LIFE COACHING

Back again to my journey.

Once I finished my treatments and I was into yoga, meditation and breathing technique, I started to feel lots of energy what am I going to do now? I was feeling that my life had a new meaning because the message behind the cancer was so clear to me wake up now, it is time to do the things you love in life, be the person you WANT TO BE . But it was so difficult, after so many years of lethargy, to detect the sparkle in me. Because basically there was a huge fire works happening inside, while my normal life was still going on every single day…Mother, woman, cook, psychological supporter, taxi driver, doctor and so forth, I mean the Big Boss of my company (that is my big family…).

I was feeling uncomfortable and confused when my dearest friend Maria, who was studying Life Coaching at UCT (University of Cape Town) asked me” would you like to be my guinea pig”? Never in my life an animal was more appropriate…

So, feeling the biggest guinea pig in Joburg, I gladly accepted to undertake a very interesting trip and off I went for a jump back into my introspection…

We started to have regular meetings, which were delighted by good Italian cappuccinos.

The first aim of the coaching was to build up ideally the house of my broad possibilities, one brick at the time. To do this, I had to detect repeated patterns, mind and habits, taking notes on a journal, three times a day, pretending to have a mini-me on my shoulders that would watch my behaviours and thoughts. Basically the mini-me was the author of the journal…

30.07.2008 I keep in mind that I should write the children’s stories. I don’t want to let them go… I want to create and grow options. To help others, to grow spiritually, to express my creativity, to work. To study and learn things. What more? What am I good at? Writing, organizing, being related to people, I am serious, reliable, I do things with my heart, I am honest and devoted to everything I do…

It was absolutely extraordinary: I was going to explore the wide range of possibilities and feeling ABSOLUTELY LOST with ups and downs of energy, great ideas, huge doubts and fears. I was alone and free but also feeling missing because I was looking for the true voice in me, the one I had been repressing for such a long time… The goodness of the journal was undeniable.

18.08.2008 Very difficult time indeed where I feel lost. Many ideas and wishes that crash against the uncertainty of not having found “the one goal”. Still too many issues, I guess unsolved issues. I need to try to “unplug” my mind from the idea of finding what I want to do now. My feeling is that I have achieved almost nothing in my life because I have never built something. Something on my own…

A man will never understand deeply what kind of tearing a woman can have inside. Because “nature” and “society” put him in the position of having certain priorities and responsibilities. So it goes… and still, even trying to speak the same language, the starting point is different…

So if I were 95 what things would I like to have achieved in my life?

1. A healthy-fit granny body, to run after the grand grand children.
2. Intellectual blossoming and spiritual growth: having studied at University and developed the spiritual path.
3. Travelling: I should have travelled a lot, maybe 4 to 6 months a year, after I retired.
4. My base would be a big house in South of France where I could have the whole family around.
5. I would have published a successful book from which someone would have done a movie, Oscar winning movie.
6. My wealth would come from the book and my husband business.
7. I would feel like a 43 years old woman, because my life started at 43…
8. I would have been involved in the social and environment issues being more and more “green”.
9. Mainly I would have NO REGRETS for unaccomplished things.

During the life coaching work so many options and possibilities came out, it was like the child at the Wonder Fair “I like this, I like that” but I was also feeling bewildered. I was losing the only certainty I had had in my life till then, which was my choice of not choosing. I had let myself go to the stream of life avoiding taking position and stand up in what I liked and wanted to do in life. This was a leit motif and only now I was becoming aware of it.

20.08.2008 Facing the ups and downs of my mood and self-esteem is quite challenging; it is also a new way of treating life itself. I feel like I can detach from the problem and watching it, and it is something new. So I guess I can work better on it. The more I think about it, the clearer it becomes. My focus is shifting on studies that can give me the opportunity to write. The way to combine the wish for an intellectual growth and the desire of writing.

And writing is part of me.

The sessions with Maria were not only enriching and useful; they were a conscious jump back into my awareness.

12.09.2008 I’ve just had my session with Maria. It is very stimulating and intense; the exercises push me to think in a different way. To take into account different points of view.

As children we learn to stand up and walk and from that moment it seems to be the only angle possible from which we can observe and learn. It is incredible if a child or any person wants to lie down on the ground to watch the sky or simply to have another perspective. We never think “oh it is so beautiful to watch the world from here!” That is what has happened to me with my cancer experience: I found myself on the ground observing this experience from another angle. Ah what a blessing…I felt all my senses were more receptive and powerful and I could see through. I could see so well only because I lay down and decided to see from another point of view. I went beyond threaten and fear. I decided to trust my body and its wisdom. I decided my body is a gift. I love it and it loves me. This could have never been possible if I thought that I could only stand up.

This work went on for a few unforgettable weeks. Two options were absolutely recurrent: my love for studying and learning new things and the absolute and natural passion for writing.

So, one sunny day, I looked at myself in the mirror and said you are a writer, you cannot help it and off I went holding tight, with love, my mini-me.

This is only the first chapter of the Big Book of my Life.

Love & Rainbow

Copyright2009LorenzaVerdini