By Me, To Me, Through Me

First published on May 11, 2017

I haven't slept well the last couple of days. At first I put it down to an unsettling shift in the main character - and an uplift in the levels of tension and action - of The Painted Man by Peter V Brett, the novel I've been reading (I love fantasy novels, and reading before bed is one of the great pleasures in my life). 

But today, I think it's something different. I think something is changing for me. Its not surprising this is the case. I recently became a full-time coach, and in becoming fully self-employed, some of your identity has to shift. We put so much if our identity on the work we do. But it's not just that, there's more. For instance, I am also now someone who can not only start a business, but make it work. 

And two more things have changed this week. I have stepped up my investment at the Coaching School, where I will be putting more time into helping them develop their brilliant organisation. And I published this article, about all the learning I have done over the past two years. And I think it is these two things, more than Arlen's shift to becoming the Painted Man, which has this different feeling in me.

Jim Dethmer, a leadership coach and trainer, refers to three different ways of engaging with the world. To Me, where you are a victim of the occurrences and events of the world. By Me, where you see yourself as the author of your life, creating and making things happen in the way that you want. And Through Me, where you get out of the way and let things emerge through you, out into the world. (There is actually one more, As Me, but I don't quite understand that one.) 

I have felt the call of this third stage, Through Me, for the last few months, but I now feel much more like that than I gave for a long time. Ideas to help the Coaching School keep popping into my head, with a feeling of intensity and excitement. I just need to be given permission, by myself and others, to have these ideas, and there they are. And my article, and the work I have done, is suddenly out in the world. It has a life of its own. It wasn't easy to write, it wasn't even necessarily fun, the last stage in particular was a jungle swamp of Resistance. But I had such a pull to do it. I knew I needed to share. 

So the question is, what are you being called to share? What ideas, what writing, what creativity will emerge if you allow it? And above all, what are you waiting for? 

The time is now.