Mon. 3/05/07

While listening to today’s Power Tools teleclass on Game vs. Significance I was reminded how children, especially very young children learn extensively through play and playing games. Trial and error is one of the primary ways all of us learn as children. For children, there is no real failure at this early stage of their lives, everything is simply feedback to be processed. They are always trying something new and different to see what works, what brings them what they want. They are engaged more in the process than the outcome. They live so much more in the present than we do as adults. It seems to me that play is a very important part of our learning process.

We seem to lose this perspective as we grow into adults. We become serious, attach significance to outcomes and goals in such a way that we forget to have fun, to play, to be creative in coming up with many options to achieve our goals. We get stuck. We turn failure into an outcome instead of it being just a process of feedback to learn from and to continue moving forward from.

I was also reminded of how games can bring imagination into play. When we activate imagination, we are activating the subconscious, creative, feeling part of our mind, making it available to work with the conscious, logical, analytical, decision making part of our mind. So introducing playing games as adults can make the process a whole brain learning activity; blending thinking with feeling, creativity with analytical decision. Learning can become faster, more enriching, producing more options and possibilities for solving challenges to our forward movement.

A teacher of mine said once that we should strive to live our lives with the wisdom of an adult; through the eyes of a child. I agree with this.

Bruce Paye

Wed. Feb. 28, 2007

ICA Foundations-Perspective

Part of the discussion in the ICA Foundations course on Perspectives was about the ability of each of us to choose the perspective we wanted to have regarding situations in our life, both past, present and future. As a result of taking the class I found myself in the last week stopping and asking myself on many different occasions, “What perspective do I want to take/have regarding this situation.” It was incredibly freeing to realize that in each and every situation I have the ability and the permission to choose for myself what my perspective will be. Even when my ordinary, habitual perspective would automatically jump up and take hold, I still had the choice and the ability to choose to change it and take a different perspective. This did not happen each and every time and there were times when the old self-limiting perspective would creep back in, and that is okay. This is about learning to make a shift, even a small one, and then building on it as I go along. The most important thing for me is to realize I have the right to choose the meaning I give to a situation, what perspective I choose to experience it from.

Bruce Paye

Tue. Feb. 27, 2007

ICA Peer Coach

The process of being Peer Coached at ICA is a fantastic experience. I did not know what to expect at first when reading about the requirement to be Peer Coached for 12 sessions by another ICA student. I wasn’t sure if I was ready for it and I started to hear the little voices in my mind coming up with all the good reasons why I should wait a bit. I decided to jump in to the process right away, partly to avoid my tendency to procrastinate when unsure of something, and partly to see if I could also use the sessions of Peer Coaching to help in getting grounded and on track with the ICA program.

My Peer Coach, Cindi Saadi is just terrific. In just 3 sessions, 1 trial and 2 towards the ICA requirement, I have already learned and experienced so much about being coached, about how a coach coaches and about what the whole process can be. She has created a safe environment for our coaching sessions, a sense of partnership and support and an open forum to discuss whatever issues I choose to work on. She has listened carefully and asked clear questions to help me focus on setting goals, creating plans and committing to actions to begin moving towards completing the goals we have set.

The result for me is that I now have a very clear, planned sequence of activities I have committed to and begun putting into action to move me one step at a time towards achieving my ICA goals along with my other life goals. I feel more relaxed, balanced and focused in my life with a clearer vision of my objectives and how to reach them. I feel as if I have more space and time to make the things I want to happen take place.

Most importantly I feel that I have a partner to support me in creating balance, clarity, focus and action for this current phase of my life’s activities.

Bruce Paye

Mon. Feb. 26, 2007

I have had a very positive experience to date with the ICA teleclass format. This is a new and different type of learning environment and experience for me. I am much more of a visual learner and I have never participated in a teleclass style training program before. This is actually one of the reasons I chose ICA. Since a majority of Life Coaching is done via phone, I felt it is critical for me to become comfortable and adept at the process.

A writer friend of mine once told me that, if he wrote only in a style that was most suitable for him, it would certainly be easiest for him to write with a minimum expenditure of time and energy; but his readers would suffer by him not stretching beyond his comfort zone to dig deeper and give them more. Since he was writing to educate his audience on difficult to grasp and understand topics he felt that the more he challenged himself to work outside his comfort zone, the more his readers would benefit. I feel the same towards becoming a coach. What will be easiest for me will not challenge me to stretch to develop myself to be the most excellent coach I can for my clients.

Listening and participating in teleclasses these first few weeks has taught me how valuable this process is. All of the trainers demonstrate coaching as they teach the principles. There are live demonstrations in each class of how to coach, how to be coached, what the process is, what the theory behind the process is. It is a learning and doing environment.

Without all the normal visual cues that are present in face to face interactions it becomes so much more important to really focus, listen quietly, to pick up the nuances in the other person’s voice, to learn to hear between the words for what is not being said, to rely more and more on intuition, to learn to ask questions that bring clarity and specificity to what is being discussed. Without all the noise and miscues of the visual distractions it becomes possible in a relatively short time to really narrow down and focus in on what is important to address in an interaction.

Interestingly, I am finding that the training I am participating in during the teleclasses is beginning to show up in my face to face interactions as well. I notice that I am starting to filter out the visual cues and distractions and focus more and more on the verbal communication when interacting with people in person. I have more clarity and focus and a better intuitive understanding of what is going on in my interactions with people face to face. I actually feel that I am creating a deeper connection with the people I am communicating with as I go through my day as a result of the teleclass training process.

Sat. Feb 24, 2007

Hello & Welcome to my first ICA journal entry. I joined ICA on Jan. 8, 2007 and it has been a worldwind journey so far. So much more than I had anticipated. The experience in these few short weeks has been overwhelming and exhilarating at the same time.

My journey to coaching and ICA began several years ago without any real planning on my part. I wasn’t even aware that the field of coaching existed or that I had an interest in this area of personal development and helping and supporting others in their’s.

Several years ago I found myself stuck in a job that I did not like, with no opportunity for advancement and no way out that I could see my way to. My reactions were causing me great stress personally, damaging my health (several operations and then an auto accident that required 9 months of physical therapy to recover from) and damaging my relationship with my family and friends.

All I could seem to focus on was the negatives of the job situation, as I saw it. Fortunately for me my family and friends stayed positive and supported me and continually challenged me to find the positives in my life and my work. I am stubborn by nature and this took time and effort on the part of everyone who supported me, to convince me to take a step in a different direction, to just try to perceive things a little bit differently and be open to whatever opporunities might present themselves.

One night at work I opened a fortune cookie which had two fortune strips in it. One stated “Nothing can change until you accept what is.” The other stated “Relax, trust your intuition, the universe is guiding your life.” I took these two fortune cookie strips and put them in my wallet, where they still are today.

After this I decided to bring to work with me every night a series of books I had studied for many years when younger; the writings of G. I. Gurdjieff, a series of texts that had much deep meaning for me in my earlier life, that I hadn’t read in many years.

As I started to reread these texts during the irritating and frustrating down times at work I began to notice a change. I was no longer reacting to everything going on around me, feeling angry, trapped, helpless and stuck. I had an objective now and I began to see how my work had aspects to it that were positive for me, if I chose to see and use them that way.

Slowly, a little bit at a time I began to become more positive and enthusiastic at work, at home, with family and friends and most of all with myself. I began to see other possibilities of doing things that I had not allowed in previously. My perspectives were slowly shifting.

In the books I was rereading during those down times at work I came across the author’s descriptions and uses of hypnosis a number of times and was reminded that this was something I had been interested in studying as a child and adult and had always found reasons to avoid pursuing.

As I was reflecting on this one night on the way home from work in the early morning hours I saw a fox sitting on the side of the highway. This caught my attention. In nine years of driving that same road home from work every night, I had never spotted a fox before. They are extremely rare in the suburban area in which I live and work.

This went on for many months. I kept spotting a fox on the way home from work, sometimes more than one and in different places on the road and at different times. It began to spook me out a bit. My wife picked up a book for me on native american beliefs regarding animal spirits and I became fascinated by this. I remembered the fortune cookie strip stating “relax, trust your intuition, the universe is guiding your life”.

I thought to myself, “Whether this is true or not, so what, what if I decide to believe in it and act upon it as if it is real?” I chose to decide that the fox was a messenger, a reminding factor to pursue my dreams, not get stuck in ordinary every day life alone. And so, I found and enrolled in a course on hypnotism, and was able to fit it in perfectly with the newly found free time I had as a result of shifting perspectives and looking at my job and life differently.

I found the study and practice of hypnotism to be absolutely fascinating and in a short while I became excellent at it. While studying and practicing hypnosis I came across neuro linguistic programming and became fascinated by this field as well. I began studying it and in a short while I became excellent at it also.

I am now in the process of building my Hypnotism/NLP practice, helping many people through it and loving what I am doing with it for myself and others. While at a Hypnosis/NLP convention I took a workshop on coaching as an adjunct to these two fields. I immediately saw the value, the synergy possible by uniting all three of these fields together as one for the purpose of helping people get unstuck, to grow and evolve into all and everything they can be. I got excited!

I started reading all I could about the field of coaching and reviewing all the schools I could find online. I made calls, attended workshops, asked questions of experts in the field. When I found the International Coach Academy I knew it was the coaching program for me! There was no disagreement in my head or in my heart about it. It made sense for my situation and it felt right.

In just several weeks of classes I have found a community of like minded people from all around the world who are open, honest, supportive, willing to share their life experience. The trainers are excellent and teach how to coach and be coached in every session.

I believe coaching is as much about your own personal development as your clients, maybe more! I didn’t anticipate or understand this aspect of coaching until I started to participate in the ICA program. I have had incredible personal insights just trying to use the coaching exercises and tools with family and friends.

I have moved far in just a few short years. I have spent much of my life not knowing what I wanted to do, even more not knowing how. I am now moving in new directions. I have a different perspective on my life and I have different possibilities. I am curious to see, hear and feel what I can accomplish with my life. I don’t know how I’m going to do the things I’m visioning doing and that’s okay: possibly for the first time in my life I’m not unsure or afraid of how I’m going to accomplish my goals; in fact I’m actually curious and intrigued as to what will happen next and how.

I have a vision of creating a place, a school perhaps, where people can come for short periods of time to work on balancing their inner and outer life. A place where they can weave big dreams and learn how to align, balance, harmonize, integrate and energize their mind, body, emotion and spirit as one to accomplish those dreams. To create in themselves the possibility of simultaneously being and doing and having the best they can in life.

I believe that blending what I am learning as a coach at ICA with the other experiences of my life will teach me, show me how to accomplish my vision.

Bruce Paye

Hello & Welcome to the Quotes-Questions-Sayings Etc. Journal !

Out beyond notions of wrongdoing and rightdoing there is a field. I’ll meet you there! – Rumi

From a Fortune Cookie! – Author Unknown

“Nothing can change until you accept what is.”

“Relax. Trust your intuition. The universe is guiding your life.”

“When you change the way you look at things, the things you look at change!” – Max Planck

“Live life with a happy heart, a peaceful mind, a playful spirit and a healthy body: relaxed, alert and in the moment.” – Alan Barsky & Michael Ellner – www.quantumfocusing.com

Hello & Welcome to the Metaphysics & Spirituality Journal !

When you heal the spirit; mind, body and emotions will follow!

I’m curious if you are willing, for just a moment or maybe more, to enjoy playing a simple game of pretend.

And I wonder if you are willing to notice your breathing and just allow yourself to naturally begin to breathe deeply now, once or several times or maybe more, and just allow yourself to drift and relax and become comfortable, perhaps for just a moment or maybe more.

And as you now allow yourself to become comfortably relaxed, in a way appropriate for you, I wonder if you might be able to just easily visualize, imagine or pretend, for even just a moment or maybe more, being physically grounded to the energy of the earth; and spiritually connected to the energy of the universe.

And while you’re now comfortably relaxing and breathing deeply, I’m curious if you will just allow yourself to naturally & easily see, hear & feel the energy of the earth flowing upwards through you from below; and the energy of the universe flowing downwards through you from above, in a way appropriate for you.

And I wonder if perhaps now, while you are breathing comfortably and relaxed, you will be able to see, hear and feel: to just allow yourself for a moment or maybe more to experience these two forces meeting in your heart; blending with each other and your breath, as they form a third force, a neutral force, combining all three into the power of one, the reality of “I AM”!

And if you are curious to listen quietly, perhaps you may even hear, within yourself, the sound of “I AM” softly reverberating throughout the area of your solar plexus as you continue to relax while gently breathing in and out, in a way appropriate for you.

And I am curious if you might just allow yourself to realize, perhaps for even just a moment or maybe more, how the power of these three forces: active, passive & neutral; flowing through you and blending together in your heart; while reverberating through the area of your solar plexus, to the rhythm of your breathing, naturally combine into one force; a force which can with practice be focused, concentrated and directed with your attention and your intention; to easily & naturally flow to any part of your body that is imbalanced, restoring it to perfect balance, in a way appropriate for you.

Bruce Paye

Hello & Welcome to the Whole Brain Accelerated & Enriched Learning Journal !

Integrate both hemispherers of your brain to help achieve your maximum potentials in life. The conscious mind is the thinking mind. The subconscious mind is the feeling mind. When you learn to integrate both hemispheres of your brain you open up the opportunity to engage in thinking with feeling, creating and manifesting action through intention, of simultaneously being and doing the best you can in life.

Read Unleashing your Brilliance! by Brian Walsh, PHd.   www.walshseminars.com

Hello & Welcome to the Quantum Focusing Coaching Journal !

(As developed and trademarked by Michael Eisner & Alan Barsky)

Get Unstuck!!! Quantum Focusing is “A Mental Martial Arts for the Mind! Learn to live life with a happy heart, a peaceful mind, a playful spirit and a healthy body; relaxed, alert and in the moment!

For more info goto www.quantumfocusing.com

Hello & Welcome to the Neuro Linguistic Programming (NLP) Journal !

Neuro Linguistic Programming, Psychology & Semantics! NLP teaches us a way to model Human Excellence to reach our highest potentials.

For more info goto: www.nfnlp.com