Carla Royal, M.ED., Mindset & Performance Coach

April 16, 2018

Relax Your Grip

Carla Royal, M.ED., Mindset & Performance Coach

April 16, 2018

When we are grasping, clutching, or clinging, whether to an idea, person, situation, political stance, or belief, we may find that our focus becomes very small, limited, and rigid. In this state, we may not be able to see clearly in order to find our way. Instead we may become frustrated and ineffectual.

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In college, I spent many days rock climbing and rappelling. I loved it! We were out on the cliffs at least once a week. I remember doing some crazy stunts like hooking into the rope backwards and going down the cliff headfirst. We had no fear most of the time.

I remember the first time I climbed a particularly exposed cliff wall. The cliff looked out over the valley and the Tennessee River. It wasn’t a difficult climb but it felt harder and trickier because it was quite exposed. I felt like I was hanging out there and I was scared. My reaction was to cling to the wall—pressing my body into the rock. The problem was that in grasping and clinging, I could no longer see nor negotiate my next move. I was stuck there.

I was stuck until I relaxed my grip and stopped clinging. I was stuck until I pushed out from the rock a bit so that I could survey my situation more broadly. I was stuck until I realized that the expansiveness was glorious and beautiful, and nothing to be afraid of. At that point, I could see my next handhold. I was able to move beyond the limited perspective of fear and see that there was a way to safely navigate the climb after all.

There was nothing to fear. I was safely tied to the rope. The climb was actually easy. All I had to do was push out enough to see what was before me and make the move that was immediately available to me.

Life is no different. When we stop clinging to stressful thoughts, beliefs, or perspectives, our mind returns to its natural state of clarity. We remember that we are tied safely to the rope of life and we are able to find our next handhold.

I welcome your questions or comments below.

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By the way, I offer Free Well-Being Resources for anyone who subscribes to my weekly newsletter. You will receive inspirational tools to support you in returning to a place of clarity and wellbeing in your day to day life plus framable (high resolution) images and quotes that I have created just for my subscribers to inspire you. It's my way of saying thank you for your time and attention. These tools, quotes, and images are completely free of charge and can be accessed instantly when you sign up for the newsletter.

Contact Carla to learn more about coaching and how you could benefit. Carla's total commitment is to help her clients wake up and live the life they've been dreaming of.

Carla Royal, M.ED., Mindset & Performance Coach

March 24, 2018

Imaginal Cells

Carla Royal, M.ED., Mindset & Performance Coach

March 24, 2018

Almost 20 years ago, I had what I call my breakdown breakthrough. It was the culmination of 5 years of desperate struggle (all in all, more like 10 years). I lost my mother, my marriage, my life-long dream of having children, my home, my credit, my faith, and I almost lost my life. Literally. It was the messiest and darkest period of my life. It was also the most transformative. Beautifully transformative.

Looking back, I see that I entered a chrysalis of sorts. When a caterpillar enters the chrysalis, it digests itself. Certain imaginal cells survive the digestion and those cells transform into something radically new.

Listen, when a person is digesting herself, it can be hard on those around her. They can’t see the metamorphosis as anything other than destruction and it scares them. Understandably. So, people try to intervene. They try to solve, fix, treat, medicate, preach, protect, or get her to snap the hell out of it. They do this because they are scared and because they love her. What else are they to do when they don’t understand metamorphosis for what it is?

It’s scary for the person going through it, too, but she hears those imaginal cells whispering words of new life to her. So, she’s flying in the dark. She’s confused and frightened. She may even believe she’s dying and, in a way, she is. She can’t see what is beyond the chrysalis.

Too often, we are afraid of our experience and emotions. We avoid them or indulge them because we take them very personally and seriously. We do this innocently because we don’t understand the inside-out nature of experience. I believe this is why my breakdown breakthrough chrysalis lasted as long as it did. I was confused. I didn’t understand that the dark transformative place would do its work and pass. I didn’t understand that I wasn’t broken. I couldn’t see my innate resilience. Yet, every now and again, I felt the pull of those imaginal cells. Had I understood that I wasn’t broken, I believe I would have moved through the metamorphosis more easily and quickly, though I still had to dissolve in order to transform. No way around that, I suppose.

I’m telling you all this because I want to invite you to be a little more hopeful and gentle when you, or someone you love, are going through a difficult time. Even if it lasts a decade or more. Neither you nor they are broken. You don’t need fixing. There is nothing wrong with you. You are whole and resilient. You have innate well-being. Always. And so do they.

You have the wisdom to navigate the darkness. I invite you to take your experience and emotions less personally, less seriously. They will pass. I promise. I want to assure you that you are OK, even if everyone around you, including the experts, have told you otherwise. Take a deep breath and allow your revved up thinking to quiet down a bit. Feel your own imaginal cells. They may be calling to you.

As you wake up to who you truly are, you will find your way. Get support if you need or want to but seek out someone who knows you have innate well-being and who will point you back to your essence, to your own light. That's where you will find your resilience, clarity, and peace.

I would be delighted for you to comment below.

By the way, I offer Free Well-Being Resources for anyone who subscribes to my weekly inspirational newsletter. You will receive inspirational tools to support you in returning to a place of clarity and wellbeing in your day to day life plus framable (high resolution) images and quotes that I have created just for my subscribers to inspire you. It's my way of saying thank you for your time and attention. These tools, quotes, and images are completely free of charge and can be accessed instantly when you sign up for the newsletter.

Contact Carla to learn more about coaching and how you could benefit. Carla's total commitment is to help her clients wake up and live the life they've been dreaming of.

Carla Royal, M.ED., Mindset & Performance Coach

March 19, 2018

Outside In or Inside Out? It Matters.

Carla Royal, M.ED., Mindset & Performance Coach

March 19, 2018

Click on images to enlarge

Last night, I dreamed about Oprah. She was doing some kind of performance with gorgeous white horses who had long flowing manes. It was a beautiful and perfect performance.

When she came in, she walked over to a vending machine where I was standing. I told her what a wonderful performance it was! She said, really? Are you sure? She was doubtful, insecure, tentative. I said, yes, of course! It was superb!

You see, even Oprah has doubts about herself. Welcome to the human experience. The problem is not that we have those thoughts but that we take them so very seriously and personally. We buy into them and, by doing so, we keep them alive. You could call this contaminated thinking.

Thinking, coupled with consciousness, creates our life experience. We are only ever dealing with our state of mind in the moment. That's how the system works. How it's meant to work.

It's what gives us our rich experience of life. It's a beautiful, creative system but most of us have a misunderstanding about how it works. This misunderstanding can cause all manner of discomfort and even suffering.

We've grown up in a culture that has taught us to view life from the outside-in. That's the misunderstanding. We believe that what happens to us out there is what causes us to feel and experience. So, we read the books, attend the seminars, and visit our therapist, minister, or expert in order to learn the techniques and gather the tools to manage and combat our circumstances, deal with the people in our lives, and minimize our stressful feelings because what else can we do?

It's a constant game of managing all that is happening to us. No wonder we are tired! The techniques and tools can be helpful and sitting across from someone who really sees us and stays with us in a place of love can be wonderfully helpful, but somehow, we find that nice feeling and those techniques difficult to sustain and, before you know it, we're barely able to keep our heads above water again.

Once we understand that we experience life from the inside-out, we are able to find our clarity and well-being again. We are no longer at the mercy of what happens out there. We understand that our thinking about what's going on out there is the source of our feelings and experience. This understanding can be confronting in a way because it goes against everything we've ever believed, but when we take a moment to really examine it, we see how much more freedom and choice could be available to us if it were true.

Contaminated thinking, that is, stressful thinking that we buy into and feed, like Oprah did in the dream, is what causes our discomfort. When we turn our attention away from the contaminated thinking, we make space for new thought and clarity to arise. Thought is always arising. That's what thought does. We don't get to choose which thoughts we have but we do get to choose which thoughts we feed.

This is good news because we don't have to fight our thoughts, or change our thoughts. We don't have to take our thoughts so seriously and personally. Boy, has that been a game changer for me. We can choose which to let move through and which to create our lives with. If we feed them, they will grow and we will feel and experience them. That’s the way of it.

Practical example: Last week, I had a Facebook exchange with someone whom I love. We walk in very different worlds now and we disagree with one another on many issues. Hot bed issues, like politics and religion. I try very hard not to engage in Facebook exchanges like that because I know they are useless. On this day, and it’s not the only time, I got caught up in a thought that was passing through. How can these people think like this? I’ve got to convince them otherwise! Really, the thought was just passing through, but I brought it to a full stop and I fed it. Man, did I feed it. Let me tell you, it didn’t feel good. Not for a moment did it feel good. And taking action on that contaminated thought did absolutely no one any good. It did not deepen our love. It did not deepen our connection or understanding. It probably did deepen the divide. And I felt awful (and self-righteous, superior, and justified, dammit!, but not good).

Here’s the thing, once I fed the thought, it grew exponentially and seemed to take on a life of its own. That’s how powerful thought is! My friend’s beliefs, ideas, and comments did not cause my feelings but what I thought about what she believes had everything to do with how I felt. How can I be certain? Because there are many times that the same situation is at hand and I feel neutral or maybe even love. It can’t be her. It can’t be the situation or I would react the same way every time. It has to be my thoughts about the situation. Once I understand this, I am free to allow the stressful thought to pass without having to act on it. I’m free to wait for a new thought to arise, a new insight to occur, that will allow me to respond from a place of love if a response is needed at all.

This is how thought works. This is how our experiences are created. No two people experience the same situation, circumstance, or person the same way because we are living from the inside-out. We are only ever living in the feeling of thought in the moment.

Don't believe me, really examine it. See if it’s true in your life. Notice when someone cuts you off in traffic one day and you rage and when it happens another day and you are perfectly calm. There are a million examples like this. Just notice. Notice the stories you tell yourself about the circumstance on this particular day. Notice how these stories themselves are the source of your feelings, not what’s happening out there. Just notice. Once you see, once you understand, it will be like understanding and aligning yourself with gravity and not falling down as much anymore. You will flow with life a little more easily as you understand how this human system works. Life is experienced unfailingly from the inside-out and a fresh thought is always on the horizon.

I would be delighted to hear what you think in a comment below.