Christine Mason Miller lives, quite simply, with a really high degree of integrity. She’s someone who is thoughtful with care. She does what she says she’s going to do. She doesn’t walk the world with a lot of drama.

This makes her really beautiful to be around.

When she asked if I would take part in Desire to Inspire, I was an enthusiastic and immediate–YES! This is a courageous book, one that gets to the heart of why people want to make some kind of difference in the world.

Our interview is only about 15 minutes long, but it packs in a lot–there’s a bit about Desire to Inspire, and then it quickly turns into a discussion about how it is that we learn to trust ourselves, committing to a long-term project and seeing it through, and risking making mistakes.

Are you in the Los Angeles area? Then I hope you’ll join us for the book launch party on December 15th. I’m going to fly down to Los Angeles to join Christine and several of my Desire to Inspire sisters– click here to get the directions and details!

————-

Christine Mason Miller is a Santa Monica-based artist, writer, and explorer. Her next book – Desire to Inspire: Using Creative Passion to Transform the World – is now available at bookstores everywhere and Amazon.com. Follow her adventures at www.christinemasonmiller.com.

The Freedom to Choose
Two months ago, I left my job as a director for a trade organization to do my own thang. Because I’m also moving this fall, I decided to take the summer slowly. Rather than come out with guns ablazin’, my well-laid plan was to visit with family and ease into my business.

This lasted approximately one week.

After that first week, the opportunities started rolling in. Potential partnerships. Client inquiries. Requests for writing contributions.
And I thought, Super! This new venture of mine is getting to a much better start than I ever imagined.

This is true, if I omit one glaring fact. I haven’t been steering the ship.

Rather than carefully weighing opportunities against my priorities, I allowed my emotions to drive my business. I’d followed others on Twitter and through their blogs for so long that when we started connecting and brainstorming, I did a little tap dance and said yes, please! to every opportunity that came my way.

I know you’ve been there.

How hard is it to tell someone you admire No, I can’t participate in this project right now?

That pesky inner monologue wants us to say yes. I can’t believe she asked me! What if this opportunity doesn’t come my way again? This is my shot.

So, how do we do it?
We trust ourselves.

We must put our faith in our own plans. This is non-negotiable…and one of the most difficult commitments to keep.

I decided to ease into my business for sound reasons. I have the long-term success of my business to think about, not just the short-term gratification of seeing my name scattered around the Internet. This is the time for conscious action.

We remind ourselves.

Is there something you want to accomplish this year?

Write it down, and tack it up in front of you.

Make the reminder simple: Get that promotion. Increase client referrals. Develop a business plan for that idea that’s been rattling around in my brain for the last two years.

We exercise our freedom to choose.

You know what you want. You know how to get it.

Keeping your commitment, then, is simply a matter of running each new opportunity by that simple phrase.

Will volunteering to proofread that manuscript help me increase client referrals?

It sounds fun! I wanna say yes! I like the author.
But…no.

I’m already strapped for time. I’ll burn out, and my clients will suffer.

By following this process, we take the emotion, the very human desire to be accepted and liked, out of the equation. We approach new opportunities from a place of confidence.

Honoring your own plans is a supremely powerful act. I’d love to hear your stories – when have you put your faith in yourself above others?

Brigitte shares unconventional wisdom for creative people on a mission at her blog, Unfettered Ink. She also courts all sorts of good karma by serving up PR Ideas for Busy People to entrepreneurs with grand ideas but limited resources.

If I had given into fear I wouldn’t have met my husband. I wouldn’t have fallen in love. I wouldn’t have had the chance to listen to his wisdom, grow from his strengths, & learn valuable lessons in trust & communication in my relationship with him.

If I had given into fear, I wouldn’t have ever started my newest blog. I wouldn’t have been able to taste my role as a leader. I wouldn’t have touched lives or pioneered a movement of sensual liberation. I wouldn’t have written so candidly about sex & self-love & personal freedom. Sex, Love & Liberation simply wouldn’t exist.

If I had given into fear, I wouldn’t have quit my job as a hairstylist. I would have never followed my dreams of being a self-employed writer. Instead, I would be sitting in a stale, air conditioned salon in the middle of the sweltering Mojave desert, working on persnickety clients, & slicing my fingers with dull scissors. If I had given into fear, I wouldn’t have gotten my six tattoos.

If I had given into fear, I wouldn’t have explored my sexuality. I wouldn’t have embraced the many facets of my carnal desires. I wouldn’t have “come out” as bisexual. I wouldn’t have experimented with fluid sexual expression.

If I had given into fear, I wouldn’t have ever acknowledged my anxiety disorder. I would have never made the decision to take medication to free myself from senseless panic & depression. I wouldn’t have sought therapy for the things that triggered my anxiety — sexual trauma, my parents’ divorce, & agoraphobia. I would have never begun to heal. If I had given into fear, I wouldn’t have stepped on a plane.

I wouldn’t have met my niece or my sister-in-laws. I wouldn’t have toured the Nintendo HQ in Redmond, Washington. I wouldn’t have visited my own family in Portland & fallen in love with this beautiful city.

If I had given into fear, I wouldn’t have written or self-published a book.

If I had given into fear, I wouldn’t have said yes to be the photographer at my mother’s wedding.

If I had given into fear, I wouldn’t have taken a pole dancing class. I wouldn’t have even tried to do inversions or aerial tricks, & I never would have graduated to an Intermediate level pole dancer, a level that is as exciting as it is challenging.   My life, my purpose, my existence would be nothing without courage. The best things I’ve ever experienced or accomplished simply would’ve never come into being. Of course, the courage I exhibited with these things wavered. There were moments where I wanted to back out & continue living a safe existence, if only to quell the jittery sensation that comes with challenging my comfort zone. In fact, most of these accomplishments were still quite damp with fear as I carried them out.

But courage isn’t the absence of total fear. Courage is feeling the fear, the trepidation, the self-doubt… & doing it anyway. Today, I challenge you to make a list of all the things you have done in your life that required courage, much like I did in this post. List as many as you can think of. Compose this list until you can’t think of anything else to add. Now, celebrate the little steps you took deliberately to accomplish your goals, even in spite of fear still being present. Meditate on the extraordinary experiences you’ve dived into: the people, places, things, & ideas you’ve been fortunate enough to allow inside of your heart. This list is a manifestation of your bravery. You now never have a reason to believe your critical mind when it tries to tell you of how fearful & timid you are. Nonsense! Simply go back to this list, which is proof that you are deeply, utterly, & beautifully courageous.

Ev’Yan is a female liberation artist. She spins unadulterated truth & sensuality over at her blog, Sex, Love & Liberation. Join her community of Liberated Sensualists by signing up to her newsletter, The Self-Love Letters.

Several years ago, still in the throws of some pretty disordered eating, I was driving home from work and crying to my therapist on my cell phone (back when iphone-driving was still legal in California). I knew that today, like most days, I was going to sooth myself with food when I got home. I knew I was going to do this even though a large part of me didn’t want to do it. I didn’t want to because a) it made me physically uncomfortable b) it made me feel so ashamed and most importantly c) it didn’t feed the deeper, true hunger- no matter what or how much I ate.

It was during this driving sob-fest that I first realized what I was hungry for…scratch that…starved for.

I was starving for someone to simply hold me. to be held.
I was starving to be embraced.
I was starving to have a soft place to be.

Through streaming tears, I said to my therapist “If someone, anyone, would just hold me, I wouldn’t eat like this.”

That statement was a crazy, game-changing, holy truth of an awakening.

I couldn’t just whip up a partner who liked to spoon and to be honest, I wasn’t in a place to be a partner with anyone. I didn’t feel I could ask any of my girlfriends to cocoon me either, though I’m sure they would have.

What I could do is start to orient myself towards a relationship of embrace with myself and THIS CHANGED MY LIFE. I could energetically and emotionally, and (with a little flexibility) physically embrace myself at a time in my life when I needed that almost more than air.

Fast forward to today and I’m on hella solid ground (hella is Oakland slang for ‘very’) and living every day, as best as I can, according to my personal religion of FEEDING MY TRUE HUNGERS. Whether my hunger is for laughter or lollipops, to cry or eat carbs, if it’ll move me closer to myself and to life it gets fed as best I can. And I’ll add that getting to fuel other people’s rocket launch into this way of living through my coaching practice and projects makes life doubly sweet.

You don’t have to be on the verge of a life meltdown, as I was, to want to feed your true hungers, but you do need a little courage. Here are a few good steps to follow if you’re being called in this direction:

1. Have the courage to be present – it’s the only way you can know the difference between a healthy hunger and an unhealthy hunger.

2. Have the courage to love unconditionally – it is the only way you can know that you are innately valuable and worthy of being well-fed.

3. Have the courage to look without judgment – it’s the only way you can see and know the hungers you are not aware of.

4. Have the courage to tell the truth to yourself – it’s the only way you can know which hungers you are denying and which you are misplacing.

5. Have the courage to feast on life – it is the only way to be truly well-fed, to be fully alive, and to unfold into your fullest magnificence.

If you’re finding yourself filling up on what doesn’t satisfy (shopping, food, facebook, substances, etc.) and you’re ready to get real about what you really want to be ‘eating’ in life these steps will help to call you forth. Don’t wait. Eat up.

Rachel Cole is a fiercely loving life coach and creative project maven. The common ingredient all of Rachel’s varied endeavors is a passion for inspiring people to lead well-fed, inspired and connected lives. Rachel can be found creating and coaching from her kitchen table in Oakland, California. Get Rachel’s Fulfillment Pyramid.

Courage

It wasn’t against the stone
or with the morning
that it rose.

It wasn’t in the night
or from the breakers
that it came to me.

It wasn’t whistling in a nest
or hiding in the breeze.

None of that.

It was a dark coal
that had grown silent
and one day, came to light.

Why did the coal alight?

Perhaps from pain, because pain
climbs until it snaps–

Perhaps because someone listened,
and listened wholly–

Perhaps because a flashing spark
flew in and whispered the truth
at your neck, as sparks so often do.

How else could courage come?

Courage born of love, not bravery

Courage: making the canal wide with love
when life would squeeze it thin.

Courage only as wide as love,
can only water with as much as love is in the jar.

You can invite Her to your table
and bring apples and grapes and wine,
and ask her to stay forever.
She’ll only smile, silver eyes hovering
and say:

You don’t have to hold on to it or grasp it.
No fist. No lock. No beekeeper’s net.

Just store your courage in a dark closet somewhere.
It doesn’t mind being shut away,
among coat hems and rainboots.
It is happy to wait, and counsel spirits,
and run strength up the walls,
while you can the apples
and feed the children
and stare at a patient moon.

Or else pack it somewhere, deep in your back
behind a kidney, or below a hidden rib,
and watch how it changes your spine.

Use it, when you need it,
like a sword, like a firerush
like a wish for the world

like something soft and fluttering
offered up from your hand.

- Tara Sophia Mohr

Tara Sophia Mohr is a writer, coach, and personal growth teacher. She’s the creator of the global Playing Big leadership program for women and is a regular writer for the Huffington Post. Visit HERE to sign up to receive Tara’s her free poetry ebook as well as her 10 Rules for Brilliant Women Workbook.

Michelle Ward is several amazing things, and here are just three: She’s the When I Grow Up Coach, a friend of mine, and someone who will be offering up her wisdom to other coaches as part of The Coaching Blueprint.

Take seven minutes out of your day to start your day right: Get centered in courage. (It only takes seven minutes).

You can hang your whole day on this line: “It was more courageous for me to listen to that voice, than to not listen to that voice.”

Michelle Ward, aka The When I Grow Up Coach, helps creative people devise the career they think they can’t have – or discover it to begin with! A musical theater actress with her BFA from NYU/Tisch, a certified life coach, and a Corporate America escapee, Michelle has served as an expert source and contributor for such outlets as Newsweek, Forbes, and Psychology Today, as well as leading workshops and seminars at SXSW 2011 and the sold-out Etsy Success Symposium. She encourages everyone to claim their uniquity via The Declaration of You and could be found coachin’, bloggin’ & givin’ away free stuff at whenigrowupcoach.com.

Tanya Geisler became a BFF in about 2.5 seconds when we met at the World Domination Summit in June. She is one of those people who creates an amazing about of safety and openness, holding nothing back. She’s also hee-larious, as I discovered when we began doing Samuel L. Jackson impressions (“I am SO SICK of those mother-f**ing snakes on this mother-f**ing plane!) and then later when she contributed a no-holds-barred, utterly truthful, “here’s how it really is” interview for The Coaching Blueprint. Here, she shares her thoughts on courage–for you–so sit tight, read, drink it in.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Courage is a tricky thing.

Rarely do you see an act of courage and recognize it immediately for what it is.

There is seldom a rousing crescendo of music playing to bring our attention round to a courageous feat before us. It helps when someone points it out.

“I wanted you to see what real courage is, instead of getting the idea that courage is a man with a gun in his hand. It’s when you know you’re licked before you begin but you begin anyway and you see it through no matter what. You rarely win, but sometimes you do. Mrs Dubose won, all ninety-eight pounds of her. According to her views, she died beholden to nothing and nobody. She was the bravest person I ever knew.” – spoken by Atticus Finch, by Harper Lee, To Kill a Mockingbird

Courage often masquerades as something else. Or our judgment shrouds what we’re witnessing and calls it something easier for us to digest.

Sometimes it looks like dogmatic stubbornness.
Sometimes it looks like bravery.
Sometimes it looks like martyrdom.
Sometimes it looks like doing the impossible.
Sometimes it looks like love: of self or others.
Sometimes it looks like naïveté.
Sometimes it looks like doing it alone.
Sometimes it looks like doing it together.
Sometimes it looks like elegance and poise.
Sometimes it looks like snot and tears and sweat.
Sometimes it looks like doing it ”in spite of…”
Sometimes it looks like alienation.
Sometimes it looks like risk.
Sometimes it looks like tender vulnerability.
Sometimes it looks like breaking through.
Sometimes it looks like stoicism.
Sometimes it looks like pacifism.
Sometimes it looks like rebellion.
Sometimes it looks like relentless compassion.
Sometimes it looks like cutting something loose.
Sometimes it looks like forgiveness.
Sometimes it looks like admitting defeat.
Sometimes it looks like uncompromising integrity.
Sometimes it looks like stopping.
Sometimes it looks like starting.
Sometimes it looks like power.
Sometimes it looks like weakness.
Sometimes it looks like blind faith.

No matter what it looks like, its source is not to be refuted. TRUE courage comes from the heart. Etymologically and figuratively.

Whether it’s in kicking your morphine habit before you die like Mrs Dubose, holding vigil for someone’s worry so they can sleep, calling out a gang of teenagers on the subway to give up a seat to an elderly man, or loving fully and completely.

The trick is in trusting the irrevocable truth that lies in the heart. Hearing the call for courage and heeding it.

Tricky business, indeed.

- – - – - – - – – - – - – - – - – - – - – - –

Tanya Geisler is a certified professional business and life coach who helps people who helps people find their THING, get clear about it and then rock it out. She’s also pretty adept at helping people step into their most glorious, radiant, productive, purposeful selves: the starring role of their lives.

They all have shared a few qualities: Intelligence. Hunger (the good kind; the kind that gives you a sense of purpose and drive). Honesty. Integrity. Humor. Willingness.

And, of course: Courage.

I’ve never been particularly concerned with finding “my tribe.” Other Coaches have insisted that I needed to define exactly who it was that I was working with. Who was I serving? What were their needs?

I would give thought to this, and like many other things in my life, allow myself to tuck it away until I felt ready to revisit it. The older I get, the easier it gets to not force the issue–to trust that the answers are coming (or, more likely, better/juicier questions)–and that there’s a yin/yang quality, a waxing and waning, that happens with the things we’re learning about in our lives. Thus, if you’ve got a question that keeps recurring for you? Just try letting it go, re-examining it with some intensity, letting it go, re-considering it again. Wax on, wax off.

My life’s work is to help people to wake up to living 100% fully alive, and to do this by practicing courage. You can do anything if you practice courage; it’s like that E. L. Doctorow quote on writing: “Writing is like driving at night in the fog. You can only see as far as your headlights, but you can make the whole trip that way.” Only in this case, substitute the words “practicing courage” for the word “writing.”

And this is where I’m arriving (you might have already noticed the little bits and pieces in transition): My people are world-changers. Change agents. Transformative catalysts.

My “people,” the people I’m most excited to work with, are change-makers.

It would be easy to read that and think that I’m talking only about people who want to start a non-profit; or win a Nobel Peace Prize; or stop hunger in third world countries.

Sure, I am talking about those people, but more so, I’m talking about working with:

• Other Life Coaches. Rather than taking an attitude of scarcity about the Coaching explosion, I think: “How fucking great is this? Rather than there being an explosion of people trying to sell society on the idea that they suck and need to buy another widget, there’s a group of people who genuinely want to help people be their best selves.” Beautiful. Instead of bowing down to any competitive vibe, I want to help other Coaches amplify their own greatness.
• Social Workers. Teachers. Community organizers. I want to work with the people who have no intention of leaving their jobs, but they need support. They’ve got Big Vision work to do, and they need to avoid burnout.
• Mothers who know one thing like they know nothing else–they’re for damned sure not going to pass on fearful, limiting conditioning to their children. I want to work with the change-maker mommas of the world who know that teaching their children to live 100% fully alive will start with modeling it for them. Now that’s a change-maker!

These are just a few examples; the list is by no means complete. It is, however, compelling. It excites me just to look at it.

Now I see how un-peeling the layers of this “Who are my people?” question was so important. I had this realization of who I wanted to work with nearly two months ago, and ever since then it’s been like a lightning rod of inspiration and a deeper desire to be of service. I’m more excited than ever to do the work that I do, and prouder of it, simply because I know exactly who it is that I’m talking to, now.

I’ll leave you with a simple question to consider–to unpeeling, unmask, unfold into–

Are you a change-maker?

* * * * * * * * * * *
Speaking of being of service, I am in the process right this very moment of preparing an e-program for a group of change-makers that is near and dear to my heart: Life Coaches. If you want to be first to find out what I’m creating–as well as start receiving tips on developing your own Coaching practice–head over here to get on the announcement-list that I’m designating just for Coaches who want to amplify their greatness and take their practices to another level.

Now that the semester has wrapped–the teaching schedule was acting as the biggest time suck–I’ve gone home to visit my family for a few days and have had some welcome distance from the harried semester.

I find myself…

…re-calibrating…

…re-orienting…

…internally re-organizing…

I’ve been asking myself, What’s next, What’s now?

It’s not “What’s next, What’s now?” from a “no time for resting on those laurels” state of being, as if I must keep going going going.

It’s just, simply–what’s arising for me?

I think it’s important in these moments, when a big expanse of space is suddenly opening up, to stay close to one’s impulses. The impulse to fill, to distract can ride such a thin line with the impulses of curiosity or trying something new.

So, I’m keeping the space open–it’s so full of goodness, here!–and letting myself create stillness.

I confess I am excited about…

…hopefully meeting YOU at the World Domination Summit this weekend…

…my new “barefoot” running shoes…

…connection and collaboration on my next big project–I’ve had an idea in the making for a year now and am finally amassing the loveliest people to come together on it…

…making some dates with Netflix and feeling zero guilt about it…

…my ridiculously hot n’ sexy man, who has been emerging as a ridiculously hot n’ sexy leader of other men, by being one of the lead organizers of this event for other men (ridiculously hot n’ sexy men, or otherwise) : http://circlesofmen.org/comv/

…yoga, running, hiking, walking…anything that has to do with moving my body, loosening up all of the constricted energy, breaking a sweat…

…thinking up new big retreat dreams…

and

sitting.

waiting.

being okay with the sitting and waiting.

Oh, but how my heart has been achy and sore sometimes, as a teacher. Whether I’m teaching in the form of leading a retreat or standing in front of a classroom talking about formulating an assertive argument, I find that teaching is the type of profession where, even seven years later, I still am finding and wobbling on my footing. There is always a new student, always something new to learn, always some way in which I am challenged. When Jen speaks here about teaching as service, I think she’s dead-on. It might not be the Peace Corps or a soup kitchen, but when we teach one another–and there’s so much that we have the potential to learn!–we are being of service.

1.) First, tell us a bit about who you BE and what’s happening with the Teach Now course.

I be. That’s the most important thing. I just went for a walk in the woods with the doodle dogs because I needed to be. Especially these days, that’s what I want to do the most.

On other being fronts, I started teaching workshops at 28 (20 years ago!) when my first book The Woman’s Comfort Book was published because my publisher asked me. What ensued was 18 years of teaching and teaching myself to teach, at places as diverse as Kripalu, the Canadian wilderness, and Saks Fifth Avenue. I loved teaching and I struggled mightily with it. Over those years, I also wrote five more books, birthed my baby, created a ton of other stuff, and crashed after being on Oprah. But that’s another story!

Teach Now arose out of my new direction – helping people savor and serve the world. I’m doing a year long experiment in figuring out how to more of both. I realized that one way I love to serve is teaching and it has been such a rocky journey for me – and I saw a dear friend also not “taking his seat” as a teacher. So asked Michele to create the program we wished we would have had as beginning teachers. Basically, we wanted to answer all the questions we had about teaching and remove the barriers to either doing it, or enjoying it while you are.

2.) What’s the biggest thing that you hope participants will get out of the course?
Permission. Permission to accept the role of teacher, to teach what and how you most want to, to connect vulnerability with your students, to look yourself in the mirror kindly after a bad teaching experience, to take care of yourself in all ways so you can keep teaching – permission above all to have more fun!

3.) You’ve taught the course once before–what most surprised you or inspired you?
What blew me away last fall was that so many people from so many different places on the teacher’s path were served. I honestly expected that most of our students would be new to teaching. But we had people who had been teaching for 20 years – from university-level math teachers to writers who never considered themselves teachers – tell us it was helpful. I don’t think many people, besides the amazing Parker Palmer who we interviewed for this course, talk about the inner life of the teacher, and nobody we know of matches the inner life with practical stuff like difficult students, course design, getting your message out.

4.) What’s one thing you’d like to whisper in the ear of every teacher out there?

It’s not about what you know; it’s being fully and wholly yourself, and sharing that, with the knowledge you do have.

5.) Where can we go to find out more information?
Sign up for the first class – it’s on us – by clicking here http://www.jenniferlouden.com/teachnow. It’s not a preview call but an actual class so you can see us teach, learn some helpful stuff, and if we do a good job, then cool, the course might be for you!