Life Coach | Mindfulness | Leadership
Sometimes I feel so bound by the things I want to say that I end up saying nothing. I don’t know where to begin, or how to lay out the words to create the story picture I want to share. I feel stuck.
So I am learning the value of being willing to not know. It’s about a willingness to begin, and to figure it out along the way (the doing is the finding out). It gets me moving.
Let me try to say it another way. Continue reading “Be willing to not know.”
And what if living your life is like making a soup? And each experience, each burst of laughter or sudden broken heart is just another ingredient. A little spice, a dash of seasoning. You toss it all into the pot, stir it up.
Wait.
Taste the soup. Continue reading “Taste the soup.”
Lawyers are on my mind and in my heart today. I was in law school when a light-bulb went off for me about praying. I went to a Jesuit university, though I’m not Catholic and wasn’t raised in church. Praying wasn’t part of my regular life. But working as an extern for a Federal District Court judge, I read a lot of motions. I often came upon this phrase: prayer for relief.
And I realized: Oh! To pray means to ask. Continue reading “Prayer for relief.”
Almost four years ago I went to a friend’s wedding, wearing a pink dress and white heels that had little flowers on them. I lived in San Francisco and the wedding was in Menlo Park, and I didn’t have a car. I took MUNI to the CalTrain station at Fourth and King, and because I had some extra time I stopped in the Safeway across the street and picked up some sushi to eat on the train ride down.
I was going to the wedding alone, even though I don’t like going to weddings alone. But, I thought, you never know who you’ll meet at a wedding. As it turned out, I met someone who gave me a ride back to the city, and became a boyfriend for the next 2 years. Continue reading “The doing is the finding out.”
This is a game I play. It’s like flexibility training for desire and imagination. It cultivates internal resilience, curiosity, and confidence. It releases anxiety and prevents your inner bully from jumping up and smooshing your ideas. It unleashes the power of curiosity and pleasure, so you can taste pure, open possibility. It’s a little intoxicating.
You need the right friend for this. Here’s how it works: Continue reading “I have the most amazing life.”
Desire is one of your most powerful experiences. There is a heat. You feel it slow burning beneath the surface, or sometimes it overwhelms and threatens to engulf you in flames.
It can be scary. It can show up with friends you don’t want to see. Fear. Anxiety. Vulnerability. Disappointment. Longing. Helplessness.
It can feel exhilarating, and out of control. It carries an edge of danger. Playing with fire, they say. Be careful what you wish for, they say. Continue reading “Allow desire.”
I teach a class called willPower & grace® and my yoga students say it’s like bootcamp, and my bootcamp students say it’s like yoga. My yoga students like the strength and cardio work. My athletes and cyclists like the flexibility and balance training. Everyone wants to be challenged right at their edge. Everyone wants to feel good, have fun, and feel more at home in their own skin. They come back because something about it Continue reading “Finding your way.”
This was a big year for me, with many transitions. Some I never saw coming, and others I orchestrated with great care. I’m still in an in-between place and being at this cusp of year into year has me feeling wobbly. . . yet also held in love and inspired by each new day.
This year holds my broken heart. In February, the man I felt so certain of abruptly Continue reading “What the year held.”
Many months ago a friend told me about 6 Months to Live, a blog about living a meaningful and authentic life. I was smitten by the work. It felt like there were clues and encouragement embedded in it just for me. And it so happened that Jacqueline Boone, the writer and force behind the philosophy, lived here in San Francisco.
I decided to reach out. I wrote to her. . . and she wrote back! I was completely giddy, Continue reading “Reach Out.”
One of my favorite yoga teachers is also a well-known writer. After class one day I asked him how it came to be. I think what I said was, “So, you’re a writer and a yoga teacher. How did that happen exactly?” He smiled and said, “I made it up.”
We talked a bit more, and this is the clue I found: It’s ok to explore and not know exactly the shape of it. Be open. Do the work. See where it leads. Continue reading “Map making.”
Kim Nicol 