I was 25 when I first meditated. I was living in Washington, DC and was struggling with how my parents reacted to my coming out as gay the previous year. And like so many living people in DC and New York City, I was learning to navigate the new reality that the attacks of 9/11 and the response of the United States suddenly created.
The weeks and months after 9/11 forced me to reckon with new and old demons. It was also the first time I started seeing a therapist long-term. (I’m not counting the lovely and supportive Dr. Martino, who was a counselor at King’s College, where I went to undergrad. His support was emotional balm as I secretly struggled with my sexuality at a Catholic college in a time and place not very welcoming to gay people (or Black people or trans people or any other demographic that wasn’t white, straight, and cis).)
My DC therapist suggested meditation as a tool to help me cope with my anxiety, and I was soon reading every book on the topic that I could get my hands on, as well as exploring meditation groups in DC. I never had religious leanings or impulses (my family was not religious; an anomaly for northeastern Pennsylvania in the 1970s, 80s, and 90s), but as I learned more about meditation, I could see the appeal of prayer and similar meditative practices. For me, meditation created a sense of quiet, calm, and optimism that eluded me otherwise.
I still meditate regularly (five days a week is my goal; admittedly I reach that about 75% of the time), and it still helps me to manage my anxiety. But I’ve also learned to pay attention to that optimistic state of quiet and calm when it shows up in my life when I am not meditating (this started happening a year or two after I first began a meditation practice). It usually happens when I’m out shooting photos or at home preparing them for the web or matting them for sale. Ditto when I’m really feeling excited or passionate about something I’m writing or editing.
In these instances, I lose track of time and don’t need to think about what my hands and brain are doing. They just move and know what to do to finish the job.
More important, in these moments I know that I am exactly where I need to be, and that I’m doing exactly the kind of work that I need to be doing. It becomes that obvious to me.
If a client I’m coaching is struggling to figure out their next professional step or how to find focus or passion, I often ask them about the things in their life that allow them to enter this sort of flow state. This sometimes requires some alignment on just what a flow state is and feels like. But once we get there, nine times out of 10 people know exactly what gives them that sense of wholeness, ease, and joy, or at least the conditions that are most likely to evoke it.
Yet too many of us are often reluctant to give those feelings much credibility. And if the flow-state activity isn’t what currently pays the bills, most people will resist the idea of making different choices–even easy ones–that allow them more time and energy for such pursuits.
But if they embrace these feelings, that’s when the coaching work gets interesting. Because it signals that someone is ready to adopt a new way of thinking that allows them to create a plan to do more of what they love–even if it’s not what pays the bills. Honestly, I’d say you need a plan to do these things especially if they’re not what pays the bills.
It’s also when I usually enter a coaching flow-state, and when I’m most grateful for the opportunity to be a coach. There are few things better than helping people identify what makes them feel their best and what steps they can take to do more of that. Sometimes, it really is as simple as that.
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