit YouTube and he graciously gave us permission to include it here with a note ‘Over 25,000 views in the first five days!’ Watching it gave me goose bumps. I could write more here but in all honesty, his closing line sums up this whole issue. “You are never more than one thought away from a whole new experience of life.”

With Love & Light

Stacy Nelson, Founder iCoachNetwork.com

www.iCoachNetwork.com

“A life where we believe that we aren’t making a meaningf u l c o n t r i b u-

WOULD YOU BUY A TICKET TO THE MOVIE OF YOUR LIFE?

“Since the w orld is essentially made up of undifferentiated energy, anything we see, hear or feel outside us is just a temporary and limited differentiation of that energy created via thought and projected by the mind into our consciousness.”

When I first began studying psychology, I saw the mind as primarily a “receptive interpreter” – like a camera which accurately records reality but due to its limitations, distorts, deletes, and otherwise filters information that doesn’t fit its pre-programmed expectations and beliefs. And if that were true, upgrading the programming of the camera was the best way I knew to create a better experience of life. So I spent many years working on my mind. Because it was apparent to me that when I thought different thoughts I felt different feelings, I attempted to change my life by changing my thinking. I started with simple affirmations and visualizations; over time, I graduated to hypnosis, NLP, and other cutting edge mental programming techniques. And it helped – I became less unhappy, more effective, and carried with me a sense of possibility that no matter what terrible thing happened in my life or in the world, I could find a way to see it that would mitigate the inherent pain of the situation. But as I looked closer at where all my hard work had gotten me, it became clear to me that I was fighting a losing battle. People I 3

knew who’d been practicing the best techniques of mental programming for decades longer than I had were still struggling with their lives and emotions. It reminded me of something one of my golf instructors had once told me: “The best golfer in the world is only two bad shots away from throwing a club.” My own best efforts had left me as a “high functioning depressive” – someone who was more than capable of making it through life at a really high level, but only a few weeks away from sinking back into the mire of depression that had been my constant companion in the early years. So when someone told me that what I thought I already knew was getting in the way of what it was possible for me to learn, I was extremely open to seeing something new. In order to get a sense for yourself of what I saw, imagine that the mind functions not as a “receptive interpreter” but as a “creative projector”. Since the world is essentially made up of undifferentiated energy, anything we see, hear or feel outside us is just a temporary and limited differentiation of that energy, created via thought and projected by the mind into our consciousness. We then experience that thought/form as “real” and “solid” via the senses. I can’t even begin to speak to the detailed physics or even metaphysics of this, so I have nothing particular to offer in relation to things like “the law of attraction”. What I do know is that when you begin to understand that the mind works less like a camera and more like a projector, life gets a lot less scary and a lot more fun. Because even the scariest movie monster in the world isn’t real.

When you begin to see that everything you’re seeing, hearing, and feeling is all made up – a collaboration of mind, thought, and consciousness projected into your senses from the insideout – it’s harder to take things personally, and you are able to handle the fluctuating highs and lows of your thinking with greater ease and grace. In other words, if you don’t like the movie of your life right now, not to worry - fresh new thinking and a whole new experience of being alive is never more than one thought away. Michael Neill is an internationally renowned transformative coach and the best-selling author of The Inside-Out Revolution, You Can Have What You Want, Feel Happy Now!, Supercoach, and both the Effortless Success and Coaching from the Inside-Out audio programs. He has spent the past 24 years as a coach, adviser, friend, mentor, and creative spark plug to celebrities, CEOs, royalty, and people who want to get more out of themselves and their lives. He is the also the founder of Supercoach Academy, an international school that teaches people how to coach from the inside out.Michael’s books have been translated into 15 languages, and his public talks, retreats, and seminars have touched and transformed lives at the United Nations and on five continents around the world.Michael’s weekly show, Supercoach, on Hayhouse Radio is a listener favorite with approximately 7,000 daily hits and is the most downloaded show on the network, with over 100,000 downloads a month. You can follow him on Twitter and Facebook and at Supercoach.com.

Why Aren't We Awesomer?â&#x20AC;¨ Michael Neill at TEDxBend

Click Here To Watch

CoachingFromTheInsideOut.com

“Thought always comes first. And experience follows.”

BECOMING A NEW OBSERVER “Our willingness to see the situation from an entirely different perspective can truly alter how you respond and, more importantly, how you experience life.”

It was March of 2006, while on vacation and browsing through books at a quaint little mountain town bookstore that I came across my first book on the art of meditation. I resisted buying it for several hours until fate would bring me back to that very same bookstore later that afternoon. The book I had been eyeing literally fell off the shelf in front of me. I picked it up off the floor, laughed, muttered a few foul words under my breath and then begrudgingly bought the book. I went home that evening and read the entire book from cover to cover, finally finishing in the wee hours of the morning. At the time, I had been living life like I was on a hamster wheel, frantically running a million miles an hour but getting absolutely nowhere fast. I felt overwhelmed, was creating a non-stop stressedout life for myself and, at times, was even negatively impacting everyone else around me. The next day I tried to follow the recommended exercises for meditation. Go blank, count, chant, breathe…allow your thoughts to cease. Create complete silence. And what actually happened? Almost instantly, the grocery list, my kids’ events, what I was go6

ing to make for dinner, what I hadn’t finished at work, what she said, what he said, etc., all barged in on me. Admittedly, I was exasperated but yet I was still determined.

us are distracting ourselves by not adequately addressing the stress in our lives? How many of us are numbing out through either prescribed drugs or other addictive behaviors?

I shut off the TV that week. No more nightly news. No more zoning out. I slowed everything down. Gradually, I began to get clear and present. I began to listen to what was going on inside of me and to live in the world, as opposed to being hopelessly lost in it. As I turned inward and became this new observer of my thoughts, it became much easier to create a different perception of the same facts, circumstances or people and, ultimately, shift my life into a much more positive direction.

In the fabulous docudrama People v. The State of Illusion, Austin Vickers shares his evocative story of one man’s incredible transformation and the power of the mind to create the reality we desire. This docudrama features experts discussing the current ‘state of illusion’ that so many of us suffer from today – our own self-inflicted ‘prison walls’ and our innate ability to create what it is that we desire by simply changing our thoughts. Our thoughts, as a larger series of thoughts, create our attitude and our attitudes create our beliefs. Ultimately, our beliefs create how we perceive the world.

Since then, I have gone media-free for long periods of time. Most of my world event updates are proactively gained by my own volition. I have focused my attention on disengaging from the unnecessary chaos, anxiety, stress and drama that is so easy to fall into when we are not conscious of our thoughts. I’ve learned a lot about THOUGHT since my journey began that fateful day back in 2006. Although, that’s not to say I don’t fall back into my old habits of negative thoughts or counterproductive behavior from time to time. Knocking Down Our Own Walls Our thoughts formulate our world. Thought always comes first. And experience follows. Our experience is always a direct reflection of the quality of our thinking. That being said, at this exact moment, there are approximately 7 billion people on our planet thinking. How many of us are feeling trapped or exhausted by our limiting thoughts? How many of

Slowing Down As human beings, we are hardwired to handle short-term stress. You know, fight or flight. Yet many of us suffer from the effects of long-term stress that we actually create ourselves. We distract ourselves through various forms of addictive behaviors and think if we can just add more to our life it will all magically go away. We speed everything up so that we don’t have to face the real issues that we ourselves have manufactured. It’s like having a flat tire and thinking if we speed up the problem will be solved. When in fact, that’s precisely when we all end up in the ditch. Using the Right Words As a coach, you know the importance of language. Our language defines our level of consciousness. When we adopt powerful language such as commitment, requests and declarations, 7

we empower ourselves. Dusan Djukich, in his book Straight-line Leadership, suggests eliminating the words “should” and “trying” from our vocabulary. “Should” implies that you are operating under someone else’s authority. Likewise, according to Djukich, whenever you use the word “trying,” you will not accomplish anything because trying is an excuse. It’s a weak inner stance, he says, and is a code for “don’t count on it”. Become a New Observer Next time your thoughts are running your life, slow down, take a minute to reflect and ask yourself, “Given this situation, what is it that I want to create?” Your willingness to see the situation from an entirely different perspective can truly alter how you respond and, more importantly, how you experience life. And now, armed with this information, hopefully a book doesn’t have to fling itself at your feet for you to know that the power to create your thoughts as a new observer of your life is completely within your control.

Karen Davis is a certified Ontological Executive Coach working with clients nationally and internationally. She provides one-on-one deep coaching services with high-performing executives, entrepreneurs, business professionals, and coaches who are committed to their success, ready to uncover their hidden potential and make their own unique difference in the world. You can reach K a re n f o r a p o w e r f u l c o n v e r s a t i o n a t : 303.665.4301 or learn more by visiting, www.karendaviscoaching.com Karen Davis is a certified Ontological Executive Coach working with clients nationally and internationally. She provides one-on-one deep coaching services with high-performing executives, entrepreneurs, business professionals, and coaches who are committed to their success, ready to uncover their hidden potential and make their own unique difference in the world. You can reach K a re n f o r a p o w e r f u l c o n v e r s a t i o n a t : 303.665.4301 or learn more by visiting, www.karendaviscoaching.com

May the FORCE be with you!

THE NATURE OF THOUGHT the next moment you recall how angry you were at your partner during an argument last night. Have you ever noticed how MUCH you think? As human beings we think our way through life. Behind every thought comes yet another. Yet we rarely consider fresh, new thought as a leverage point. The nature of thought is that it is ever changing and that it colors every experience that we have. This is an important distinction as we coach. I’ll give you an example.

Many times when we talk about thought, we talk about the content of our personal thinking: what goes through our heads, is it positive or negative, is it uplifting or depressing, does it serve us or not? As a coach grounded in the inside out understanding, I like to look deeper, toward the nature of Thought. Let’s first look at where thought comes from. Thought is formless; it comes from nothing. It comes from a formless energy and in fact, before we form an actual personal thought, Thought itself is formless. If we look at the nature of it, we can think ANYTHING. Every new invention or discovery comes from this amazing potential called Thought. On the flip side every evil, desperate act also begins with Thought. Have you ever noticed how often and how fast your own thoughts change? One moment you are thinking about how beautiful the sky is and

When a client comes to me and says “I’m insecure, I want to work on my self-confidence”, it might be tempting to prescribe a vision and goals that would let the person accomplish something which supposedly would then contribute to a boost in self confidence. When I look deeper at this client, I actually see that the person is not in fact an insecure being, the client just has (at times) a lot of insecure thinking. Knowing that thinking changes rapidly by its own nature, I see that the client is just tangled in his own web of thought. By pointing that person in the direction of the nature of thought instead of the content of his own thought, he begins to see his own potential. But for our own thinking, we are pure potentiality. But for our own thinking, we are a blank canvas upon which masterpiece is waiting to be painted. So it is typically at this point people ask me “But how? How do I control my thoughts? How do I make the insecure thinking go away?” Again, it is tempting to throw in some sort of pattern interruption technique. My own experience is that sometimes that works, and many times it doesn’t. By 9

looking at the nature of thought, we see that since thinking changes so often, we don’t really need to take insecure thinking so seriously. As we begin to see the nature of thought, it is the relationship to thinking that changes, not the content itself. In other words, there is no point in managing thought when we see that fresh thought is always available. When we see the brilliant nature of the gift of thought, we are only one thought away from a beautiful experience of life. As Sydney Banks said “The fool only knows what he thinks; the wise man knows he’s the thinker.” Using the framework of the Three Principles, Kimberley Kaase teaches her clients to first understand their own life experiences and their own

minds, before diving in and trying to “fix” anything. She finds that once a person understands how the mind works and how profoundly their own state of mind effects their results (especially business results), there are a lot fewer problems to then solve. They then begin creating what they want from a point of inspiration, not desperation. Kim uses her background as a designer to creatively approach challenges and coaches her clients from a very unique perspective. The perspective is that no one is broken, no one needs to fixed. Each person has what they need to be happy, stress-free and peaceful, no matter what industry he or she happens to be in You can contact her at kim@life-leap.com .

“Most of us never had a director to tell them that the movie in their head is just a projection of their reality.”

YOUR TRAIN OF THOUGHT Sometimes the questions are complicated and the answers are simple.”  ~Dr. Seuss In 1896 approximately 10 people were invited to what we now call a movie screening. But in 1896 the people who were witnessing this screening would see something that they had never seen before.

“What if you realized that your thoughts are just formless projections that don’t really have any power, any rhyme or reason, no way of being controlled?”

Anxiously waiting, the people in town sat down and looked at a white screen. The directors, two brothers, Auguste and Louis Lumière, were excited to show their new motion picture called The Arrival of a Train at La Ciotat Station. Keep in mind that at that point people had never seen a movie before, let alone a movie that would show a locomotive heading toward them. The movie pops up on the screen and lo and behold, according to urban legend, everyone panics, jumps up from their chairs, and runs out of the room! Since they had never seen a movie before, they believed that what was on the screen was actually real. The audience members literally believed that a train was heading their way. If you see the movie now you would laugh to think that it would scare anyone. But when you don’t know how things like projectors work, your brain 11

will do the best it can to comprehend what’s going on. If you had never seen a train on a flat screen before and it was heading toward you, you’d also most likely run out of the room. You’re probably wondering what this has to do with you. This story has a lot to do with you. Matter of fact, this is how most people live their lives. The parallel of not knowing how the movie screen projects light and how the mind projects our reality is uncanny. The people in the theater were escorted back and the directors went on to explain that what they had seen on the screen was not real.

So, what do most of us do instead? We go on doing what others believe works. They pass down ideas for inner peace from others who believe they know how to obtain it. We come up with theories, ideas, and assumptions to make ourselves happy. But is that the answer? I want you to go back in time and imagine it’s 1896. You’re returning back to your seats after the initial scare of the train coming toward you on the screen. Imagine that the director believes the best way to calm you down is to simply change the movie to something nicer — something more relaxing.

It was simply light reflected on the projection screen, which created the illusion of an actual train.

Let’s say that instead of a train arriving he puts a video of fluffy little bunnies on the screen so it won’t look as scary. The bunny video would definitely calm the nerves more than a video of a train. The problem is, what do we do when we see a train video again?

As soon as they understood the mechanics of the projector, they were able to relax and enjoy the movie.

Many of us live our lives trying to change the scenery instead of understanding the mechanisms of how our thinking works.

Most people don’t understand how our thinking works.

We simply change the picture in hopes of having a better reality.

Most of us never had a director to tell them that the movie in their head is just a projection of their reality.

That may work and it does for many, but a lot of times it lasts only as long as we have a good movie playing in our heads. At that point, we have to succumb to what’s playing in our heads. That does not give us any option for our inner peace. Our peace becomes dictated by the movie that’s playing. I know that’s not how I’d like to live my life.

It’s not real reality. In other words, what you see in the outside world cannot be directly experienced! Reality as you see it must be filtered through your eyes, ears, nose, touch, taste, balance, etc. Your brain, by design, cannot grasp all of reality. It can only grab the parts “it” thinks are relevant at the moment. That explains why when you are in a rush and you’re looking for your keys that are right in front of you, you miss them!

What if we didn’t have to change the movie (your thoughts) in your head? What if somebody told you how movies work and that is just not that real? What if you realized that your thoughts are just formless projections that don’t

really have any power, any rhyme or reason, no way of being controlled? What if they are just happenings? Would it even make sense to try to control them? Sure, some thoughts feel like they mean more than others. But who’s giving them power? Who is bringing these thoughts to light? Do you think it’s better to change the movie on the screen to make you feel better, or is it better to know how projectors work so the next time you see a movie you’re not startled? If you’re like me, you’d probably say that you’d like to know how projectors worked. After all, changing the movie just changed the movie. Knowing the behind the scenes of how the light put the movie on the screen would give you a bit more understanding, would it not? Not only would it save you the time and trouble to look for a better movie (or better thought, a calmer place to remove your thoughts, etc.) you’ll soon realize you won’t need movies at all to make you feel better. I’m going to let you in on a secret; the reality is that the thoughts that come through your head are no different than the light projecting the images on a screen. If you don’t have this little understanding, it can be very frightening indeed. Many of us see a projected thought in our mind and allow the formless thought to gain power. We must understand, like the train arriving on the screen, it has no real power. It’s just a thought and that’s all it is! The reason that positive thinking affirmations don’t last long is the very same reason trying to change the movie on the screen will not be the answer to long-lasting inner peace. Understanding the mechanism of the projector, and the mechanism that your thoughts really don’t hold much power, is transformative!

Being aware that your thoughts are just thoughts is all that you need to know. They are just thoughts. They hold no power unless you plug it into your reality. A power saw can’t do anything unless it’s plugged in. It’s that simple. Be aware. You will have over 70,000 thoughts a day without your control and the only ones that will have any power over you are the ones that you give power to. They need you as much as you think you need them. In actuality, you really don’t need them at all (at least in the sense of giving them power). What I mean by that is, when you let them just fly by your head like a movie reel they don’t do much but keep your brain occupied. They have a purpose. It’s just that we’ve been fooled to think that their purpose is for us to control them! I know that as soon as I take one of those thoughts and allow it to consume me, it can feel pretty damn real. I also know that when I remember that it’s just a thought and at any moment that thought can turn into a completely new one, it just doesn’t have the power it once used to. Amir Karkouti realized that coaching is similar to what he does for his father at least twice a month. Every once in a while, Amir’s father spends at least 10 minutes looking for his glasses. He looks and looks and looks, and I show up and remind him that it’s been on his head the whole time. My job as a coach is to remind you how amazing, brilliant and special you are. At times we can feel like we’ve lost those qualities. I get the pleasure of reminding my clients that they’ve never lost their true idea of themselves and to stop searching for them.

THREE THOUGHTS THAT WILL CHANGE YOUR LIFE

In my old life I didn’t know the creative power of thought, I thought that thoughts were true (not opinion), and I hadn’t yet realized that thoughts can change your life. I was existing, sleepwalking through a dull and predictable life that felt like a trap. But the first of my life-changing thoughts was already nagging at me: “There must be more to life than this.” For years, that thought felt like my nemesis, torturing me with impossible ideals; until my horizons started to open up and I realized that the ‘more to life’ thought was right…and the thought that ‘this is the way it is and will be forevermore until you die’ was utterly wrong. If the ‘more to life’ thought is nagging away at the back of your mind, trust it. It’s true and right, and if you want more from life, you will find there is indeed more to life than you ever knew. It’s time then for the second life changing thought: “What if…?” What if I could? What if life was for me? What if I tried that? What if I could fall in love with my

life? What if I could make more money? What if I could write? What if I could follow my inspiration every day, wherever it may lead? Without this second life-changing thought, you will be forever tortured by the ‘more to life’ thought. ‘What if’ opens up possibilities, lights new paths, creates opportunities, opens doors in your mind. It allows for the option of something i m p o s s i b l e , o r d i f fi c u l t , o r p r e v i o u s l y unimagined. It brings you to the brink of your path…and allows you to take that first step, because ‘what if?’ And when you go ahead and try, you come to realize the splendid truth of the third life-changing thought: “I can” When you follow the ‘what if’ thought, you realize that you can. You can do it. You can travel to the other side of the world alone. You can start a business. You can be happy. You can write a book. You can dance through life joyfully. You can live the life you dreamed of. Before the ‘more to life’ and ‘what if’ thoughts, ‘I can’ feels 14

like a will’o the wisp, an ephemereal, tantalizing not-quite-possibility that’s just out of reach.

path of life that shows that you truly can. These three are life changing thoughts.

But the more you follow your ‘more to life’ and ‘what if’ thoughts, the more you strengthen the ‘I can’ thought – because you prove it to yourself over and over – whether through success or failure. Just by trying, you prove that you can.

Donna, better known as “Donnaonthebeach” helps women who KNOW there is more to life to fall in love with their lives, and make their Dreams a Reality along the way. She is currently feverishly finishing the second draft of her book “Fall I n L o v e W i t h L i f e ” . Visit http://www.donnaonthebeach.com to get on the exclusive beach list and be the first to receive the ebook free this summer.

So, if the more to life thought is insistently tapping on your shoulder, believe it. Start to deliberately think ‘what if’ and let that lead you to the

“Mastery lives in the place where thoughts become reality.”

THINK. THEN BE There are no shortcuts to mastery. Only the path and your willingness to walk on it each day.

“It’s something that only happens when you’ve committed yourself to trying over and over again, when your inability to hold back your thoughts from the world becomes so great that you can do nothing BUT act.”

Merely looking for the next thing to learn isn’t all there is... to truly master the knowing of something, one must live it and experience it. Mastery lives in the place where thoughts become reality, not in some absolute, written in stone commandment. It’s a power that is fluid, changing and continuously asking for more... The undeniable, never ending search for the next level of expansion. We search for the next level, that next layer of consciousness that is only gained through both knowing and experiencing. We cannot lock ourselves up in the library pouring through the books, filling our thoughts with stories and hollow words, for true expansion comes not from locking yourself away in theory. True growth happens when you apply the knowledge you’ve gleaned.

What would happen in your life if instead of seeking out the next piece of knowledge, you sought out to BE the change you wish to see in the world by experimenting with life to test out the theories you learn of? Like a great scientist, you set up your virtual lab and allow your curiosity to take the reigns, without judgement or a preconceived notion of where your search will take you. What if you lived in the ‘what if...’, in the ‘I wonder...’ world? Like a toddler given a bucket of golf balls and a toilet, there’s going to be some experiential learning happening. Can you sit in thought with the messages and unlimited knowledge the universe provides and embody those truths, allowing the knowingness to leak out into the world, into each action - purposefully becoming new again with each breath of insight? See mastery doesn’t come when you’ve honed your thoughts and created clever treatises of living or repeat mantras or intentions or tap yourself on some mysterious pressure point. Mastery isn’t some state of knowingness that occurs in your mind - although it starts there. It’s something that only happens when you’ve committed yourself to trying over and over again., when your inability to hold back your thoughts from the world becomes so great that you can do nothing BUT act. Mastery occurs for the toddler when they flush that ball over and over again. It takes tenacity. And lots and lots of balls. Because you will fail. That thoughtful path that you’ve crafted from research and reading and

class taking will be different when you’re living it instead of visioning it. What appeared to be flat is actually an uneven dirt road meant for 4wheeling. You can get a degree and a piece of paper that says you’ve mastered this knowledge, but you’re not a master of anything until you have the tenacity to experiment with it. My greatest successes, and my greatest failures, all started with me asking myself ‘I wonder if I could...” The perfect combination of thought and action led to the next level of mastery time and time again. Don’t tell me about what your heart desires.   Show me what it looks like. Don’t hand me your well-thought-out plans.   Take my hand and walk me through it. Don’t read a book and expect your life to change.  Change your life by applying the book. Don’t wait for you to think the time is right.  Create the right time now. Don’t hide behind what you think is your busy life.  Don’t tell me you don’t have the time to be living.  B r e a t h e .  C r e a t e t h e s p a c e .  P r i o r i t i z e .  What is really important to you? Do that. D o n ’ t t e l l m e a b o u t y o u r g o a l s .  They don’t interest me.   Go out and start and then we can talk. I don’t care how much money you’ve made in the past. I don’t buy your stories of how you always fail.

I only care that you’ve tried and will continue to do so. Don’t pontificate and prove to me how smart you are. Also, don’t use big words like pontificate if you don’t know the definition just to seem s m a r t e r .  Show me how magnificent you really are by showing up and being brave. Play with me.

Stacy Nelson is the Founder of iCoach Network, an International circle of life coaches coming together to support and inspire each other on a daily basis. Keeping with the theme of ‘As one rises, we lift each other up”, Stacy also publishes this monthly digital magazine for iCoach Network, highlighting the fabulous coaches within the network. Specifically she is a Coach & Trainer helping intuitive entrepreneurs to build their businesses with their hearts and tap into their authentic purpose.

Experiment. Get lost in the quest for mastery by dancing between the lines. F a i l .  E p i c a l l y.   Over and over again. That’s how we reach new levels of expansion. That’s how our thoughts grow into reality.   That’s how we MASTER LIFE. I don’t care what you do.   I care that you lean past that edge of comfort.   I care that you peek your head out from the pages of that book you’re learning from and embrace the insights and test them in your life. Ask questions. Cross boundaries. Think. Then BE.

IT’S JUST YOUR THINKING

When I hear someone saying ‘it’s just your thinking’ I sometimes wonder the full impact of that statement. We’re reminded that our entire experience of life comes from thought through our conscious awareness, and when we let go of our thinking we return to our default state of peace and wellbeing. True, in many situations our thoughts do not serve us particularly well, especially when they arrive at speed and stir emotions of anxiety or frustration or some limiting belief. I’m all in for that as a description of how we experience life and reality. I have been aware of this description for many years, only in the last few years as described by Sydney Banks, but previously as can be interpreted from many sources such as A Course in Miracles, and even some of the work of Marcus Aurelius almost two thousand years ago – “The universe is change; our life is what our thoughts make it.” This description of our reality has taken many forms for millennia. Our thoughts create our reality, and that behind our own thinking great wisdom is available to us.

However, I am not always comfortable with the immediate dismissal of our thoughts. Buddha is reported to have said, “What we think, we become.” Isn’t it worth exploring what you might become? Isn’t it worth exploring what might be the message in your thinking? Isn’t it worth exploring where you are heading in self-creation, in your own authoring, in your authenticity? Your thoughts are creating your experience of life, and they are also creating you! I am not suggesting we look to control our thoughts. That has been attempted for millennia with varying degrees of success, and really, that just looks like hard work to me. We don’t need to control thought to exert some control over our experience of life, but simply recognise that it is not the thoughts alone creating that experience. It is our relationship with our thoughts that creates our experience of life.

We get to choose how seriously we want to take any of our thoughts. Instead of being ‘in our thoughts,’ when we move to ‘observer’ we get to examine what these thoughts mean to us. To what is it we are giving meaning as these thoughts come to us? And in that respect, we don’t need to make thinking a sin that is immediately dismissed without examination. Recognising that thoughts themselves change, flow infinitely variably throughout our lives does remind us that whenever something comes to us via thought it can leave just as instantly as it arrived. Yet those that do so rapidly are often not the thoughts that are suggested we dismiss. It’s the thoughts that seem to linger within us as if they have some message for us, the thoughts that currently mean something to us, that are often worth examining. “Why would you examine something that is not r e a l ? ” I ’ m o f t e n a s k e d .  Is there such a thing as a thought that is not a real thought? Sure, the content may not be true, but a thought is a thought. Very often, behind your thoughts may be some deeply important and powerful belief, protection, value or mission. Our thoughts can reveal much about us, not only our limiting beliefs, or irrational fears that show unconsciously in our habitual behaviour. But also competing commitments, the awareness of which can truly serve us. Often if we dismiss thought, we dismiss what it is that is making us who we are. Whilst I am an advocate of ultimate freedom and peace, I have also seen and participated in the examination of messages and meaning within thoughts that reveal a powerful purpose and desire, reconnecting people with their inner being and

soul. Upon self-examination and exploration we can reconnect with Love. Who wants to dismiss that? My final thoughts on thoughts here are what might be beyond this current understanding of the nature of the human experience of life. ‘It’s all thought’ may indeed seem true in all cases. But I am mindful of living only in that understanding. I know in my own life I have mostly experienced growth when I have got curious and looked to exp a n d m y u n d e r s t a n d i n g a n d v i e w o f the universe. I’ve not always felt I needed to go deeper into a single understanding as much as broaden my perspective. I am not looking to narrow my own mind, my understanding, my awareness, but to broaden and expand it. As I’ve become open to infinite possibility I see that even my deepest beliefs and understandings I hold now may become myth in the future, and in that respect I know that neither my clients nor I are served by limitation of either understanding or possibility. That is, indeed, food for thought. Phil Goddard coaches whilst traveling around Europe and the US. He is living his life’s purpose, the expansion of love and happiness, and helps people connect deeply with themselves and their capacity to be in love with life. In doing so his clients create a life of effortless passion g u i d e d b y t r u e i n n e r w i s d o m . http://www.philg.com/

“When you think thoughts that are directly infused with your true soul power, your life will align in magical ways.”

ONE QUESTION THAT CAN STIR YOUR SOUL AND CHANGE YOUR LIFE Like Moses, I cloaked myself in red, held my inner staff with power, and thought “What IF I can part this Red Sea? What if?”

“Thoughts can be like cancer. They can eat you up and control you if you give yourself to them and buy into the stories that consume you in fear.”

Several years ago, I had a meeting with a powerful woman, in fact, she was almost too powerful for me. She was dressed in red and I admired her. She understood me and was willing to hear and support me. I was drenched in fear thoughts and I could not afford her. For years, I had been a victim to fear. Thoughts of fear loomed in my mind no matter how many meditations I did, healings I invested in and cords I cut. These fear thoughts dictated my actions and left me feeling small, shaky and consumed by the pit in my stomach. That day in her office, I felt small. In 2008, these fear thoughts started to rise to the surface and for the following 6 years they leaked into my life little by little, bit by 21

bit. Making me sick and keeping me up at night. At one point, I even feared I had cancer and thought I might die. Thoughts can be like cancer. They can eat you up and control you if you give yourself to them and buy into the stories that consume you in fear. Thoughts can also empower you if you buy into the story that you are a powerful creator and have the capacity to create magic in your life no matter what. Today, I have come full circle and faced my fear thoughts. The ones which had been consuming me for so long. It became time to stop beating around the bush and covering things up for the sake of keeping some kind of peace. I took action and said NO MORE because I said I would… Thoughts based in fear are not real. They are made up stories in our minds based on the fear of what might happen or has happened in the past. No one wants to live in fear yet we create fearful thoughts because we’re afraid. Your thoughts are POWERFUL. They impact the living, breathing cells in your body. They permeate your surroundings. People feel them. The Universe responds to them. Think about that for a moment. What if you considered thinking in a way that would positively and powerfully impact your life? Most people get stuck in default patterns of thinking. They rush through life. They speed up their thoughts and fall into the cycle of instant gratification in many areas of life. They simply rush and rushing is based in fear.

into your body, mind and soul and discover your power. In my experience, the key to truly embodying a whole new thought system that places you in the position to create and manifest effortlessly and powerfully is to know how powerful you are. To understand how capable you are of creating anything you deeply desire in your SOUL and know that at any moment you can create what you want, when you want it, knowing your power gives you the awareness and strength to follow a new path. Your path. When you think thoughts that are directly infused with your true soul power, your life will align in magical ways. I see this happen with my clients and I live by this. In my story above, I began with a powerful question. “What if?” That single question opened an array of powerful thoughts and feelings that freed me from the trance of fear and thrust me into the land of deep inner power. You don’t have to know your power right now to begin a new pathway of powerful and lifechanging thinking. Just take what you are struggling with right now or something you would like to shift and ask yourself “What if?” What if it worked? What if there were a way? What would that way be? What if I made more money? How would I do that? What if I lost weight? What would be the way to losing weight? When you start to see the possibilities in what perhaps seemed impossible, you will know your power and the most powerful thought you could ever adopt and feel deep in your bones is to know that you are the most brilliant and powerful person you know.

When you SLOW DOWN, you create the space within you to consider something new. To tune 22

It took me years of dealing with fear, to discover that I am the most powerful person I know and create one thought, one question that would change my life and how I feel. Nowâ&#x20AC;ŚI am the one wearing red. Marilyn Rodriguez is your SOUL Mentor guiding influential and powerful leaders and visionaries to the truth of their soul.Â She has shared the virtual stage with Marianne Williamson, Lisa Nichols

and Marci Shimoff as well as other spiritual leaders. A third generation healer, Marilyn discovered her gifts at an early age and continues to transform lives with her gifts. Marilyn is available for one-on-one transformational soul compass rose coaching by application, media interviews and speaking engagements. For more information, contact Marilyn Rodriguez at marilyn@themarilynrodriguez.com or 256-2589357.

THE POWER OF THOUGHT

What has the power to heal, the power to make you smile, the power to lift you up, and the power to tear you down? What has the power to bring you to your dreams and the power to bring you to your knees? A Thought! A thought, I would argue, is the most powerful idea in the world. I used to take thoughts for granted. I used to feel that thoughts just happened, that external forces or circumstances controlled them. Then one day, while I was driving a very familiar route and my mind started to wonder, I had a thought that I remember very distinctly. I thought, “I wish we could heal with our thoughts. I have a pretty powerful mind and I think that it would cool if I could heal with my thoughts.” After that thought flashed through my consciousness, I started noticing instances where people where healing with their intentions and conscious thoughts. I drew my attention to learning about the impact of controlling your thoughts and how you can create positive change in yourself and others. I was so pleased

to learn that there is a ton of science in the field of positive psychology and neuroscience to back up with positive changes that I was experiencing as a result of choosing my thoughts carefully. I have to admit though that even if science didn’t back me up, choosing happy, positive, loving, nourishing and healing thoughts over troubling, worrisome, or negative ones just intrinsically feels better and I would have still been an advocate of spreading the word that choosing positive thoughts is the key to a peaceful, productive existence. Today, after a thoughtfully challenging 5 years, I am happy to report that I have arrived in a space where I have confidence in my ability to control my thoughts to manage many of life’s ups and downs in a what that serves me. I know that life will continue to serve up a balance of light and dark experiences throughout my life and it is my choice to decide which thought I will choose to respond to the situation at hand. I have come to embrace the power of our thoughts and I have made my life’s work all about sharing the impact that our thoughts have on us and in our lives. Today, I work with corporate executives and their teams to help them em24

power themselves through consciously choosing their thoughts. So, where are you choosing to put your effort and energy? Into self-empowering thoughts or self-depreciating ones? I would love to hear from you! Randi Radul is an Executive and Team Coach with an extensive corporate background. She began her career as a Certified Management Ac-

countant and worked in the corporate world as a senior leader and business partner. Her natural ability to exploit the strengths of individuals and teams coupled with her desire to help leaders perform at their maximum potential launched her into a new leadership role of coaching leaders and their teams to create Life, Leadership and Relationship strategies to optimize their energy and performance.

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