The Art of Being Female: July 2005

Greetings!

It's July and the weather is finally warm in Berkeley. After three years, I am still adjusting to all this summer fog. The warmth of the summer sun is something I look forward to all year.

Summer brings an exquisite array of sensual delights: the warmth of the sun, fresh vegetables from the garden or farmer's market, fragrant fruit, the evening song of Cicadas, and all the brilliant colors our eyes rejoice in.

This time of year is a time for the senses, a great time to take a sensory awareness refresher course. Check out the play-with practice below...develop your sensual awareness. Developing your sensual awareness is a great way to deepen your creativity and is one of the key aspects of wild creativity.

We use our senses all time, but how often do we allow ourselves to be fully immersed in an experience? Many times, the feelings we get from an experience are the only way we can judge how much we resonate with what has happened. Check out the article on goose bumps if you want to see how the body helps us know more about who we are by way of our experience.

In closing, Wildly Creative Women is really about community. It is by coming together in community that we find our own inner desire to be of service. May we all, women and men, find our own way to be of service to those in need and to the world at large.

With gratitude,

Julie

ps - please pass this on to any Wildly Creative Women you know (men as well) who might enjoy this by clicking on the link at the bottom of the page.

Goose bumps. You know that feeling, when something feels so right in your experience that your skin breaks out with goose bumps? Your body is telling you something that is hard to put into words…it is beyond words and is more about experience than anything logical or analytical.

The body is pretty amazing. It has so much intelligence and so many instincts, allowing our body to alert us as we experience the world around us.

I was speaking to my mother the other day, and she shared that goose bumps are a part of how she knows when something is right. She is a figure skating judge…has been for about forty years. She loves it. Having been an artist her entire life, she brought her “desire to create” to her skating. As a judge, she gets to revel in many of her passions…music, children, and the artistry of skating.

As an artist, she especially enjoys judging artistic performances, a special type of performance very different from the kind of performance we see at the Olympics. Figure skating Showcase Competitions provide skaters with an opportunity to display their artistic abilities on ice through these artistic performances. This type of competition is more difficult to judge because it is subjective by nature. read more

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W hat if... a great exercise for wonder and discovery:

You might want to set some time aside for this exercise, perhaps when you meditate or at least when you can sit comfortably with a pen and paper, journal, or your keyboard.

Take a moment to put your visioning hat on, but bring along your magical self, the part of you that loves to dream of, wish for, and wonder about how things might be if all the stars were aligned. Ask the naysayer voice to take a nap.

Sit someplace comfortable. Close your eyes, slow down your breath by breathing deeply in a relaxed manner. Let any stress of your day fall away, so that you can be very present to what your imagination, intuition, and sub-conscious want you to see and hear.

1. I will set up the context with two quotes. As you read them, allow yourself to be with whatever images, ideas, thoughts and emotions arise.

This first quote you have read many times I am sure. This is by Marianne Williamson.

"Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous? Actually, who are not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won’t feel insecure around you."

Now for the second by Rilke, from his book, "Letters to a Young Poet".read more

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C oaching has got to be one of the most wonderful ways to make a living. Each time a new client and I meet for the first time, I feel the excitement of knowing I will be part of something special to come. The what-will-come is different for each client, but I have been coaching long enough now to really "get" what an honor it is for my clients to choose to work with me and to begin to create their life visions through our coaching relationship.

An offspring of the human potential movement, coaching is about manifesting the innate potential that every human being is. It focuses on action, but it is also "being" oriented. And, it is solution oriented. One of the most important points about coaching is that as your coach, I see you as naturally full of the creativity, resourcefulness, and wholeness necessary to step boldly into the life you envision for yourself.

Sometimes coaching is exactly what a client needs; other times, therapy is right. And often, people benefit from working with a coach and therapist simultaneously. Every person's situation is unique.

For example, I work with people who are transitioning to a new life after the loss of someone significant in their lives. Having coached many family members directly affected by 9/11 to move forward in an empowered way, I have found coaching to be highly effective...and so have my clients.

One of the most common questions regarding coaching is how it compares to therapy. The Coaches Training Institute (CTI) offers the following table to help you see at-a-glance some of the ways coaching differs from therapy.

What's the Difference Between Coaching and Therapy?

There are many differences between coaching and therapy. The following table, adapted from the CTI's Organization and Relationship Systems Coaching Series, provides a sampling of these differences.

Therapy	Coaching
Focuses on healing and understanding.	Focuses on evolving and manifesting potential. Healing is a side effect.
Emphasizes past and present.	Emphasizes present and future.
Is insight oriented.	Is action and "being" oriented.
Is problem oriented.	Is solution oriented.
Explores genesis of behaviors that create low self-esteem.	Explores actions and behaviors that manifest high self-esteem.
Asks "why, and from where?"	Asks "what's next/what now?"
Works mainly with internal issues.	Works mainly with external issues.
Encourages transference as a therapy tool.	Discourages transference as inappropriate.
Accountability is not commonly expected.	Accountability is commonly expected.
Uses therapy techniques.	Uses coaching skills.

If you know of someone who might benefit from coaching, please share this newsletter with them, let them know I am available to talk and answer questions, or have them check out the various wonderfully informative sites on the web that tell about coaching in detail.

If you have questions about how coaching might benefit you, or to schedule a 30-minute complimentary session, write to me at julie@wildlycreativewomen.com or phone 510.644.9442.

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Course Calendar

September:
• Wildly Creative Women in Business- 10 weeks

contact Julie for details and to register

Course Listing

All courses, both corporate and open-enrollment, are based on Creativity in Business, a course taught at Stanford Graduate School of Business for 25 years. Please contact Julie, if you are interested in having me design and teach a course for your company. Courses for both women and men are offered through Wildly Creative Women's parent company, Creative Wellspring.

Corporate Offerings:

• Introduction to Wildly Creative Women - 1 day
• Wildly Creative Women in Business - 10 weeks
• Creativity in Business - 10 weeks

Open Enrollment:

• Introduction to Wildly Creative Women - 1 day
• Wildly Creative Women in Business- 10 weeks
• Welcome to Your Dating World - 6 weeks

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Each month a new play-with is offered as an addition to your practice of the art of being female.

Playing-with your experience is the basis of the "creative cycle of self-discovery" used in Wildly Creative Women's coaching and courses.

Play-with for July: Develop Your Sensual Awareness

This practice play-with is about developing your awareness with the physical world around you. Be curious as you do this play-with. Notice how your experience changes as you heighten your sense of the world around you.

You can do this exercise alone or with another. If you do it with someone, allow the other to write down your responses so you can be fully in your memory. Then, be curious about each other's responses and answer the questions together.

Take a piece of paper and make five columns. At the top of each, list your five senses...touch, taste, sight, sound and smell. Now take five minutes or so to list all the ways you enjoy yourself using each of these senses. Allow yourself to conjure up memories where you were immersed in nature, enjoying the company of others, feasting on a buffet of food, or whatever experiences come to mind.

Once you have listed all the ways you enjoy yourself through your senses, take a moment to ask yourself these questions. Get really curious, looking at the list as if someone else completed it.

Who is this person? :
Which senses are used all the time?
Which senses are not used as often?
Which is the "favorite" sense...that is the one that gives this person the experiences most enjoyed.
Which senses would you suggest this person expand upon, and how might she do that?

Now, follow your own suggestions. Give each sense a day to itself. Pamper it. Nourish it. Feed your soul with the experiences that come from full sensual awareness. Journal about it. Talk to others about their sensual awareness. Notice if people react differently to you as you step more fully into your own sensual awareness.

coming in August: awakening to true beauty

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