Tracie Nichols, Holistic Coach
business and career coaching for body-centered practitioners and highly sensitive women
Earth Day – at its best – is a state of being that self perpetuating, much like life. It inspires worldview shifts and action.
What it inspired in me today was the urge to listen deeply to the ecosystem where I live. To better know this place, so I can make more aware choices and take more informed actions.
Let me introduce some of my neighbors…
When I think about highly sensitive women and body-centered practitioners, this is the kind of leadership I see living in us…
“It is possible, as leaders of organizations, communities, and families, to discover deep and abiding satisfaction in our work if we choose not to flee or withdraw from reality. It is possible to find a path of contribution and meaning if we turn our attention away from issues beyond our control and focus on the people around us who are yearning for good leadership and engage them in work that is within reach. It is possible to use our influence and power to create islands of sanity in the midst of a raging destructive sea.” Margaret J. Wheatley, from her book “Who Do We Choose To Be?”
HSP’s cannot help facing the reality of the world because we feel the world so intensely and our empathy responds to that tidal wave of sensory input. Our perceptivity and deep processing mean we can see beyond now into the very real potential for social collapse.
Body-centered practitioners — massage therapists, acupuncturists, yoga teachers and therapists, somatic therapists, etc… — can literally feel and see the collapsing world’s impact in the bodies of their clients and themselves. They’re also very likely to be highly sensitive people.
We love, we empathize, we feel what’s happening to our communities in our marrow. AND…we have the capacities to midwife small, local changes that will make a difference. Let’s begin using them now.
We cannot change the way the world is, but by opening to the world as it is we may discover that gentleness, decency and bravery are available, not only to us, but to all human beings.
Chogyam Trungpa, Buddhist teacher (found in Margaret J. Wheatley’s book “Who Do We Choose To Be?”
Image credit: Pixabay
I’ve been having a blow-it-all-up day for weeks.
Mired in anxiety, worry, stress. Feeling the two ton block of shoulds and musts precariously balanced on my short woman shoulders slowly swallowing me.
Things were getting dark, but I wasn’t going down easily.
So, I stayed up to 3 a.m…….listening…..
My throbbing, raw HSP senses needed a nearly new moon night’s dark, empty blanket to sort things out without torrents of noise, movement, texture, color, smells and empathy driven emotions enveloping me because the rest of my local world is awake.
I lit a candle (electric light felt too harsh) and let my mind and body just pause. No agenda. Stepping back from expectations as much as possible.
It took a bit, but my breathing slowed, my jaw relaxed, my head emptied and I found myself smiling gently. Empty space is good.
Eventually I could hear myself — my quiet, calm, occasionally wise inner voice. And, damn, did she have some helpful things to tell me.
I no longer want to blow it all up. My creativity is asserting herself. I’m consciously engaged with the must-do’s on my list. Breathing….
It’s not a miracle. There are still things to sort out. My stuff will continue to come up. But…I’m listening. I put down the two tons of guilt stones and picked up only the true priorities.
This moment is good. I’m leaving the next moment until it arrives.
#dailypoemproject – Day 9
the moon and the great
horned owl met at midnight
I wish I spoke moon
or owl or even
night
they sounded
content, as though
a dinner party
they were planning
was coming together
nicely and they
could rest easy in skies
and nests knowing their
work was well done
I envy them their contentment.
What does poetry have to do with business and career coaching? Acts of creativity spark non-linear thinking. They help us color outside the confines of how our insecurities or unconscious social and cultural conditioning tell us we “should” be doing things. My acts of revolutionary and evolutionary creativity are almost always poems. But they could be doodles, freeform crochet, cooking without a recipe, improvisational dance or music or anything that engages your feelings, senses and intuition. What are yours?
midnight planning – 01-09-18
© 2018 Tracie Nichols – All rights reserved
Image credit: Pixabay
some moments
change everything
like the moment you
realize that losing breakfast
— for the fourth day in a row —
can’t possibly be
something you ate
or the time you find yourself
clinging — terrified and howling — to the
quartz bones of a mountaintop
in a sundering wind
and realize it isn’t you howling —
the mountain is using your throat
it’s the moment your
blue-eyed mother’s
silvery head meets the
glossy, impervious floor with an
indescribable sound and
people in scrubs start using
words like “stroke” and “rehab”
and it’s the morning you wake up
still breathing with birdsong
and sunlight and realize that every
time you wake up still breathing
is a moment that changes
everything
because
you can
change anything
with one radical
act of choice
Daily Poem Project 2018 – day 8
What does poetry have to do with business and career coaching? Acts of creativity spark non-linear thinking. They help us color outside the confines of how our insecurities or unconscious social and cultural conditioning tell us we “should” be doing things. My acts of revolutionary and evolutionary creativity are almost always poems. But they could be doodles, freeform crochet, cooking without a recipe, improvisational dance or music or anything that engages your feelings, senses and intuition. What are yours?
© 2018 Tracie Nichols – all rights reserved
Image credit: Pixabay (Quangpraha)
edges fascinate me
with their
ephemeral nature
with their potentials
found only
on this edge
in this moment
and never again
with their dangerous
and exciting
discomfort and
their invitation to step
— quivering —
off them and tumble
into the unknown
Edges … 01-04-18
waiting
anonymous room
disconnected people
uncomfortable silence
–then–
bright eyed smile on
unsteady sturdy legs
pink flower bobbing
“Colorful!” “Purple!”
crayon clatter
tiny running steps
scatter rainbows
paint flickers of joy
spark shy shared smiles
smatterings of connection
invoke life
in this
lifeless place
Untitled 1; 01-05-18
down the gray gravel drive
turn away
from crumbling red sandstone
barn walls
take the ordinary sidewalk
toward the old/new
patchwork house
— but —
if you value ordinariness….
……don’t step off the sidewalk
if you fear wildness disguised as normalcy….
…..stay on the cement
— but —
if you hear whispering
fairy folk
or find your soul tugged
by unseen (but very felt) wonder
then step encouragingly to
your left
touching soles
to grass
let your animal
body guide
maybe you will meet the dragon
in the pin oak
or the merfolk hide-and-seeking
in the red stone creek
perhaps you will be invited to
sit with the council of all
beings led today by
heron, hawk, and owl
maybe you will find stillness
by the fire circle
see yourself
afresh by flickering
flamelight
see your very own
fierce dragonheart gleaming
in your human eyes
perhaps you will gather
your fire emerald wings
and loft toward
Orion’s belt
soaring homeward
on winds of wonder
to land
— eyes sharp with dragonlight —
in your space
seeing finally its own
unseen magic.
Don’t be afraid to step off the sidewalk – 01-06-18
after
tangerine and
raspberry mellowing
to lemon and
lavender
that moment when
the pale eye of
the winter sun rotates
into view
— anticlimax —
almost as if the
fire and ice borderlands
of dawn and dusk
are where the true
magic happens
Daily Poem Project 2018 – day 3
What does poetry have to do with business and career coaching? Acts of creativity spark non-linear thinking. They help us color outside the confines of how our insecurities or unconscious social and cultural conditioning tell us we “should” be doing things. My acts of revolutionary and evolutionary creativity are almost always poems. But they could be doodles, freeform crochet, cooking without a recipe, improvisational dance or music or anything that engages your feelings, senses and intuition. What are yours?
© 2018 Tracie Nichols – all rights reserved
image credit: Tracie Nichols
a poem
a day.
what was I thinking
announcing it
to the
world?
did
enthusiasm or
foolhardiness cadge
control of my mouth?
perhaps this is
my muse
declaring “Payment due.”
for all those
inspirations offered
and
declined.
Daily Poem Project 2018 – day 2
What does poetry have to do with business and career coaching? Acts of creativity spark non-linear thinking. They help us color outside the confines of how our insecurities or unconscious social and cultural conditioning tell us we “should” be doing things. My acts of revolutionary and evolutionary creativity are almost always poems. But they could be doodles, freeform crochet, cooking without a recipe, improvisational dance or music or anything that engages your feelings, senses and intuition. What are yours?
© 2018 Tracie Nichols – all rights reserved
image credit: Tracie Nichols
glittering waves
skirt window edges
break across glass beachheads
fracture into fiery galaxies
painting possibilities
—infinite points of wonder—
across my earth and fire eyes
Daily Poem Project 2018 – 1 day … 1 poem … 365 days
What does poetry have to do with business and career coaching? Acts of creativity spark non-linear thinking. They help us color outside the confines of how our insecurities or unconscious social and cultural conditioning tell us we “should” be doing things. My acts of revolutionary and evolutionary creativity are almost always poems. But they could be doodles, freeform crochet, cooking without a recipe, improvisational dance or music or anything that engages your feelings, senses and intuition. What are yours?
When I was in sixth grade, I started drawing an ever-expanding Halloween-themed picture. In a few weeks it went beyond a simple drawing into becoming a whole world. A story in images. Bewitched, I drew more sprawling worlds.
In seventh grade, I found poetry. Words fell into and out of me creating images from language. I called them wordscapes. Wordscapes became the way my heart sang her truths.
Art and poetry helped me make sense of life. I dreamed of being an artist and a writer. People around me dreamed of me being practical, rational, and employable. Creativity was fine as an amusement. Dreams were for children. Adulthood was for responsibility.
So, I dutifully tucked away my art and writing and walked through the next 30 years feeling incomplete….as if there must be something…more. Always a little raw and tired from suppressing the artist and writer dreams insistently bumping against the back of my mind.
About ten years ago, I finally acted on my dream of being a writer. I started small, scribbling poems in crayon while coloring with my children. After a bit, I moved into blogging (ack!) where anyone and their great aunt could read what I wrote. I didn’t let my perfectionist take over…often.
These days when I question if I’m really a writer, I remind myself that I’ve written over 700 newsletters, more than 550 posts for my own blog, over 100 articles and posts for other virtual publications, and countless poems (some of which have been published!)
My writing is imperfect, yes. Yet, it is perfectly me.
That, to my mind, is one of the keys to liberating a dream. Be true to yourself and willing to be imperfect.
If you’re a little raw and tired from unspoken dreams bumping against the back of your mind. If you’ve told yourself:
“I’d do it if I had more time.”
“I’d do it, but I don’t think I can make a real difference.”
“I’m too old to start something new.”
Please join me on Thursday, October 26 at 6:30 pm for a free evening introducing Root Down to Rise Up: A Group Mentorship Program designed to help you liberate your dream and make your own kind of difference. Just click the link below to register — and bring a friend!
Register for Root Down to Rise Up Informational Evening
That dream I never told anyone before? I dream of writing a book so people like you and I — sensitive, empathetic, mulitpotentialed — see ourselves as we’ve never seen ourselves before, so we make the world-changing differences only we can make. Yes. Sensitive people changing the world! Empowering and terrifying and….intriguing, right?
Looking forward to seeing you on October 26th!
Tracie
