The key to getting clear.

In my recent TEDx talk, I shared how important it is to become who we are. It's important for our personal success and happiness as well as anyone we meet and know.

I gave two takeaways to help step into "becoming who we are" and one of them was to get REALLY CLEAR. Sure enough, since saying that, the message is showing up everywhere around me in my life and in my clients' lives and the lives of people I know.

I want to share a powerful story with you. I've told a lot of stories about ways I've become increasingly more clear and what it's made possible in my life. I've talked about becoming clear about my gender identity (which is always going to be a work in progress) and my career plans and my relationships and even what I consider ideal nutrition.

Today, I want to share what can happen when we aren't clear. And what's possible when we invest time and energy into getting more clear. And the key to making it happen.

I sat down with a new client for the first time about a month ago. He was stuck in a big way. His focus and attention was all over the place. He was overcommitted to everything and nothing, because when our energy is that dispersed, we half-ass anything we do. He was depressed to the point of stagnation, sitting for minutes or sometimes hours trying to get the courage and confidence to do things like laundry or run errands. His mind was all over the place and his life was in neutral. Over time, that state had turned into what often happens for many people: frustration, anger and resentment. It was bleeding into his work life and his relationships and his own health.

I felt nothing but compassion for him, because that's where I was just a few years ago. I totally understood what was happening.

He was completely disconnected from his passion and purpose. He had lost sight or track of what he truly wanted to do and be and have in his life and he felt like a spinning top or gyroscope. He was trying to settle for safe and it wasn't working at all. 

So I started small. I gave him some encouragement and simple exercises to help him get stabilized. He took the advice because he was ready, willing and able to change. He jumped in and put one foot in front of the other to get out of his own way.

In just a few short weeks, his life is completely transformed. I'm going to tell you what happened when he got really clear, but first I want to ask you if you can relate to how he was feeling. I want to ask you if you're sitting here reading this and feeling ambivalent about some area of your life. How it is affecting you? Do you feel pulled, diving and tossed about in the waves like that boat in The Perfect Storm? Do you feel like you're going downhill in a car with no brakes or maybe driving downtown in a crowded city and Google maps isn't working? Do you feel compelled to do or say something but also completely terrified for fear of what others will do, think or say?

Maybe you feel something different. I want you to email me and tell me about it, because if you're feeling it I probably did, too, at several points in my life and it could just help to tell me about it. Think about it.

That's what happened with this client of mine. I told him about times in my life where I felt like him. And I told him what worked for me, which was the key to getting clear. It was having the courage to look into my heart for an answer and then listen to that answer and take steps to make it become my reality. 

That happened for him when we met recently. He showed up and told me he had an epiphany, which would require him making a scary, hard change. I listened intently as he shared what was truly in his heart to do with his time and his life. As he talked, his face completely changed and he was grinning from ear to ear, the resignation and depression erased. 

I sat there and smiled. I patted his shoulder many times and congratulated him. I gave him concrete feedback on the impact he had on a co-worker because of his own courage to do the deep digging and sitting with difficult feelings in his life.

And then an amazing thing happened.

He began to cry. The tears leaked from his eyes and he kept wiping them but he also let them flow, which was precious and vulnerable for me to witness. 

He had it. He was clear. He looked into his heart and made a decision and his body released the stress hormones in those tears and he was through the gate he wanted to walk through for years!

There is something there for you, too, in your heart. And you will be able to get clear when you have the courage to look in there and honor it and maybe shed a few tears yourself.