My family and I are in the process of creating a bright, fun play space for my kids in our basement. The basement is pretty big and, up til a week ago, contained my office in one part and a home gym in another part. Inherent in the process of creating something new in this space, is the reality that the old will have to change or be let go. Partly because I’m a coach and partly because “I’m just like that,” the process has been filled with profound learnings for me.

Like this one, “Getting rid of stuff frees up space.” How’s that for profound? Ok, not so much. Taken literally, that is an obvious statement. As I’ve carted many bags and boxes of stuff to the Goodwill store, beautiful SPACE has appeared in my basement. And taken metaphorically, it works the same way. Getting rid of the ‘stuff’ I no longer need (i.e.: self-doubt, beliefs or assumptions that are not serving me, guilt or anxiety over the coulda, woulda, shoulda’s…) frees up SPACE. SPACE, in this context, might include the likes of mental clarity, energy, sense of calm, belief in myself, joy, and gratitude.

With such wonderful space-making possibilities, I often wonder why I hold on to my stuff so long. Why do you hold on to your stuff so long? Comfort of the known is surely a powerful force at work here. Even when the “known” is stressful, unfulfilling, or guilt producing. Couple comfort of the known with fear of the unknown and we humans aren’t generally too quick to let go of our stuff. The good news is that letting go gets easier the more we do it. Perhaps as we realize the freedom and peacefulness we can experience without the drag of our stuff, forward momentum builds and letting go becomes an empowered choice.

What to keep and what to let go of? Questions that might help point you in a useful direction:

1) What are you tolerating in your life right now?

2) Where does your joy come from?

3) If you had a secret passion, what would it be?

4) What are your 3-5 core values?

“The more you have, the more you are occupied. The less you have, the more free you are.” Mother Theresa

Wishing you and yours a very blessed Thanksgiving!

If you’d like the benefit of exploring “your stuff” with a Certified Professional Coach, please contact me!

Denise@SherpaDeCoaching.com

610.287.2989

“Like” me on Facebook: SherpaDe Coaching

One of the topics I cover in my “Got Resilience?” webinar course, and often coach clients around, is perspectives and perspective shifting. Imagine placing an object in the middle of a room – a sculpture of some kind, for instance. Now imagine walking around that object, looking at it from a variety of angles. Each perspective would give you a different view point & little more information about the object. So too with the perspectives or lenses through which we view our personal worlds.

For example, consider this perspective: “A walk in the woods is enlivening, a wonderful encounter with the natural world.” There is a tone in my language. I can practically smell the fragrance and hear the sounds of that perspective. When I say that sentence and feel that perspective, my body posture shifts to embody the perspective, its inherent attitude and beliefs: standing tall, energy flowing, ready to get out there!

Now suppose I viewed a walk in the woods as dangerous, messy, bug-ridden, and a waste of time. My tone changes. My body posture changes to reflect the different inherent attitude and beliefs of this perspective. Please note that these are simply two different perspectives on a walk in the woods. Neither is right or wrong. Yet each clearly creates a different experience for me.

So what? you may say. What I hope to illustrate is the fact that we each have the power to dramatically shift our life experience by shifting our perspective. Just like that sculpture in the middle of the room, the events of our life — a specific situation, a decision to be made, a certain relationship, an opportunity– can each be considered from different viewpoints, angles, positions, perspectives. And as we look through these new lenses we have access to more and different information. New possibilities are created.

So often, I find myself, a client, a friend, etc. living from a disempowering perspective. We get stuck, feel powerless, and make up rules or beliefs that define our experience, such as:

“I really should be doing more, but there’s no way I can …”

“I knew it would be like this at the beginning; all new managers experience situations like this.”

“This always happens when I tell her what I really think.”

“I need more clients, but nobody is buying in this economy.”

I want to share with you a 5-step Perspective Shifting Formula for getting unstuck. For opening up new possibilities. For expanding outside of the box. The 5-Step formula will help you move from stuck to possibility, from possibility to empowered choice(s), and from empowered choice to action. The link below will take you to a pdf document of the formula and step-by-step instruction for working through it.

Perspective Formula by SherpaDe Coaching, 2011

Playing with new perspectives on old situations is a powerful way to reclaim control and power over your life experience. If you’d like guidance in using the formula and creating powerful shifts in your life, please contact me. I am offering free sample coaching sessions (one per person) through the end of December, 2011.

Denise@SherpaDeCoaching.com

610.287.2989

“Like” me on Facebook: SherpaDe Coaching

Got Resilience?

When most of us talk about health, we are really referring to a reduction in illness. The kind of Health that I want in my life, and that I equip my clients to create in their lives, is different. This is Health with a capital H. This kind of Health often appears as:

• Peace-of-Mind
• Energy & Vitality
• Desire for Whole Foods, from nature not the factory
• Fulfilling Relationships
• Empowered Choices
• Enough Rest
• Spiritual Connection
• Letting Go, when necessary
• Smiles, Laughter, Fun

Sound good? Yes, you really can have all of that. The best ways to achieve Health require attention to the many and varied factors that contribute to our well-being, such as stress level, good nutrition, healthy relationships, fulfilling work, positive self-image, and self-empowerment. These factors are interconnected and synergistic, whether we realize it or not.  I have believed and experienced for a number of years now, that achieving Health has as much, if not more, to do with who we are being, than what we are doing. I am sure my 1-on-1 coaching clients would attest to that statement. It seems that much of the work these individuals are doing is the work of creating Health in their lives by looking closely at who they are being and what they are creating or manifesting in their lives as a result.

How about you? What is your vision for Health & well-being in your life? How do you create Health and well-being from the inside out? Let me offer to you a powerful resource called Got Resilience?, which is my program for creating Health in your life. Got Resilience? guides you in claiming the Health that is rightfully yours; remember the bulleted list at the beginning of this post? You really can have all of that. Got Resilience? includes a 4-session teleclass series, a day-long retreat, and individual coaching (packaged separately; you do not need to participate in all, though it is recommended for maximum benefit). The next teleclass series begins on Thursday, Sept 29th. The next retreat will be on Wednesday November 2, 2011. Read on for teleclass details. Retreat information and registration will be available soon.

I hope you will join me for this important and powerful series and find answers to your Health questions.

Got Resilience? Teleclass Series: Four Thursday lunch hours (12pm-1pm). Sept 29, Oct 6, Oct 13, oct 20.  Click here to register.

Learning Objectives:

1. Self-assess your current stress level and level of satisfaction in key life areas
2. Identify your primary internal & external stressors
3. Identify the steps you can take to eliminate stressors that are within your control
4. Identify the steps you can take to relate differently with those stressors that are outside of your control
5. Gain clarity around self-sabotages, limiting beliefs, and the assumptions that currently run your life
6. Gain clarity around your desired future state…what are you moving towards?
7. Increase skill at avoiding emotional reactions “in the moment” and instead, respond to situations with intentionality
8. Learn and practice various stress management / resiliency building activities
9. Learn skills and tools for rewriting limiting beliefs, changing your self-sabotaging inner dialogues, and establishing and maintaining clear boundaries in your relationships
10. Understand how to best nourish your body and mind for greatest resiliency, vitality, and energy through whole foods
11. Achieve greater congruency or resonance in your life; that is, aligning your daily behaviors with your most important values. A congruent life is the key to peace-of-mind.
12. Real-time coaching to support and challenge you, and help you make the changes you most want to make in your life.

Some of the tools you’ll receive in the teleclass:

1. Wheel of Resiliency, self-assessment
2. Goal Setting and Milestones Planning
3. Language of Empowerment
4. Power of a Perspective, 6-step process to perspective shifts
5. One Belief at a Time, a process for rewriting limiting beliefs
6. Resources for incorporating more whole foods into your daily diet (and avoiding energy-sapping processed foods)
7. Values Clarification Exercise
8. Real-time Coaching segments during the calls

Registration Fee for the 4-part Teleclass: $75. Click here to register.

Stress Management, a priority training topic back in the eighties and nineties, is making a big comeback. Today’s work climate is plagued with budget cuts, heavy workloads, and fewer employees being expected to do the work previously intended for numbers greater than their own. The current stress-related statistics reveal:

• Job burnout experienced by 25% to 40% of U.S. workers is stress related
• Depression is the leading occupational disease of the 21st Century
• $300 billion, $7,500 per employee, is spent annually in the U.S. on stress related compensation claims
• Employee stress levels are positively correlated to on-the-job accidents, work days missed due to illness, and team and individual effectiveness

In response to a client request, I recently developed a stress management workshop that I called, “Got Resiliency?” My workshop identifies and explores three steps to increasing one’s resiliency and capacity for healthily coping with life’s stressors. Over the course of my next few blog entries, I will share the three steps along with practical application ideas for you to use to increase your own resiliency and health. (Contact me for your personalized “Coping and Stress Management” assessment).

Three Steps to Greater Resiliency:

• Awareness of Stressors
• Self Support (emotional, mental, spiritual)
• Wellness Support (physical)

Step 1: Awareness of Stressors

This involves increasing your awareness to your own unique stressors, how you respond to these stressors, and what symptoms you experience as a result of your response.

Stressors fall into two general categories: External stressors and Internal stressors. External stressors are those coming from our environment, our work, our family, etc. Some examples are: work demands, relationships with boss or co-workers, family concerns, moving, death of spouse or loved one, finances, illness, etc. External stressors may be things outside of our control (traffic jam, death of a relative, car or major appliance breaking down), or they may be things that we have some ability to influence such as our relationships with others and our health.

Internal stressors are those that come from within and include one’s:

• Expectations of self and others
• Self Image
• Perspectives or perceptions
• Beliefs or Assumptions
• Fear and Anxiety

External stressors are relatively easy to identify. Our internal stressors, the ways in which we cause ourselves stress, unintentionally, and perhaps unconsciously, are somewhat more evasive at first. Use the checklist below to identify your top few stressors in each category.

EXTERNAL WORK-BASED STRESSORS.

_____Too many responsibilities

_____Demanding or Unreasonable Deadlines

_____Conflicts with management or co-workers

_____Demanding or difficult customers

_____Conflicting demands / unclear expectations

_____Lack of control over my workload and/or decisions affecting my job

_____Job insecurity due to cutbacks, layoffs, downsizing, reorganization

_____Limited opportunity for advancement and/or inadequate pay

_____Other ________________________________________________

EXTERNAL PERSONAL /HOMELIFE STRESSORS.

_____Death of significant person i.e., a spouse, friend, relative, or family member:

_____Separation or divorce

_____Health problems or injury

_____Finances (not enough money and/or heavy debt:

_____Conflicts with mate, inlaws, family or friend(s):

_____Challenges with children

_____Other ________________________________________________

INTERNAL STRESSORS

_____Expectations of self & others (should’s, have to’s)

_____Poor self-image; lack of belief or confidence in self

_____Perspective on situations that leave me feeling “stuck,” hopeless, or resigned

_____Worry, anxiety, fear over future / future events

_____Regret, resentment, guilt over past / past events

_____Lack of asserting or clearly stating my needs and wants in a situation

_____Lack of control or power over my circumstances

_____Other ________________________________________________

Most of our stress comes from within, not from without. Even in the face of the most challenging external circumstances, we GET TO CHOOSE our response, our perspective, our approach. Our response, perspective, approach, in turn, either increases our resilience, our calm, our groundedness, OR leads us to experience more stress.

Below is an introduction to several strategies for increasing our capacity to choose the resilient, empowered approach to our stressors. Stay with me over my next several blog entries as I’ll share specific ideas, information, and techniques in each area below.

Step 2, Self Support, looks at how we support ourselves towards greater resiliency in an emotional, mental, and spiritual sense. Specifically important are:

• Inner dialogue: the conversation you carry on with yourself all throughout the day. Is it positive, negative, affirming, demeaning, full of unmet expectations (i.e.: should have done this; shouldn’t have done that)?
• Presence and Appreciating What is: the art of living in the here and now
• Perspective: the way you view or perceive a certain situation, your work, a relationship, etc.
• Beliefs: The underlying “truths” we hold about ourselves, others, organizations, relationships, etc. For example: “I have to be in control of this or…” “This ______ is going to be difficult.”  “I’m not good enough, smart enough, experienced enough, ______enough to do this well.”

Self support is an interesting area to explore. Often, our currently method of “supporting” ourselves in this area is unconscious, habitual, and not so, well, supportive.  I’ll share techniques and ideas for developing a practice of conscious self support in Part 2 of this blog series.

Step 3, Wellness Support, looks at how we support our bodies towards greater resiliency in a physical sense. Specifically important are:

• A good, clean diet, filled with whole food nutrition
• Amount of exercise or movement we provide for ourselves
• Amount of clean water we drink each day
• Amount of sleep we allow for ourselves each night

Wellness support is a big topic, and will be the focus of Part 3 of this blog series.

Complete your personalized “Coping and Stress Management” assessment.

Denise@SherpaDeCoaching.com      610.287.2989

Join the discussion: Share your tips for effectively managing stress and for increasing your resilience.

Post your comments here or on my Facebook page:  SherpaDe Coaching

Back in the Summer of 2010, I introduced a leadership development program, called Wisdom Quest: A Leadership Journey. Wisdom Quest combines a robust leadership development curriculum with focused, goal-oriented 1-on-1 coaching. Up until the launch of this program, my leadership training curriculum was available only to organizations who hired me to come in-house and work with their leaders. One of my personal passions involves the spread of conscious, sustainable leadership through influential, deeply self-aware, passionate leaders. Now, Wisdom Quest provides a forum to facilitate this. Any individual leader, executive, or business owner, can engage in a 1-on-1, personalized ‘training’ program, geared specifically to his or her leadership development.  How does it work??

Wisdom Quest Basics:

• 1-on-1 Coaching Sessions, over a minimum 6-month period
• Self-Assessments to gain a thorough picture of your strengths and opportunities for growth
• 360-degree Feedback Process
• Individual Development Plan (Goals, Milestones, Action Steps)
• Proven Leadership Curriculum, with topics like High Impact Communication, Coach Approach to managing others, Facilitating Difficult Conversations, Accountability, and more

In November, 2010, I was interviewed about Wisdom Quest. Listen here:

You can read more details about Wisdom Quest here.  And better still, please accept my gift of my complimentary “Leadership Mastery” assessment and debrief session. Access the assessment here. I’ll contact you via email to set up our debrief session.

May your 2011 be filled with success, fulfillment, and transformational leadership!

December 13th! Already? Wasn’t just yesterday the last day of summer vacation?  As the final days of the year are upon us, let’s consider how to end this year well and begin the next year with good intention.

Ending Well

Looking back on 2010, what were your greatest successes, breakthroughs, accomplishments?

We can use our wins to deepen our awareness and understanding of ourselves and of what we want more of in our lives. Consider these questions:

1.    What did I learn?

2.    What did I do / experience that surprised me?

3.    What am I learning about my strengths? My limitations?

4.    What do I want to acknowledge or recognize about  myself?

For example, one of my accomplishments this year was finishing an Olympic-distance triathlon. This experience taught me a lot about myself. I learned that I can achieve anything I set out to do; and it will require my commitment, skills, and an informed process/approach. I am surprised at how much I enjoy competition and at how competitive I can be. I discovered that I enjoy swimming a long distance. The focus on my breath and breathing feels meditative and has transference to other areas of my life, such as handling stressful work situations or parenting moments, and helping me fall asleep at night. I want to acknowledge my strength (physically as well as mentally) and my ability to develop and execute a plan for achieving my goals.

I can use this experience and it’s lessons to notice what I do well and what comes naturally to me, what brings me joy or a sense of fulfillment, what I would like to create more of for myself in 2011. The questions and tools below will help me to solidify some specifics.

Beginning with Intention

What will 2011 be like for you? You do get to choose what it will be like, you know. That may sound crazy, but think about it. While we cannot know all the circumstances or scenarios we will find ourselves in during 2011, we can decide who we want to be in our life’s circumstances. For example, I may want to be a person who is compassionate or empathetic. I can choose to begin a practice of being compassionate, building that muscle day-by-day, getting stronger and better at practicing compassion in any and all circumstances.

Here are three super simple, yet powerful tools for designing the 2011 that you most want:

1)    Affirmative Mantra. Develop a short mantra or affirmation that you’ll repeat to yourself daily. Your mantra is focused on what you want more of in your life (i.e.: compassion). For example, you might begin each day by saying “I choose compassion today” or “I am compassionate.” You may repeat your mantra to yourself every hour, or at your lunch break, etc. We get more of what we focus our attention on; so be intentional about where you focus your attention!

2)    2011 Theme. Choose a theme of JOY or ACCEPTANCE or SELF-CARE or whatever feels like a priority for you to have in your life right now. Let your theme become a measuring stick or scale you use to assess decisions, choices, activities.  How will this activity honor / dishonor my theme of self-care? How will choosing X lead to more joy in my life OR lead me away from more joy in my life?

3)    Vision. Create a vision for yourself for 2011. Not a written vision ‘statement’, but more of a metaphorical description of what you want to create in your life this year. Your vision might be a drawing, photograph, song, poem, collage, or something else.

Once you have clear intentions about what you will create for yourself in 2011, it’s time to set goals and define action steps to move you towards your intentions. This post is getting pretty long, so I’ll save the topic of goal-setting for my next post. Coming very soon!

Men, please don’t take offense at what I’ll say next. One of the things I love most about being a coach is the opportunities I am given to work with other women. Just as there is a certain fraternity among men, so too is there a special kind of sisterhood among women. While we are each undoubtedly unique, we are each strikingly similar.

If you visualize life as one long chronological path, from birth until death, we all have our respective place along the path. Presently, I am somewhere in the middle; hopefully not quite halfway yet, but I’m darn close. As such, I find myself in the unique dual-position of being both mentor and student. Teacher to the generations of women coming up behind me, which include my own daughter and nieces, and at the same time, student to the wise women walking ahead of me. One thing I’ve learned with certainty is that no matter where we are on the path, we all have something to give and to share with one another.

My women’s retreats, provide the space and the time for us to do that. There is such positive energy and connection at these gatherings, where women of different ages, backgrounds, professions, and life situations, come to witness one another’s experience, learning, and growth. My next retreat is taking place on Saturday, November 6, 2010. Watch the introductory video below. I hope you will join us.

And if you’re a man reading this (thanks for sticking with me this far!), please forward to all the women in your life. They deserve a retreat like this!

Register now!

Got questions? Call me at 610.287.2989 or email me at
Denise@SherpaDeCoaching.com

A new season, a new schedule, time for a new You? I’ve heard it said that September and January are the two months of the year that, more than any other time, trigger people into action towards their goals and desires. January has the obvious claim to fame around New Year’s Resolutions. What is it about September? Perhaps the cool crispness in the air feels more motivating than the hazy sluggishness of summer days. For us moms (and dads) the kids returning to school schedules creates more structure, if not more time, for us to work within then do the summer months. And maybe it’s something about the sheer beauty of Autumn approaching, with its metaphorical presentations of transition and change.

Transition and Change. Where in your life are you ready for a change? What new transitions might you be facing this fall? Now through October 30th, 2010 I am offering free sample coaching sessions for individuals wanting to explore new possibilities for their life, career, health, relationships.

Letting Go. “Angels fly because they learn to take themselves lightly” Susan Jeffers. Where in your life would it serve you to ‘lighten up?’ What is it time to let go of? Powerful questions that we can explore together in a coaching relationship. Give me a call!

Denise@SherpaDeCoaching.com

610.287.2989

www.SherpaDeCoaching.com

Introducing my new Wellness Workshop series

Health, Wholeness, Vitality

I am excited to be co-hosting a monthly wellness workshop with my good friend, AnnMarie DeLucca, RN and Wellness Educator. Our kickoff session is this Wednesday, Sept 22nd from 12:30-2pm. I am also excited about the venue we’ve selected for our series: The Cedars House in Fairmount Park, Philadelphia.

The workshops in our series combine wellness and nutrition teaching with the life coaching necessary to make it all stick. Each 90-minute program blends personal coaching activities and goal setting with practical information to help you achieve greater health and vitality for yourself and your family. Open to the public. Registration is free, but please pre-register by contacting me at 610.287.2989.

View more details here:

Wellness Workshops at Cedars House 2010



I am a huge fan of the question. I’m sure I drove my parents more than a little crazy with all my questions as a child. What was that like? What for? What if? Why not? (that’s still one of my favorites).  Then we grow up and start believing that it is good and right to have answers, not questions. In the context of human relationships, however, I am here to say that questions still trump answers. In the context of relationships, when someone believes he or she has ‘the answer,’ it is often really an assumption. Being curious is about letting go of assumptions and becoming an explorer of the territory of the relationship.

Curiosity is open, inviting, spacious, almost playful. And yet it is also enormously powerful. Like scientific curiosity, which explores the deepest questions of matter, life, and the universe, curiosity in relationships allows individuals to enter the deepest areas of themselves and their lives, simply looking, curious about what they will find^{. 1} And something else that’s really cool about curiosity is that it cannot co-exist with judgment. So when we are being truly curious (open, inviting, spacious), we simply cannot be judgmental. Think about it.

Here is my Top 7 List of favorite questions for getting curious about another person:

1. What’s important to you about that?
2. What do you want / need?
3. What’s that like for you?
4. What are you learning from that?
5. How is that impacting you? How is that impacting your ________ (work, health, body, family,…)
6. What are you most grateful for in your life?
7. What’s next for you?

Try one or two of them out (or one of your own) next time you are in conversation with someone.  Curious questions will deepen the conversation and the connection you experience with the other person.

And here are my two questions for you:

1. What is it you are ready to explore more fully in your life?
2. What about yourself would you like to stop judging and start getting curious about?

As your coach, I will support you in your exploration, help you gain clarity around what you are saying yes to in life and what you are saying no to, and help you take action from a place of empowered choice.  Call me. Email me. Let’s set up a time for a free sample coaching session.

¹ Co-Active Coaching, New Skills for Coaching People Toward Success in Work and Life by Laura Whitworth, Karen Kimsey-House, Henry Kimsey-House, and Phillip Sandahl