Finding Your Essence
I think I may have mentioned this one of my instagram posts on @the_wether_girl, but I have been working with a girlfriend who is training to be an ontological life coach. We ran into each other in the Target parking lot right before Christmas and right after my father had passed away, and as the universe would have it, she has been just what I needed. I won't go into everything we've been tackling, although I do plan to write about the entire mentorship when I've finished. We are only half way through and it's been a great chance for me to look inward and understand my patterns.
Ontology is "the study of being," and Ontological Coaching is about coaching a way of being, as a means of producing major shifts in perception and behavior through all aspects of communication. I had never heard of this and I really didn't know much about what a life coach actually did, so when my friend asked me if I'd like to sign up to help her help me, I couldn't resist!
During an hour long phone conversation per week, my friend has prodded and poked around at my psyche, my emotional well-being, my desires, dreams, and fears. We've created an outline of my visions and goals that has been pretty cathartic, but before we started to get down to the nitty gritty, she tasked me with a bit of a research project. I had to find my essence. What the hell is that, and how does anyone find it? Those were my first questions..
As explained by my friend and coach, finding your essence requires the help of some of your nearest and dearest. The thought behind this exercise is that others can better describe who you are to you, than how we perceive ourselves. How we appear to others, how we show up, how we interact with our peers, is the basis of this concept. To know our true power we can get a better picture from others. They don't experience the limiting beliefs we have about ourselves and can give a clearer idea of our true selves. So I had to find friends who were willing to answer a few questions about me and give me their honest responses. From there, my coach went through all of the answers, combined them with her tools, and information she's been taught, and came up with five words which define my Essence. "Champion" was number one.
Now, we all know that this doesn't mean Champion in the "Winner" sense, although I do feel like I am a lucky girl in so many aspects. Champion, as defined by my coach is the champion of others. Makes sense to me in a ton of ways. I was a middle school teacher for years, and to teach kids at this age you really have to be their cheerleader, their shoulder, their coach, etc. In my life I have found myself championing as a wife, a friend, a mom, a sister, a daughter, but it wasn't until we really connected that word "Champion" to this project I'm working on.. that we realized "Champion" is essential (my essence) to creating my blog.
I decided to start writing this blog and sharing ideas, travel experiences, outfit inspo, health and wellness tidbits because I was lost trying to find platforms for women my age. Most social media and lifestyle blogs are geared toward the youthful, fresh, gorgeous young people who don't know what stretch marks are, what stretched-out boobs feel like, or what it's like for your six year old to come up behind you and sing "saggy butt, saggy butt" as he taps your booty and giggles as it wiggles.. I wanted a place for women like me to go and feel like someone was championing for them.. for me... saying , you can still get your cute on even if your six-year-old has reminded you in the morning that gravity is hard at work! You can still feel sexy and love your body no matter the shape. You can give yourself a break if you've spent your night fighting night sweats (you know what I mean???). You can start over if you want to. You can try new things. I want to remind women my age that they are still miraculous and fabulous and in such a great place because we've made mistakes, we've persevered, we've survived . We know the secrets. We rise above. We are wise.
I recently stumbled upon a fellow Seattle blogger who is doing the same sort of platform as I am. Her blog www.goodbyecroptop is simply fabulous and she just wrote a wonderful piece that addresses what many of us get caught up in, and that's comparison. The author, Wendy Euler, addresses this idea in her most recent post and it's a must read. If you get the chance to click on the link and read her wonderful and inspiring piece, please do! Here I am championing another woman.. this is what I feel the best doing. But to further press on this point of being a champion of others, it is these types of platforms like goodbyecroptop and hopefully, thewethergirl, that will inspire women in our age group to feel amazing, to know they are not alone, to feel loved and to feel connected.
So back to my essence. Finding it (my essence) is just the start of my training and already it's been fascinating to see how this concept is a driving force in my day to day life, how I interact with others, and how it moves me to create and connect. I am so much more aware of the choices I make throughout my day, my habits, good and bad, glare me in the face now, and my purpose is becoming clearer and clearer. I am aware. I am present. I will continue to update my progress on this fun experiment and let you in on some of the training tips I'm getting from my coach. Self reflection is a great practice, but sometimes we need someone else to help pull out deeper emotions, get us out of our comfort zones, and challenge us to see ourselves from others' perspectives. What I've gained so far is the knowledge that through the lens of our loved ones we can find our most honest selves, and from our essence we can understand how better to serve others, how to achieve our dreams, and start working on our possibilities.
So happy International Women's Day Ladies. May your essence be found, may you find yourself surrounded by others who inspire you, who lift you up, who help you reflect, and who give you the power to be another source of power! We're in this together girls!
Here's to finding your essence!
Love,
Tiffani